I haven't made dumplings for years but I made some on Sunday and everyone loved them! I'd forgotten how easy they are to make and they were certainly just the thing in the cold weather. At that stage, down here in Softie Sussex, we'd had about 6 flakes of snow and Margaret, who is a headmistress, was already having to think about whether to close her school the following day.

We were having a casserole of pork, confident in the husbandry of our meat which came from the local pork specialist at Funtington. Jamie Oliver - no worries about misleading labelling here, thank you very much. Incidentally, if you don’t have a local pork producer you can buy from Waitrose with confidence and their pork scheme is exemplary. Doubtless we shall look at that in more detail in What Shall We Eat as the year progresses.

So, back to Sunday. My casserole was citrus/Oriental in theme. I had leg steaks which I cut into large pieces, browning them and then adding a macédoine of onion, celery and carrot. Extra flavours were Chinese 5-Spice, chopped red chillies, garlic and sage, plus grated zest from a lemon, an orange and a grapefruit. I’d boiled up a load of root veg the day before and kept the water which I used as stock - frugality tastes good! I cooked the casserole in a slow oven for a couple of hours (gas mark 3, 160℃, 325℉, Simmering Oven of the Aga) and then left it overnight.

I reheated the pork on Sunday on the hob. There were 10 for lunch and so I used 400g self-raising flour and 200g shredded suet for the ‘treats’. That made 20 tiny dumplings - I was cross about having 50g of suet left in the packet but an extra 150g of mix would not have fitted into my largest pan! To the flour and suet I added some freshly chopped parsley and 1 tsp fennel seeds; I was actually looking for caraway in my spice drawer but was ‘out of stock’ - the fennel worked well. I just mixed it all with a fork and enough cold water to give a very slightly sticky dough, then dropped walnut sized pieces of the dough into the simmering casserole. I covered it with a lid and 15 minutes later we were ready to eat. Obviously, larger dumplings take longer!

If the cold weather persists I think I might have to see if I can remember how to make syrup puddings .... when did you last have one of those?! Oh yes, the Security Manager and I met a couple of kids playing outside Boxgrove Stores the following afternoon. They go to Margaret’s school and had had the day off ... We were all well pleased with life!