Silly me. I thought the hardest thing about writing a blog while working a full-time job would be finding the time to post, but I was wrong. My biggest issue over the past couple weeks has been somewhat different… it’s the light, or lack thereof. Barely mid-September, and London has already decided to provide me with dark and gloomy weather come dinnertime. Which, as any photo-snapping food blogger out there knows, makes it next to impossible to get a good photo.

Meaning that I’m limited to weekend eats at the moment. Not that that’s a bad thing: weekends are when I make my regular jaunt to the farmer’s market, so on Sundays at least, my little fridge is full of the good stuff. Of course I don’t by all my food at the market, and in the aisles of my local supermarket, I’ve discovered something…

I like avocados. I know, I’m a little late to the party on this one; many a vegetarian friend of mine loves this mild green fruit. But I’ve always been slightly adverse to them, probably due to their, er – distinctive texture. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t think something that grows on trees had any right to be that creamy! (I have a similar beef with kiwis: anyone else think it’s just wrong for a fruit to have hair?!)

Luckily, I’ve gotten over it. These days, I’m looking to put avocado in anything and everything I can. First up- this panzanella-like salad of chopped veg and dried bread chunks. I’ve called it “Tuscanesque” because certain elements – the cannellini beans, bread chunks, cherry tomatoes and basil – have a certain Tuscan authenticity to them. However, I’m not sure how many Italian Nonnas put avocado and red pepper in their salads, hence the -esque.

But really, I don’t think authenticity matters one whit when food tastes (and looks, in the light of day) this good!

• Chopped Tusanesque Salad
• serves 4
• 2 cups cubed bread (ideally stale)
  1 400g can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained well
  2 cups chopped cherry tomatoes (halved or quartered, depending on size)
  1 cup chopped cucumber
  1 small red pepper, chopped
  1 avocado, peeled and roughly chopped
  1/2 red onion, finely chopped
  3 Tbs. olive oil
  1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
  pinch sea salt
  10-15 leaves basil, chopped or torn
• 1. If your bread is fresh, spread the cubes out on a baking sheet and allow them to toast lightly in the oven on a low temperature. If it’s already somewhat stale, simply tear it up and add to a large bowl.
  2. Add the drained beans, chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and red pepper to the bowl as well.
  3. In a smaller bowl, mix together the chopped avocado with the onion, vinegar and olive oil and toss well. This is to ensure the avocado gets coated by the acid in the vinegar, and won’t turn brown. Add a pinch of salt to the dressing, to taste.
  4. Just before you’re ready to serve the salad, pour the dressing and avocado mixture over the chopped bread and veg and toss together well. Sprinkle over the basil leaves and add a bit more olive oil, if necessary.

You’d be forgiven, lately, for thinking that I’m on extended holiday. But here in the UK, we kind of all are. Easter plus a certain upcoming wedding means back-to-back four-day weekends and an understandable amount of laziness in between. But for myself, the laziness is at a minimum; heading up to Andrew’s parents’ last weekend and getting ready for a visit from my parents this week means I haven’t had a lot of time for cooking or blogging.

I still have to eat though, and the spring produce at the market is nothing short of inspiring. I’m loving tomatoes of all kinds lately, and have been eating them in everything from creamy soups to roasted Mediterranean-inspired meals. My current favourite is Panzanella, the Tuscan salad of stale bread and chopped tomatoes.

Traditionally just a way of using up leftover bread, many modern panzanella recipes go a step or two further and contain roasted peppers, cucumber, olives and/or cheese. But you’ll note that my recipe is a “simple” one; drying the bread out in the oven is about as much effort as I like to make for a tomato salad. And that step isn’t even necessary if you use stale bread, like the leftover foccaccia I particularly favour.

I bet this recipe would be just as tasty with any number of additions, and I plan to try out a version with chopped anchovies and capers soon. But keep in mind that the simpler you keep the dish, the quicker it is to make. Perfect for those of us with busy schedules.

