Time for some greenery, and dumpling disaster

I am struggling with lockdown. Not the loneliness or the fear or the boredom or the uncomfortable working conditions. I am pretty resigned to those, to the point where the ripples of lockdown lifting have me curling into a hedgehog ball and freaking out all over again (how to work safely when you need to use public transport for 3-4 hours a day? I DON'T KNOW). No, what's bugging me at the moment is leafy greens. Definitely top of my mind at present.

Look at them. Bastards.

I love a leafy green, mind. And this is a brilliant season for them, all kinds of delicious young greenery sprouting, herbs coming up lovely. But... they really do take up space, don't they? I mean, really. If you're shopping once a week, and the fridge is full, and then you also get that fancy food delivery including additional greens (spinach beet, wild garlic, random salad mix of inexplicable leaves)... well, you'd better have plans for the greenery which include cooking some of it quick.

Reader, I did. I made knoedel. Mit quark. Love a bit of quark in the Confined Kitchen (I thought Stef had covered this, but I can't find it. Possibly a twitter-only conversation.)


I've done these before, no bother. Take plenty of spinach and cook it down (that alone shrinks your fridge problem instantly), adding any wild garlic leaves you happen to have. Drain very well. Fry a small onion and a garlic clove. Add to a mixing bowl with the drained, chopped spinach, lots of breadcrumbs, half as much quark, a little flour, couple of eggs, splash of milk, nutmeg, seasoning. Then roll into walnut-sized dumplings (claggy on the hands, I'm afraid, though keeping them wet helps), and poach for about 5 mins.

The before shot

I stress poaching, because I boiled the first batch this time, and for the first time had a knoedel disaster - they mostly disintegrated, leaving flavourless floury gloop unworthy of turning into soup. Fortunately, I'd made so many I was a bit worried about using them up, so even with only the later batches I will not be going hungry for lunches this week. I had today's with some leftover soup, but for the rest of the week will probably have them as intended, with lashings of butter and parmesan. They are pretty ribsticking for something that contains so much folic acid.

Meanwhile for the evening: delicious masala omelette.

I don't know why I bother with omelettes, I should just do the scrambled egg recipes and cut out the disappointing middle stage. I cannot omelette. But as scrambled eggs, very excellent.

Mix eggs, chopped small tomatoes, lots of chopped coriander (plus the leftover wild garlic; can almost close the fridge now), a small chopped onion (between at least 2 omelettes, ideally 4 but what are you going to do), some turmeric and some chili. Do not add a clove of raw garlic, despite temptation - it is too strong for this, and it's a good thing I'm solo in lockdown tonight.

Heat frying pan with fat, add egg mix, cook for about a minute and then "gently fold in half and cook for a further 30 seconds", which is closer to what I attempted than some ill-fated omelettes but nonetheless not what happened at all.

Clearly impossible to fold this omelette neatly, come off it

Then scatter with garam masala and serve. It is absolutely delicious. The garam makes it. And it was good quick dinner stuff after spending too much time dissolving knoedel at lunchtime.

I am currently marking in the evenings while working in the day on my main job, so quick dinner is very necessary. But there's no teaching next semester, alas, so I am nearly done with job #2 for a few months. Bloody covid making things hard for our students, but honestly I think I could do with the time off. I am doing lockdown so wrong.