Lovely miniature potato dumplings

I picked up Mollie Katzen’s “Vegetable Heaven” in the bargain bin at Chapters last week for a measly $10. I was hoping to find a new issue of Donna Hay, but was out of luck. (I decided to subscribe to stop the insanity of visiting the magazine shop every week.) I was hoping I’d find a few keeper recipes for the boy (and us) that would make eating vegetables a little more interesting.

The first night, I tried making her chickpea and sweet potato koftas. While they looked pretty, they were so bland and boring. We dragged them through ketchup to make them more appetizing. Being the first recipe out of the gate, I was feeling pretty glum about the prospects from future recipes.

On Saturday night, the husband pre-cooked the potatoes and made the dumplings on Sunday.  We even got to use chives from our garden!  The first “harvest” of the season!  He veganized Mollie’s recipe to make it Alden friendly and cute-friendly with a mini heart cookie cutter.

When we served up the dumplings for lunch, we turned our head when Alden picked up the first potato dumpling.   We fully expected to hear the sound of potato patties raining on the floor.  To our surprise, aside from a few “hawt hawt hawt” protests (anything above room temperature is HOT), he gobbled them up.  Chives and all.  SUCCESS!

Easy vegan potato dumplings (adapted from Mollie Katzen)

• 1 pound potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 – 3 tablespoons non-dairy milk (ie: rice)
• 1 – 2 tablespoons canola oil (for pan frying)
• chopped fresh chives

Instructions:

The day before – boil potatoes, drain, let cool.

On eating day – grate potatoes (by hand or in a food processor) or use a ricer.  Add the flour, chives and salt.  Mix.  Add milk slowly – do not let the dough get too sticky.

Bring a pot of water to boil.

Flour your work surface and roll out dough with your hands or a rolling pin (working in small batches if you’re pinched for space – we are!) until about 1/2 inch thick.  Use a cookie cutter to cut out fun shapes.

Once the water reaches a boil, turn it down to medium heat to simmer.  Toss in as many dumplings as will fit your pot without them sticking together.  The dumplings will sink to the bottom and rise to the top when they are cooked.  This will only take a few minutes.  Scoop out the dumplings and place on a plate – don’t stack them, they will stick together.

Meal planning tip: At this point, you can reserve a portion (or all) of your dumplings to fry another day.  It makes for a quick veggie addition to your evening meal without any mess or fussing about.

Heat up a non-stick pan with enough canola / olive oil to cover the pan.  Toss in as many dumplings as will fit your pan.  Fry each side of the dumplings until nice and golden brown – probably around 5-8 minutes per side.

Serve immediately!