• Simple Panzanella
• serves 2, or more as a side
• 2 cups torn bread, preferably stale
  olive oil
  2 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
  1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
  1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
  1 garlic clove, crushed
  1 tsp. sea salt
  1 tsp. dried oregano
  handful fresh basil, roughly torn
• 1. If your bread is fresh, preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F and get out a non-stick baking sheet. Toss the bread chunks with a glug of olive oil and arrange on the sheet, then bake for 6-8 minutes until just beginning to dry out. Be careful not to over-crisp or brown the bread, and don’t bother with this step if your bread is at all stale.
  
  2. Meanwhile, place the cherry tomatoes in a large bowl. Add the onion, another glug of olive oil, and the rest of the ingredients. Toss together and allow to sit for at least ten minutes- the salt and dressing will “pull” the moisture from the tomatoes. Remove and discard the garlic clove before adding the bread.
  
  3. When the bread has cooled completely (if applicable), add to the bowl and toss well. You may need to add a little more olive oil to moisten everything well. Serve immediately, as a main or a side.

I was recently talking (er, emailing) with a friend back home about how November is second-worst month of the year. Top spot of course goes to January, the harbinger of seemingly-endless dreary weather and a depressing post-holiday funk. But November is right up there; the prettiness of early Autumn is gone, the rain is almost constant, and as my friend put it, “each day is colder and darker than the last”. Yup, that about sums it up.

If you ask me, the one redeeming quality of November is soup. Dark and dreary days and perfect for hearty, warming soups. Whether creamy, brothy or thick and chunky, a good soup almost always hits the spot. I say “almost” because Andrew doesn’t always agree; for him, some soups aren’t filling enough to be considered dinner fare. However a certain subset, the stew-like soup, can be counted on in these times of need.

One of my favourites is a classic Tuscan-style Ribollita. Meaning “re-boiled”, this peasant staple was traditionally made by re-heating the previous day’s minestrone, adding other leftovers, and serving with bread and cheese. There are countless variations on the recipe, but almost all include a mirepoix base, cannellini beans, tomatoes and a good dose of parmesan cheese on top. Anything you add in addition to that only makes it better; I’ve put everything from bits of steamed veg to leftover rice and pasta in mine. To make it more of a meal, I like my Ribollita with some thick country bread. The choice of white or wholewheat is up to you, as is how to serve it; some recipes call for chunks of day-old bread to be stirred into the soup before serving, and some specify that it should be ladled over the bread in the bowls.

This recipe make four generous servings. Unfortunately, Andrew wasn’t in a “soup for dinner” mood the day I made this, but really that works out best for me, anyway. For the next four days, I was able to inject a little bit of Tuscan summer into my November lunchtime.

• Ribollita
• adapted from The Silver Spoon
• serves 4
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
  1 large onion, finely chopped
  2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
  1 celery stick, finely chopped
  1 garlic clove, finely sliced
  1 bay leaf
  1 spring thyme leaves
  1 Tbs. tomato paste
  2 small potatoes, peeled and in 1/2″ chunks
  1 x 400g can cannellini beans
  1 x 400g chopped tomatoes
  1-2 cups stock (optional- water is fine, too)
  3 cups (packed) roughly chopped curly kale
  sea salt and black pepper
  thick country bread, for serving
  parmesan cheese, for serving
• 1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid (I use a Dutch oven). Add the onions, carrots and celery and turn the heat down to low. Cover and sweat the vegetables for 8-10 minutes, until soft and translucent but not coloured.
  
  2. Add the garlic, bay leaf, thyme and tomato paste and stir well. Cook for another minute or two, until very fragrant. Add the chopped potatoes, cannellini beans, and tomatoes. Pour in a little extra stock or water, so that the vegetables are just covered. Bring to the boil, add the kale and turn down the heat so the soup barely simmers. Cover tightly and simmer for 40 minutes to 1 hour (timing doesn’t need to be exact here), stirring occasionally and adding more stock/water when necessary. When all the veg are tender to the point of a knife, season to taste.
  
