Blackberry Dumplings

My favorite dish is all the food I can cook!

I love ole’ ‘fuskie fried crab rice. It’s fresh picked blue crab, fried with onions, peppers and bacon, then stir fried. It is just so good. I haven’t found anyone yet who eat crab and don’t like it! I mean, people just have a love for it. Another favorite is the shrimp and potato salad. I know everyone has had potato salad but most people haven’t had it with the shrimp and it’s super good. Blackberry dumplins, bread pudding, sweet potato cornbread. Collard greens, mac ‘n’ cheese and fried chicken! Lima beans, all of my favorites. Squash, oh gosh. Seafood, fish, clam, oyster, oyster ‘n’ rice. Deviled crab the Daufuskie way. Oh and fried ribs! Fried baby back ribs, oh man. It’s the bomb! Some of you say, you can fry ribs?! Well, you can fry anything!

Blackberry Dumplins

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 pound fresh or frozen blackberries

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

Ingredients (dough)

1 cups self-rising flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons vegetable shortening (Crisco or lard, but not oil)

1/4 to 3/4 cup water

Directions

[1] Place the blackberries and sugar in a medium saucepot with 1 cup water, and bring to a boil over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until it thickens to a sauce. Reduce the heat to low and keep the blackberries warm as you make the dough.

[2] In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, and vegetable shortening with ¼ cup water. Add more water, up to ¾ cup, as needed until the dough is loose and soft enough that you can scoop it out with a spoon.

[3] Increase the heat of the blackberry pot to medium.

[4] Scoop 1 teaspoon dough at a time and drop it into the saucepot of blackberries. When the dough rises to the top of the blackberry sauce, use a tablespoon to turn it so the dough cooks evenly as it hardens. Drop in as many teaspoons of dough as you can at the same time, but leave a little room between them for the dough to swell. When all the dough is turned and has the consistency of a doughnut, the blackberry dumplings are ready to eat.