Oops. I did it again. I made a mistake, and overspent at the grocery store. Walking down the aisles of Costco, I couldn’t help but put this and that extra thing in the cart. Aargh… When am I going to learn? It’s not that we aren’t going to eat the extra things I bought. We are. It’s just that I hadn’t planned on buying them. That’s the problem.
It didn’t help that we had to wait in line out in the cold just to get IN to Costco. Ugh. So, I justified, I won’t have to go back anytime soon, right? Wrong. I know I’ll go back sooner than later. I love Costco! Costco. That place that takes all my money.
Anyway, it’s something I need to work on; this budgeting thing. Spending less. Making do with what I already have in the pantry and fridge. Being creative in the kitchen IS fun. When forced to make meals with what I already have, I find some sort of satisfaction. Which leads to this recipe for apple dumplings.
If you have some apples kicking around and ingredients for a great dough, you’ve got this recipe made. It’s delicious, old-fashioned, and the sauce is really an eye-opener.
My daughter, Abby, loves to bake. She was craving these dumplings, so I let her have a try at making them. They turned out delicious, and we didn’t need to run the store for anything. Boom. It was all in my pantry, just waiting to be used. In fact, I had some leftover beef from tacos a night or two before, so I had Abby mix up a double batch of pastry dough. I mixed the beef with shredded cheese, and filled the pockets of pastry with it. They were great with the leftover soup we had.
So, here’s the recipe.
Apple Dumplings
Apple-filled pastry with a very different kind of sweet and sour sauce. To die for!
Servings: 8 dumplings
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup shortening or lard
- ⅔ cup milk
- 8 apples
Sauce
- 2 cups water
- ⅓ cup vinegar
- ⅓ cup butter
- ⅓ cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Blend flour, baking powder, salt and shortening together until the shortening is the size of pebbles.
- Add milk, and knead until smooth.
- Peel and core each of the apples.
- Divide dough into 8 equal sized balls.
- Roll each dough ball out so that it will wrap around the apple.
- Wrap each apple (optional to sprinkle sugar and butter inside each apple core.)
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until dough is browned and apple is cooked through.
To make the sauce….
- Heat water, vinegar and butter together in a medium pot.
- Combine in a small bowl, the flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Whisk the flour mixture into the heated water.
- Whisk until thickened.
- When the dumplings are still hot, pour the sauce over each dumpling on individual plates to serve.
- Enjoy!
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