  3. When you’re ready to serve the soup, place thick slices of bread (buttered, if you’re so inclined) in the bottom of the bowls. Ladle over the very hot soup and let it cool for 5 minutes, so that the bread softens. Serve sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Last month, I did something extremely (some might say uncharacteristically) clever: I bought a small glass Pyrex dish. Nothing fancy or all that pretty (it was only £2 at Sainsbury’s after all) but as it turns out, that little dish was an awesome buy.

I already had a larger oval Pyrex, as well as a red-and-white ceramic gratin dish, but these two shared a common problem: there are only two people in this flat. Now, I love leftovers. Love them. But some things don’t “leave over” all that well, do they? Add to that the fact that we don’t have a microwave, and you get well, a lot of waste.

To avoid this, I’ve been avoiding certain kinds of dishes, namely anything that we can’t eat in one sitting (sadly, not as innumerous as you might think) and won’t re-heat well. But this new dish is the perfect size for two people. Suddenly, a whole new world of bakeable dishes is open to me: soufflés, rich puddings, stratas.

Yup, stratas. I’d never even heard of this American savoury bread pudding until sometime last year (actually, when I first saw The Family Stone), and hadn’t tried it until this week. Oh, what I was missing. Crusty bread baked in a eggy custard and topped with cheese? Yes, please.

I made mine with curly green kale, red onions and garlic, and piled on the parmesan, gruyère and cheddar for a tri-cheesy feast. It was absolutely delicious, and I’m comforted to know that thanks to my new baking dish, I whip one up for Andrew and myself anytime I want. Now, if I could just get him to try it, we’d be all set.

Note: Most recipes I’ve come across say to rest the strata mixture in the fridge for 8 hours before baking. I managed 20 minutes. It was fine, but if your bread is particularly stale or extra-crusty, you might want to follow common practice.

• Red Onion, Kale and Cheese Strata
• serves 2, easily multiplied
• 1 cup cubed white bread
  1 tsp. olive oil
  1/2 a red onion, finely sliced
  3/4 cup chopped kale
  1 garlic clove, sliced
  1/4 tsp. chili flakes
  1/4 cup grated cheddar
  1/4 cup grated gruyère
  2 eggs
  2/3 cup whole milk (or a mixture of semi-skimmed and cream)
  2 Tbs. grated parmesan
  salt and pepper, to taste
• 1. Lightly butter a small gratin dish and toss in your bread cubes. Set aside.
  
  2. Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat and add the onion. Sautée until onion begins to soften, about 4 minutes, then add the kale. Cook for about 3 minutes, before adding the garlic and chili flakes, and cooing everything together for another three minutes. Remove from heat.
  
  3. Spread the vegetable mixture over the bread, and gently push it down in between the cubes in places. Sprinkle over the cheddar and gruyère.
  
  4. In a small bowl or jug, whisk the eggs with the milk and parmesan, and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the gratin dish, and let sit until the custard has been absorbed.
  
  5. Preheat your oven to 175°C/350°F. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until browned on top and puffy. Serve immediately.

First off, let me preface this post by making a number of excuses, of the type that my boyfriend warned me never to engage in when I first started this blog. (“Your readers aren’t interested in why you posted late, or not at all- don’t apologise!”) See, I felt fine on Sunday night. Just fine- I’d gone to the farmer’s market, made and bottled some homemade ketchup, re-read the third Harry Potter book for approximately the 8th time in my life, and been over to my sister’s for cake.

Unfortunately, Monday morning was another story. My first thought (before even opening my eyes) was “my throat hurts”. Followed closely by “holy crap- this really, really hurts”. Of course, I wasn’t about to let a stupid little virus get in the way of my day – on Mondays I attend an upholstery course in the mornings, buy groceries for the week, sort out blogging plans for the week ahead, and bake my weekly bread.

