Kynute Knedliky (Fruit Dumplings)

By Monica on September 4th, 2008

One of the many lessons I learned as a child in my Babi’s kitchen is that combining dinner and dessert into one meal is not only acceptable, but practical! This was my favorite meal to eat on hot summer nights when fresh fruits were available by the bushel. Summer is quickly leaving the Midwest behind, so last week was fruit dumpling time.

I prefer mine drizzled with a bit of melted EB and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Some people also add cottage cheese, or even cocoa - but this is perfection to me. I also don’t like my dough quite as raised or fluffy as some, I find the dough sticks together better this way and there are less ‘leakers’ in the pot.

This batch consisted of nectarines, plums, peaches, and a rogue blueberry fruit dumpling I made just to use up extra dough. The specks you see in the dough are flax meal, I’ve used Ener-G egg replacer too, either works just fine.

Kynute Knedliky
1/2 cup soymilk, warmed and divided
1t granular yeast
1T + 1t sugar, divided
1 flax meal ‘egg’
1 1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt
1T melted EB
~5 fruits of your choice, halved
Toppings of your choice

Dissolve yeast into 1/4 cup of the warmed soymilk, add the 1t sugar.
Sift flour, 1T sugar, and salt together. Add the yeast mixture, flax egg and melted margarine. Slowly add just enough of the remaining milk to make a fairly stiff dough. Let rise 1/2 an hour.
On a lightly floured surface, cut dough into approximately 10 pieces and flatten each into a circle.
Place one half of a fruit into the center and seal dough around the fruit.
Drop sealed dumplings into a large pot of boiling water and cook uncovered for 5 minutes on one side, then flip dumpling and cook for 5 minutes more.
Remove from water and let water drain for a few minutes, poke each with a knife to allow steam to escape if necessary.
Sprinkle with your choice of yummy goodness and enjoy!

In addition to fruit dumpling time, I probably don’t have to mention that it’s corn time in Illinois. Each year one of our local farm families plants a free patch of sweet corn for everyone - which gives us all the free corn we want, and also an excuse to act like boobs in the corn fields, reenacting scenes from old horror movies. Can you spot the Ray?

This year while we were out there acting like boobs, I thought you might want to see what I consider to be the coolest feature of our corn:

Rising out of the corn there you’ll see a 214 foot wind turbine, one of 63 in Illinois’ first utility scale wind farm that operates in my immediate neighborhood. This farm produces enough energy to power 13,000 homes!

I am an enormous fan of these turbines, though not everyone in the area is. There are frequent complaints from some residents with antediluvian concerns about aesthetics, noise, land values, and ‘loss of farming community’. I do hope those same people are still alive when a bona fide oil crisis hits the US to see if they change their minds…

Call me crazy, but I think they add stunning beauty to an otherwise flat, brown, mundane landscape. Watching all of them turning - generating clean, renewable energy - is nothing short of awesome, especially from up close! Here’s a very quick video we shot from the corn: