To want stew and dumplings

[Trippingthelighteddaylight]

I’m on my own since DH passed away. Cooking feels like a massive chore. I’m lying here craving stew and dumplings. I think I’ll start a stew and dumplings takeaway. Do you think it would work?

Yes - I could definitely get behind that as a takeaway option.
Seems like it could be fairly easy to manage from a cooking/keeping/not wasting any point of view.

Why?
Baking
Thickening sauces and gravy
Coating meat for frying for casseroles
Macaroni cheese
etc etc

I cook from scratch most of the time so, for me, flour is a basic store cuboard ingredient, just as stock cubes, spices and herbs, tins of tomatoes and pulses, pasta, rice etc are.

Do you not cook very much?

Cobbler is the same proportions as dumplings-they're just baked instead of simmered. When I make cobbler ir's with suet.

Why is it odd?!

I sometimes make chili with a cheese cobbler topping.

It is ! I made a veg stew with dumplings just yesterday.

i sometimes use beans as my protein source, other times soy chunks. Yesterday used some vegan Richmond sausages chopped up.

Because to me it is like someone saying they have never eaten pasta or rice. Dumplings aren't exactly exotic.

I wonder if it is a generational thing? Are those who have never eaten dumplings under 40??

I'm so sorry about your husband OP ,that must be incredibly hard.

Stew and dumplings is what I do in the slow cooker for when im back late and that way everyone can just help themselves.

Easy peasy-

Diced beef - no need to brown first ,I've tried and compared and makes no difference.

A knorr beef stock gel pot

Squirt of garlic paste

Big squirt of tomatoes puree

Put the gel stock,puree and garlic in a mug and dissolve in boiling water and add to the slow cooker and also more boiling water ,just enough to cover the meat.

Turn it on high and leave it all day, the meat will melt like butter and you'll get a delicious gravy.

Add Aunt Bessie's frozen dumplings on top and hour or so before you eat.

Sounds like it'll be awful but it's lovely and so easy. We have it with veg or just peas on the side.

I love Stew and dumplings and yes I'd get some for a takeaway if there was a place where I live that did a decent one.

I have been known to add dumplings to one of my substantial main meal vegetable soups.

Flour rarely makes it on to my shopping list!

I cook a lot and always have a good supply of basic store-cupboard ingredients, however I rarely bake so have little need for flour, apart from the occasional bechamel sauce or dusting meat, etc.

So it's not unusual for me not to have flour at hand - currently I have a half used bag as recently made puddings for guests but when that will be used up, who knows!

I second ordering COOK meals on line if you can't face cooking,they are very tasty and comforting which I suspect you need a lot of at the moment.

Yes i just don't have any use for flour ,im not sure why this is such a big deal?

It's not a big deal but I would say it's unusual not to have flour always in the cupboard if there's much cooking done in the household. If our house burned to the ground and I had to re-stock the kitchen from scratch flour would be one of the first things on my shopping list.

I made a veg stew and dumplings last night, for the first time I ages, and it was delicious.

My dumplings were made from flour, baking powder, salt and water - with a sprinkle of sage added. Google told me the recipe.

Sorry for your loss OP x

Blimy no flour! in a typical month we would have

cakes, biscuits , scones, bread , pizza
sauces and gravy
pancakes and pies and Yorkies

I love stew and dumplings!!! I'll put it on my meal plan for next week

No, it isn't a big deal. I clearly cook different types of meals from you, plus I bake.

Making a slow cooker of stew and freeze the excess into sensible portions is the most sensible way of approaching this.
This lady uses lovely containers for freezing portions.
https://www.facebook.com/simplysarahhart

Dumplings are a 'right now' thing.

If you open a takeaway please offer tubs of pickled red cabbage to go with it!

I’ve never had stew and dumplings either - I’m Scottish and it was never a thing on our “menu” at home growing up. (Do have flour though.)

I rarely bake, don't have a sweet tooth, and basically a low-carber.

I don't eat pies, pizza, pancakes, pastries, and other stodgy stuff e.g. macaroni cheese; and I don't like gloopy gravy that's been thickened with flour - so mine is almost a flour-less household!

I love dumplings and often add them to soups and stews. Although they are easy to make, I do cheat and buy frozen ones as I find they are a bit lighter than my homemade ones, I'm not sure why.

We went to Germany this summer and part of DS2 's kids meal in a biergarten in Nuremberg was a spherical potato dumpling the size of a tennis ball. A kind of uber dumpling, if you like.

It really isn’t a ‘big deal’ - @RampantIvy - but it is quite fascinating to people who use flour all the time!

I’m always conscious of a slightly frightful time as a poor student, when I was forced to discover that flour and water, with a little oil, made a meal …

Oh God, we had an unexpected visit from a coeliac yesterday. The kitchen surfaces were covered with flour from my home made bread, and Christmas cake crumbs 😬 She accepted a herbal tea (our milk is oat milk), but despite having washed my hands about 3x, I'm still worried I might have contaminated her.