Luckily the bread I’d planned to make could hardly have required less effort, hailing as it does from Nigella Lawson, patron saint of the lazy domestic (I do hope she wouldn’t be offended by that line). Nigella- her books and food- has always comforted me somewhat, so baking up her Lazy Loaf was perhaps fitting for a day spent under the weather. A dense, oaty bread, this is hardly baking at all: there’s no kneading, no proving and no punching- you don’t even need to preheat the oven.

The bread it makes? It’s chewy, fruity, nutty and ever-so-slightly sweet. Definitely a power-packing, get-up-and-go kind of loaf. Which is of course, just what I need now that I’m (mainly) over my virus, and trying to catch up with regular life again.

• Lazy Loaf
• adapted from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson
• 200g muesli with oats, fruit, nuts and seeds (you could always make your own by mixing these things, but it sort of defeats the purpose)
  325g whole wheat bread flour
  2 tsp. instant yeast
  2 tsp. flaky sea salt (if using regular fine salt, reduce to 1 tsp.)
  250ml milk (whatever percentage you have around- I used semi-skimmed)
  250ml warm water
  2 Tbs. honey
• 1. Mix together the muesli, flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the milk, water and honey. When the honey has dissolved, pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until the mixture is thick and porridge-like.
  
  2. Pour the batter into a 2lb silicone loaf tin, or a greased and floured tin of another material. Place in a cold oven and turn heat up to 110°C/230°F. Leave for 1 hour.
  
  3. After an hour, turn the heat up to 180°C/350°F and let the loaf bake for another 45 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing.

Of all the misnomers in this world, the one that infuriates me the most is banana bread. I love the stuff (could eat my sister’s all day long), but let’s face it- this is a very poorly monikered treat. Nine times out of ten, the “bread” in question is actually a cake; there’s oil or butter, vanilla extract, eggs- not to mention the requisite cup or so of sugar. For heaven’s sake, there are sometimes chocolate chips involved.

But this, my friends, is not that kind of banana bread. Continuing with my theme of the year, I was looking around for something a little different for this week’s loaf. My eyes settled on two unused and overripe bananas, turning soft and brown (as they tend to do) on my countertop. Problem solved- I was going to make banana bread. A real banana bread.

For help I turned to Google, but my searches were futile; “banana bread that’s really bread” and “banana bread with YEAST” yielded nothing more than cake, cake and more cake- some not even bothering to masquerade as bread. Eventually, I came across an interesting fact: bananas have roughly the same water and starch content as cooked potatoes. Reaching for my trusty copy of How to Be a Domestic Goddess, I flipped to an old favourite of mine- Nigella‘s basic Potato Bread. Surely this recipe could be tweaked and reworked into the banana bread of my dreams?

Though slightly softer than the one it’s based on, this loaf still has a chewy, tight crumb and the ability to make fantastic toast. Granted, it might not pair so well with cheese, Marmite or Rarebit- but it sure was tasty with peanut butter and Nutella.

Yes, Nutella. I know, I know- I may have just as well made a cake.

• Banana Bread
• much adapted from How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
• makes 1 large round loaf
• 500g white bread flour, plus more for kneading
  2 tsp. instant yeast
  2 Tbs. sugar
  1/4 tsp. salt
  2 medium bananas, peeled and broken into chunks
  2 Tbs. crème fraiche
  180ml warm water
  bit of butter, for greasing
• 1. Mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl; make a well in the centre and set aside.
  
  2. Place the bananas in a smaller bowl with the crème fraiche. Using a fork or potato masher, mash until you have an generally uniform mush. Mix in the warm water and pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones.
  
  3. Using a wooden spoon or dough whisk, stir until the mixture comes together into a sticky dough. Turn out onto a generously floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. You’ll likely use another 100g or so of flour at this point- just keep adding it to your surface to ensure dough doesn’t stick.
  
  4. Form the dough into a ball, butter it (I melt a bit of butter between my hands and pat it all over), then place in a covered bowl and leave somewhere warm to rise for about an hour. The dough should double in size.
  
  5. When the dough has risen, punch it down and knead again for about a minute. Form dough into a boule and place on a nonstick (or parchment-lined) baking sheet. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about 30 minutes until big and puffy again. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F.
  
  6. Bake the bread for 20 minutes at 220°C/425°F, then turn down the heat to 190°C/375°F and bake for another 10 minutes. When done, the crust should be golden brown and the loaf will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool completely before slicing.

You’ve probably all heard of Welsh rabbit/rarebit, the delicious late-night snack and lunch dish so beloved of the British Isles. It’s a simple idea, really: take some toasted bread and top with a mixture of egg yolks and cheese (often with flavourings like chili, Worcestershire sauce or ale), and put the whole thing under the broiler until bubbly and delicious. Apply to mouth.

Well this, my friends, is Leek rarebit, its slightly healthier (in that in contains something green) cousin. I came across this idea in the recipe section of February’s Living etc magazine and immediately marked it down as a must-try. Anything that involves the triple whammy of bread, cheese and leeks just has to be delicious, right? Unfortunately I left that magazine in Canada, but luckily Jamie Oliver came to my rescue.

I made this for lunch yesterday, using the Milk & Honey bread I baked earlier this week. On first bite, the cheesy, leeky goodness damn near blew me away, and it’s probably a good thing. I’m going to need lots of ways to use up all the bread I’ll be baking this year, and this is definitely one to add to the roster.

• Leek Rarebit
• adapted from Jamie Oliver‘s Leek Rarebit
• serves 1
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
  1 medium leek, halved lengthwise and chopped (white and light green parts only)
  1/4 tsp. fresh thyme leaves, picked
  1/4 tsp. grainy mustard
  1 egg yolk
  2 Tbs. crème fraiche
  75g grated cheddar
  1/8 tsp. chili flakes
  1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
  sea salt and black pepper
  2 thick slices bread of your choice
  butter (optional)
• 1. Heat the olive oil in a small nonstick pan and gently sautée the leek and thyme leaves until soft and translucent, about 8-10 minutes. When done, remove from heat, stir in the mustard and allow to cool slightly.
  
  2. While the leek cooks, mix together the egg yolk, crème fraiche, cheese, chili flakes and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl. Add the cooled leeks, stir well and season to taste.
  
  3. Preheat the broiler or grill to high. Toast your bread on both sides and spread with a bit of butter, if you like. Spread the leek/cheese mixture over the toast to the very edges, and place under the heat for 3-4 minutes, until bubbly and golden brown (use a baking sheet to catch drips). Serve immediately.

Back at the beginning of January, I wrote about my foodie resolution for 2010, to bake more bread. A resolution made with the best of intentions, borne of visions of wholesome, proud loaves emerging from my kitchen one after another. Not to mention the great arms I was going to have (you know, from all the kneading).

However life got in the way, as it tends to, and for several weeks it was farmer’s market loaves and (gulp) grocery store sliced bread for me. After returning to the UK last week, I decided to give bread-baking another go, and I had just the recipe for it. Found in a cookbook (I don’t remember the name) my Mum had from the library, I hastily copied down the ingredients for this Milk & Honey bread in my journal during my last day at home. Something about the description intrigued me: a basic sandwich loaf with a soft texture, shiny crust, and slightly sweet flavour.

Unfortunately, the first version of this bread was nothing to write home about. Whether I interpreted my scribbles wrongly or whether the recipe was a dud in the first place I can’t be sure, but the resulting loaf was small and heavy, without the mild but vibrant flavour I’d been promised.

I’m not normally one to try a disappointing recipe twice (I just don’t have the patience for endless experimenting), but for some reason I pressed on with this one. I’m glad I did, because after a bit of tweaking, version 2.0 was everything I’d been looking for. Chewy and sweet but not aggressively so, this bread makes wonderful toast, especially with savoury toppings (I’ve been enjoying this for breakfast, spread with butter and Marmite). Whether or not your own New Year’s resolutions are still going strong (anyone?), I highly recommend giving this one a go.

