Vegetable Casserole & Dumplings, 46p a serving
Vegetable Casserole & Dumplings – This is another one of our family favourites. Only takes about half an hour to make and is a delicious warming dish to come home to.
If you need more calories, serve it with mashed potato. You can vary the flavours in the stew by varying the vegetables used. If you don’t have any cider available, just use the stock cube, or you could try using apple juice if you have it
Variations
- Any mix of (mainly) root vegetables you have and like can used in this casserole – swede, turnip, celeriac, celery etc.
- Big beans like kidney or butter beans would make a delicious addition
- If you don’t have any cheese for the dumplings, just leave it out , it will still taste fine
- A big handful of fine chopped herbs would be lovely added to the dumplings, you could really ring the changes here. How about basil and coriander; rosemary; thyme; coriander and mint
Vegetable Casserole & Dumplings
A family favourite
Equipment
- pan to fry in
- mixing bowl
- large mixing spoon
- casserole dish
- small sharp knife
- chopping board
- baking tray
Ingredients
Vegetable stew
- 300 g parsnips cut into pieces, 34p – £1.15/kg
- 2 onions peeled and quartered, 18p – 60p/kg
- 1 tsp garlic purée or 2 cloves garlic, sliced, 7p – 90g tube/59p
- 350 g carrots no need to peel, cut into thick slices, 17p – 50p/kg
- 350 g potatoes no need to peel, cut into small pieces 17p – £1.20/2.5kg
- 150 g mushrooms cut into small pieces, 32p – £2.16/kg
- 1 stock cube any flavour you have, dissolved in 350ml water, 3p – 39p/12
- 200 ml cider 20p – £2.04/2 litres
- 1 bay leaf (if you have it)
- 1.5 tsps flour or cornflour if you have it
Dumplings
- 125 g self-raising flour 4p – 1.5kg/45p
- 50 g oil 5p – £1.09/1 litre
- 50 g cheddar 25p – £4.98/kg Asda
- 3 tblsps parsley fine chopped parsley if you have it
Instructions
- Toss the parsnips with a little oil, salt and pepper and place on a
baking sheet. Roast in a hot oven for about 25 minutes until golden
brown with lovely little crispy bits - Meanwhile, make the casserole. Saute the onion and garlic until soft.
Add the other vegetables, excluding the mushrooms and sauté for about 5
minutes. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking for a further few
ninutes. - While the casserole is bubbling, make the dumplings. Mix everything
together with enough water to make a soft dough. Make 16 walnut sized
balls from the mix. - Add the stock to the vegetables with most of the cider and the bay leaf
and bubble for 5 minutes, stirring now and then. Dissolve the flour in
the remaining cider and stir into the casserole to thicken. Put the
dumplings into the top of the casserole, immersing them most of the way
in. put a lid on and bubble gently for 10 minutes or so until the
dumplings are cooked. - Serve with the parsnips scattered over the top
- If you need more calories, serve it with mashed potato. You can vary the
flavours in the stew by varying the vegetables used. If you don’t have
any cider available, just use the stock cube, or you could try using
apple juice if you have it
Notes
Variations
Got a great recipe? How about submitting it to appear on Thrifty Lesley!
- Any mix of (mainly) root vegetables you have and like can used in this casserole – swede, turnip, celeriac, celery etc.
- Big beans like kidney or butter beans would make a delicious addition
- If you don’t have any cheese for the dumplings, just leave it out , it will still taste fine
- A big handful of fine chopped herbs would be lovely added to the dumplings, you could really ring the changes here. How about basil and coriander; rosemary; thyme; coriander and mint
Got a great recipe? How about submitting it to appear on Thrifty Lesley!
Take care of your family and your budget
Before putting together the meal planners, Lesley surveyed what was needed. Of the existing 14 budget meal plans, most are cheap meals for 2 people so can be sized up or down. Others are cheap family meals for 4 people, or meals for one
Want to know more about how to feed yourself for £1 a day? Try Cheap Family Recipes for monthly meal plans
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Fed up with plain cheese sandwiches? How about flavoured potted cheese?
