Meat free dumplings to mark organic awards

Make this tasty meat free recipe below and vote for your favourite organic product!

This year you can get involved with organic too, the BOOMs Nation’s Favourite Award asks the people to find and vote for the most popular organic product. Nominations are open NOW until to Wednesday, May 31st – make sure you have your say here by voting – click on this link.

Ingredients

Soup:

3 tbsp organic olive oil
Sprig of thyme
Bay leaf
1 tbsp parsley stalks
2 onions, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 sticks of celery, diced
1 small organic swede, peeled and diced
150g tinned plum tomatoes
1 tbsp good red wine vinegar
200g organic kale, stalks removed (reserved and chopped), leaves shredded
100g orzo Parsley and chervil, to garnish Grated lemon zest, to garnish Organic cheddar, to garnish Salt and pepper, to taste

Dumplings

Pinch of coriander seed
Pinch of rye seed
250g ricotta
10g grated parmesan
1 garlic clove, grated
100g pistachios, toasted and chopped
200g spinach
Zest of 1 organic unwaxed lemon
tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of chilli flakes
2 tbsp light organic spelt flour
Freshly grated nutmeg

Method

To make the soup:

Heat the olive oil over a medium to high heat. Add the thyme, bay leaf and parsley stalks and stir, cooking for a minute or two to infuse the oil, then add the diced veg and cook, stirring for 10–15 minutes, until softened and smelling good. Add the plum tomatoes and cook for a couple more minutes before adding a litre of water, vinegar and the kale stalks, and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for another 10–15 minutes, allowing all the flavours to infuse. During this time, make the dumplings.

To make the dumplings:

Dry fry the spices in a frying pan until they start to crackle. Remove and grind in a pestle and mortar. Wash the spinach and then wilt in a nonstick frying pan over a medium heat. There should be enough residual water on the spinach to mean that you don’t need to add any oil or water. After a couple of minutes, once wilted, transfer the spinach to a sieve and leave over the sink to drain. Press down on the leaves with a wooden spoon to squeeze out any excess water. Once cooled and drained, chop finely. Place the ricotta in a bowl and add all of the other ingredients.

Season with salt and pepper and stir well to combine and incorporate all the ingredients. Oil your hands lightly with olive oil and shape them into meatball sized balls.

Poach them in the minestrone. Alternatively you could bring a pan of water to the boil and cook them in the boiling water for 5 minutes, until they float – removing them with a slotted spoon.