• Milk & Honey Bread
• makes 1 loaf
• 2 cups plain flour (or 1 1/2 cups plain, and 1/2 cup wholewheat)
  3/4 tsp. instant yeast
  pinch salt
  2/3 cups milk
  2 Tbs. honey
  1 Tbs. butter, plus extra for greasing
• 1. Whisk together the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Lightly butter and flour a 1lb loaf tin (not necessary if silicone) and set aside.
  
  2. Put the milk, honey and butter into a small saucepan, and heat gently until the butter has just melted. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into the dry ingredients and mix until the dough comes together.
  
  3. Turn dough out onto a generously floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Form dough into a ball, butter it lightly (I just melt a small piece of butter between my hands and pat the dough all over) and place in a covered bowl. Leave in a warm place to rise for 1-1.5 hours, until doubled in size.
  
  4. When the dough has risen, punch it down and knead it for a minute or so to get all the air out. Form into an oval about the size of your loaf tin and place inside; cover and leave to rise again for 45 minutes.
  
  5. Just before your bread is done its second rising, preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F. Brush a little melted butter over the top of the bread, or melt a bit between your fingers and simply pat it on. Bake bread for 30 minutes, until it is golden brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool before slicing.

Happy New Year! Are you waking up blurry-eyed and blurry-headed, from too much champagne and too little sleep? No? Me neither- Andrew and I stayed in last night, feasting on good food, good TV and a moderate (ok, slightly more than moderate) amount of alcohol. I awoke surprisingly refreshed this morning, ready to greet 2010 with open arms.

Hand in hand with a new year comes that old thorn in our side- resolutions. While normally mine tend toward the boring “run more” or the bizarre “hunt down the perfect shade of red lipstick”, I’ve got a few food-related resolutions in mind for 2010. The first of which is to bake more bread. I’ve tried my hand at breadmaking in the past, but always in a halfhearted kind of way. Now I’ve decided that enough is enough: buying bread at the farmer’s market on Sundays is one thing, but the supermarket loaves I fall back on when those run out midweek are quite another. No more will pre-sliced, preservative-laden “bread” cross my doorway: in 2010 I’m going to get kneading.

So, to put my money where my mouth is and kick the year off right, I made this festive-looking loaf for Andrew and my New Year’s Day brunch. Spotted Dog is a rich Irish soda bread, moistened with buttermilk and chock full of currents. Perhaps I’m missing the stollen I made with my sister last month (it was a sad day when the last of that disappeared), because this loaf is quite similar, looks-wise.

The recipe is from Rachel Allen‘s Home Cooking, fast becoming my favourite Christmas gift (don’t worry, a review is imminent). Given that the bread is leavened without yeast and doesn’t even require kneading, I do feel as though I’ve cheated on my resolve somewhat. But when it tastes this good, I honestly don’t care. Baby steps, right?

• Spotted Dog
• adapted from Rachel Allen’s Home Cooking
• makes 1 large loaf
• 450g plain flour
  1 tsp. baking soda
  1 tsp. salt
  1 Tbs. + 1 tsp. sugar
  110g currants
  1 egg
  350ml buttermilk
• 1. Preheat your oven to 220°C/425°F. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in the currants and make a well in the centre of the mixture.
  
  2. In a jug, whisk together the egg and the buttermilk. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir (using a dough whisk, if you have one) until just combined. The dough will be quite wet and sticky, but don’t overwork.
  
  3. Turn out onto a generously floured surface and bring together the dough into one flour-dusted ball. Transfer to a lined and floured baking sheet and form into a round about 2 1/2″ high. Cut a deep cross into the top with a sharp knife.
  
  4. Bake for 10 minutes before turning down the oven to 200°C/400°F and baking for another 30-35 minutes. When done, the bread will be golden brown on top and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool completely before slicing and serving with butter and jam.

Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t like dumplings? Is that even possible? I’m not trying to be obtuse, honest- I just can’t imagine that there’s a human on this earth who doesn’t grow weak at the knees at the thought of those bite-sized morsels of deliciousness. As you can probably deduce, I love dumplings. All kinds- Chinese, Thai, Polish, British. When I was growing up, I looked forward to my family’s Dim Sum Boxing Day tradition almost as much as I looked forward to Christmas (possibly more).

But this post isn’t about Dim Sum, or any kind of Chinese dumpling. Nope, it’s about a branch of this special family that I’d never met before- the Hungarian bread dumpling. I saw this recipe at The Kitchn last week and was immediately intrigued; a dumpling I had never tasted, nor heard of, jam-packed with winter root vegetables? Held together by a dough made from the bread that’s currently getting stale in my bread box? This was definitely an idea that needed closer inspection.

So I got myself a huge assortment of root veg at the farmer’s market and got to work. I’m not going to lie: this recipe was time-consuming, even downright fiddly. All that chopping and rolling and coating- it’s definitely not a weeknight meal. The good news is that you refrigerate the dough before forming the dumplings, and I see no reason why everything up to that point couldn’t be done a day or so beforehand.

The result was like nothing I’d tasted before. Hearty, yes- even heavy -but in a good way. This is perfect fodder for dark days and cold winter evenings; served drizzled with paprika butter and accompanied by a dollop of thick yogurt, it’s a case of familiar flavours in an exotic embodiment.

Note: I boiled these as the recipe dictated, but some of the leftover dough was just as good (possibly better) the next day, fried in olive oil as thick fritters.

• Root Vegetable Bread Dumplings
• adapted from this recipe from The Kitchn
• makes 20-25 dumplings (serving 4-5)
• Dumplings
  2 Tbs. butter
  1/2 a yellow onion, finely chopped
  2 garlic cloves, minced
  1 medium carrot, finely chopped
  1 medium parsnip, finely chopped
  1/2 a medium swede/rutabaga, finely chopped
  1/4 a medium winter squash (any type), finely chopped
  2 Tbs. finely chopped parsley
  sea salt and black pepper
  4 cups torn-up white bread pieces
  1 cup breadcrumbs
  2/3 cup of milk
  1 egg
  approx. 1/2 cup plain flour, plus extra for dusting

  To Serve
  unsalted butter
  salt and pepper
  paprika
  Greek yogurt or sour cream
  finely chopped parsley

• 1. Heat the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When it foams, add the onion and garlic and cook until soft, about five minutes.

  2. Add the rest of the vegetables to the pot, and stir in about 1/2 a cup of water. Cover and simmer the mixture for 15 minutes, checking and stirring every so often. When the vegetables are cooked through, gently “mush” them with the back of a wooden spoon or a potato masher. You don’t want a purée, just a rough mixture. Make sure as much moisture as possible has cooked off, then remove the vegetables from the heat and allow to cool.

  3. Mix together the bread pieces, breadcrumbs and milk in a large bowl and mix until doughy. Stir in the parsley and season to taste, then stir in the egg.

  4. When the vegetables have cooled enough, add them to the bread mixture and stir to incorporate. If the mixture seems too wet, you can also add up to 1/2 cup of flour. Cover and refridgerate for at least 30 minutes until cool. (Dumpling mixture can be made to this point up to 2 days beforehand.)

  5. When you’re ready to make the dumplings, put a large pot of water on to boil. Cover a large plate or board with flour and drop golf ball-sized pieces of dough onto the surface. Roll these about to make 20-25 flour-dusted dumplings.

  6. When the water boils, salt it lightly. Working in batches of 5-6, drop the dumplings into the boiling water and cook for about 8 minutes, until they float. Remove with a slotted spoon and continue until all the dumplings are cooked.

  7. To serve, you have a few options. I like to add salt, pepper and a good dash of paprika to some melted butter, then drizzle this over the dumplings. Alternatively, you could fry the dumplings lightly in some butter or olive oil, and sprinkle the paprika over while they crisp up. Serve with a side of yogurt and some more chopped parsley, if you like.