Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings

Tuesday, January 7

Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings

Rating: 4.5

It’s not a secret that I love Isa Does It, but even if you don’t have that book (for the love of dog, go buy it already!) you can still make this dish, because the recipe is conveniently located right here on the PPK website. You’re welcome. I’ve been looking at this one ever since we got the book a few months ago, but Seth kept saying that he didn’t like dumplings. WHAT?! A Southerner who doesn’t like dumplings??? Anyway, I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and make the stew anyway, planning to tell him to pick them out if he didn’t like them. I’m glad I did because this stew is so good, and since the polar vortex was bearing down on Georgia making it colder here than it was in parts of Alaska, I really wanted a cozy, homey stew to take the chill off. Did I mention how good the stew is? It’s so yummy. You can use canned beans, or just cook them the day before if you use dried beans. The prep is really very simple, just a few veggies to chop, and then it’s mostly simmering time. You make the dough for the dumplings while the veggies cook, and then just plop them on top, cover it and leave it alone again. I used our 3-quart cast iron Dutch oven, and once everything was in there, it was full all the way to the top and simmered over a little bit while the dumplings steamed, so a 4-quart might work better, but the 3-quart is fine if that’s what you have. As the recipe says, you could use a deep, wide pot, but be sure it has a large enough diameter to get all the dumplings in. We had about 13 or 14, and it was a tight squeeze. I highly recommend this recipe, and it makes a lot, so you’ll have plenty of leftovers for lunch if you’re not feeding a crowd. Believe it or not, I think we actually had too many dumplings, in our leftovers. When we posted the pic to Instagram, someone said she’d been looking at the recipe for a while, and asked if it was hard to make. It’s actually very easy to make, but you’ll need around an hour or so, start to finish, because it needs time to simmer.