All over the place, yeah. Not just now; it’s been going on about a decade now, I would think, though I suppose it varies a lot on when a person would notice (depending on what items they buy, how carefully they shop, how big is their budget, etc. etc.). Perhaps it came in the wake of the financial crisis. Sorry to have added some extra work for you that way.
Just had a look on Asda’s site and on mySupermarket. I’m doing my annual re-price of the meal plans, so that’s something I’ll have to look at when I do that one. It’s something that’s going on generally atm isn’t it, same price, smaller packet
Oh, this is fine; it’s just the only dried butter beans I can see at Asda are in 375g packs, not 500g, at 1.10GBP per pack. Tesco’s are 375g as well (1.00GBP), though cannellini are sold in 500g packs (1.15GBP). Sainsbury’s has 500g packs of butter beans (1.35GBP). Maybe the package size at Asda has changed since you’ve last priced them?
The beans seem alright.
Total of 500g
Butter beans with saute veg on day 1, 75g
Butter bean and veg curry on days 2 and 5, 175g, 4 servings, so serving both days
Butter bean paté with pitta on days 3 and 6, 150g, 4 servings, so serving both days
Gigantes plaki, 100g, day 7
Total of 500g
Have you spotted anything else?
Seems that no-one is as pernickety as I am 🙂 Hope I helped, though. (If you could also have a look at the amount of white beans on the shopping list, that’d be lovely :))
Thanks for the substitution suggestions; I think apple juice will be the way to go when I make this, hopefully next week. In any case, I’ll try to keep the mushrooms in.
Sorry it took me a while to get back to you! Life happened.
Oh dear, seems to be an error there doesn’t there. This is quite a delicately flavoured recipe, so missing out the mushrooms and cider could quite possibly make it too bland.
I don’t really know what happened as I originally wrote this one in 2013, nobody else has spotted that! The slightly sweet flavour from the cider makes a big difference, you could use apple juice or a whole grated apple instead, or a generous splash of white wine if you have any
The mushrooms contribute their texture as well as flavour, but could be left out.
I’ll revisit that plan and correct it, as well as give it it’s annual re-price, thanks for letting me know
Hi there. I’ve been cherry-picking recipes from your blog for a while now — thank you for all the work! — but I’m looking at meal plan 4 and there’s neither mushrooms nor cider on the shopping list. Would you substitute the mushrooms with what is available, ie. onions and peas, and the cider with water? Any tricks to ‘up’ the savoury flavour in that case, other than adding another stock cube? Thanks!
no, no problem. I’ve been caught out too, mainly with calories when I’ve been reading a recipe and think to myself, no way is that only that many calories
Thanks SO much! I hope I didn’t insult you w/ question RE: carbs; it’s more a reflection, I think, of so many other cookbooks & other blogs which don’t include everything, & one doesn’t find out until later. Thanks, again.
The parsnips should take about as long to cook as the veg casserole. So once they are done, keep them ready until you serve. If you want to time it tighter, start cooking the parsnips once you have started actually cooking the casserole
I have a huge spreadsheet that I use to calculate the nutrition and yes, everything is included
This recipe looks scrumptious! I’d love to try it, but need a bit of “hand-holding”, believe it or not. 🙁
1) After roasting parsnips, do I hold them aside to serve on/with the casserole, OR, should I add them in to cook just before putting the dumplings in to cook? (I don’t want to over-cook them.)
2) Are the cider & the dumplings included in the carb calculations?
Thanks!
2)
glad you liked it Julia. It’s one of our favourites too, more in the colder weather tho
I made this a couple of days ago and absolutely loved it. I used violife vegan cheese for the dumplings and they were yummy. My husband even asked me to make some more. Thank you for a great recipe.