In the Kitchen: Harry Potter Recipe

*This recipe is for last week's recipe, I will put up one this week as well.

I am excited to share this recipe with you! It is tasty and perfect for chilly fall days.  As promised it is a Harry Potter recipe, as they will be all month for Harry Potter Month.  It is, of course, from my Harry Potter cookbook. I made Beef Stew with Herb Dumplings. This cookbook has a recipe for anytime food is mentioned at all in the books and this one happens to be from the 7th book. When Harry, Ron and Hermione were briefly staying at Grimmauld Place, and they were finally on good terms with Kreacher, Kreacher made them some very delicious meals. One of which, was a stew (chapter 12). So here is the recipe Dinah Bucholz (author of the cookbook) decided to put down for Kreacher's stew:

Beef Stew with Herb Dumplings

*note--This recipes takes a long time to make, but it is not difficult. Allow yourself about 3 hours from start to finish. Also, we gobbled up the stew before I remembered to take pictures. I only have some pictures of empty bowls and the empty soup pot.  See:

Lame. Sorry. 

(keep reading, there are pictures of Elanor...)

Herb Dumplings:

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 tsp. ground sage

1/4 tsp. ground thyme (although, I have fresh thyme in my garden, so I used that instead)

1/4 tsp. ground marjoram

2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

2 tbsp. milk

1 egg

For the dumplings: whisk all dry ingredients and herbs together in a medium bowl. Add the butter and using your hands, work into flour (same way as making scones or pie crust) until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk the milk and egg together in a separate bowl and then add to the flour mixture. Toss with a rubber spatula until the mixture begins to clump together. Press plastic wrap down on top of the dough and refrigerate until needed. I made the dumplings while my meat, onions, and broth were simmering for 1 1/2 hours.

Beef Stew

3 tbsp. oil

1 1/2 lbs. chuck steak, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 onion, chopped

1 tbsp. flour

1 3/4 cups (14 oz) chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

2 carrots, cut into 1 inch pieces

2 celery ribs, cut into 1 inch pieces

4 red-skinned potatoes, unpeeled, scrubbed, and cut into 1 inch cubes (I used russet potatoes and peeled them, because that was what I had and it worked great)

For the stew: heat one tbsp. oil in a large Dutch oven or wide pot over high heat. Add the meat in batches, searing on both sides until crusty brown, transferring to a plate when done with each batch. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add two more tablespoons of oil and add in the onion. Cook until the onion is softened. Add the flour to the pot and stir until combined. Pour in the chicken broth and stir until well combined. Add salt, pepper and the meat with its juices into the pot and cook over medium-high heat until bubbling and slightly thickened. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 1/2 hours.

After the 1 1/2 hours are up, add the vegetables to the pot and simmer for an hour (I only simmered for 30-45 min.) Take out your dumpling dough and wet your hands. Form the dumplings into 1 inch balls and drop them into the hot stew.  Cover the pot and simmer for 30 minutes or until the dumplings have puffed up and feel set.

Eat. All of it.

This makes enough for 3-4 people. The recipe said six, but Tyler, my brother, Elanor and I easily finished the whole pot.

Did everyone have a wonderful General Conference weekend for those of you who watched it? We sure did! My brother, Ian, came down from BYU-I to spend the conference weekend with us. We loved having Ian here and Elanor sure loves her Uncle Ian!

Report: I have finished the 1st Harry Potter book and am reading the 2nd. I had a busy weekend and did not read as much as I should have, so I have a lot of reading to do this week.