Dinner today was a beef and mushroom stew and Jane decided she wanted dumplings with it. It’s an easy recipe… if you have suet in the cupboard. Fortunately, a quick bit of research suggested that suet wasn’t an essential component. In the end, I used plain flour with butter as the fat component (slightly over half fat to flour), a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of dried tarragon and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Actually, they turned out okay; although it it looks like baking, it is a recipe you can treat more like a stew, throwing in what you’ve got.

Since we’re not out of the cold weather yet, I should get some more chances to experiment before the season for winter stews is finished.