*Tomato Dumplings*

Serves 4-6

Lightly and fluffy and wonderfully savoury dumplings floating on a delicious sea of a robust and tasty tomato sauce. What’s not to like about these lovely taste tempting babies?

½ cup peeled and finely chopped onion

¼ cup finely chopped green pepper

¼ cup finely chopped celery

¼ cup butter

1 bay leaf, broken in half

28 ounces of tinned chopped tomatoes, in their juices, undrained

1 TBS soft light brown sugar, packed

½ tsp dried basil

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

For the Dumplings:

1 cup plain flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp of Italian garlic seasoning

1 TBS cold butter

1 TBS snipped fresh parsley

2/3 cup of milk

Melt the butter in a large skillet (with a lid) over medium high heat. Whenit begins to sizzle add the onion, pepper and celery. Cook, stirring, until they are tender. Add the bay leaf, tomatoes, brown sugar, basil, salt and pepper. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

Make the dumplings as follows.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and garlic seasoning together in a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the parsley and then finally stir in the milk, mixing it only until mixed together and all the dry ingredients are uniformly moist.

Remove the lid from the simmering tomato mixture and drop the dumpling batter onto the top of the simmer liquid by tablespoonfuls. Cover tightly with a lid and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes without peeking, until a toothpick inserted into one of the dumplings comes out clean and they look set and somewhat dry on top. Serve immediately, spooned out onto warm plates.