Kids' Corner: Beef Stew and Herbed Dumplings, à la Kreacher

Last weekend Tiegan and Jonas worked together to make Kirk's birthday present: Sunday dinner!

Tiegan spent some of her Christmas money at the book store, and one of the items she was most excited about was The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory: More than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards. After paging through it, the kids decided to make Beef Stew with Herbed Dumplings for Kirk. And with only a quick consult with me about how sear the meat, they did it all on their own. 

I didn't even hear any shouting, so it must have been fun. Here's how they did it:

Tiegan: We cut the onion, carrots, and the celery into kind of big pieces. We also made dough for the dumplings out of flour, eggs, milk, and herbs. I picked oregano, sage, and thyme. Then we covered the dough and put it in the fridge.

Jonas: I cut the potatoes by taking each potato and cutting it in wheels. Then I cut each wheel into quarters. It didn't take long once I did the first one.

Jonas: We put vegetable oil in the pot and put the meat in once it was hot. We made sure they weren't touching each other. You wait for about 30 seconds and flip them over. After another 30 seconds, you take them out and put them on a plate. They are done when they are a medium brown color.

Tiegan: After the meat was brown, we put it back in the pot with the onions and turkey stock and let it simmer for an hour and 45 minutes. Then we put the veggies in and let it simmer again for another hour.

Jonas: We made the dough into balls for the dumplings. We rolled into a ball like clay. They were about one inch big.

Jonas: We put the dumplings in the stew pot and cooked it for another 30 minutes with the lid on.

Tiegan: Then we ate it! It was yummy, and I would make it again. 

I can vouch for the deliciousness, and I know Kirk would also like to eat it again. In the future, we'd have the kids get an earlier start in chopping the veggies and have them make the dough once the stew is simmering to try to streamline this recipe and eat before 8:30 p.m. It was a big job for them, but they came through!