Chinese Pork and Cabbage Pot Stickers / Pan Fried Dumpings

I love pot stickers (also known as pan fried dumplings). They're so crunchy on the outside, and tasty on the inside.
And making the pot stickers makes a fun afternoon activity too!

I definitely will make these again sometime soon.
I chose to make pork and cabbage dumplings because they are very basic ingredients, and it's very hard to go wrong. It was my first time making these, and I didn't have any recipe or guidance to help me out, so I was very nervous.

But now that I have made the dumplings with a very successful and delicious outcome, I will definately make more dumplings and switch up the ingredients. Ingredients that I will definitely use in the future are: chicken, shrimp, chinese chives, green onions... what else?


Chinese Pork and Cabbage Pot Stickers

Ingredients:
- 2 pounds of ground pork
- 1.5- 2 cups of cabbage, finely shredded and chopped (this is the hard part!). amount of cabbage depends on how much veggie to pork ratio you want. (i joked around that I was making cabbage dumplings with an essence of pork. hehe!)
- 1 tsp salt
- 4-5 tsp of soy sauce
- 1- 2 tsp pepper (white or black, your choice)
- 2 tsp tapioca or corn starch
- 2 - 3 tsp of minced garlic
- Extra flour to coat the pans for dumpling storage.
- 2 packets of store-bought dumpling wrappers/skin. (You can make the skin yourself too, but I'm not thaat patient.)

Instructions:
1. Chop the cabbage.















2. Mix in the salt into the cabbage and let sit for 10 minutes. Then squeeze out the excess water (i used a paper towel to get the water out).

3. Mix all the ingredients together (except the excess flour and dumpling wrappers). Stir until thoroughly mixed.





























4. Lightly flour some cookie sheets.















5. Get the dumpling wrappers and fill it with enough meat mixture, making sure that you don't put in too much that it oozes out when you close up the dumpling.















6. Use a little bit of water to wet the edge of the dumpling, so when you close up the dumpling, it stays closed (like an envelope!)

7. When closing the dumping, bend the edges so it has a scalloped look.

8. Continue until all dumping wrappers are used. For me, I prepared the perfect amount of meat mixture with the perfect number of dumpling wrappers!

9. Set the made dumplings onto the floured cookie sheet.
















Pan Fry the Dumplings:

9. Generously oil a nonstick pan or wok, and heat oil up on high.















10. Place dumplings into the pan, standing up.

11. When dumplings turn golden on the bottom, cover the dumplings 1/3 to 1/2 way up with water, and cover the pan. Turn heat on medium.















12. Let the dumplings cook in the boiling water and steam until almost all the water is gone.

13. Remove lid, turn heat to High, until all water evaporates.

14. EAT!

Pinto Bean Bacon Soup

a warm, hearty, filling soup

Pinto Bean Bacon Soup

Ingredients:
- 1 cup of pinto beans, dry
- 4 cups of water
- 1 tbsp of salt to taste
- 4 -6 strips of bacon
- some chicken or pork bones to make broth.

Instructions:
1. To decrease cooking time, soak pinto beans over night. Not a requirement, but who has the time to sit around at the stove all day?
2. Set bones and 4 cups of water to boil then simmer for about 30 minutes to make the broth.
3. Add the soaked pinto beans. Cook for about an hour.
4. Fry up bacon, and break into small pieces.
5. Drain bacon and add bacon to the soup.
6. Add salt to soup.
7. Cook for about 45 minutes or until beans are soft and cooked thoroughly.

Whole Steamed Fish

Ok.. so..
the dish tastes better than it looks, and the whole fish did not look as disgusting in real life, as it does in the pictures!
I usually have no problem cleaning, cooking, and eating a whole fish, but once I uploaded these
whole-fish photos off my camera... I think I might have a problem cooking whole fish from now on!!

Anyways, for those who don't know, this dish is very chinese. So go for this recipe if you want an asian meal.

Whole Steamed Fish

Ingredients:
- 1 fish of your choice (I used milkfish, since it was on sale =D) about 1-2 pounds
- 2 stalks green onion, sliced
- few slices of gigner
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt
- some soy sauce if you want (i did!)

Instructions:
1. Make sure your fish is fresh, gutted, scaled, with incisions across the meat. This allows meat to cook more thoroughly, and easier to take a chunk of meat off when eating.














2. Place fish on a plate. Place half the ginger and half the green onions on top and inside the fish.
3. Pour vinegar over fish.














4. Place fish in a steamer, and steam for about 25 minutes. Around 15-20 minutes if your fish is thin and lightweight.
5. When fish is done, take the fish out of the steamer, and discard any juices. This will reduce the fishy flavor.
6. Heat up the vegetable oil, then fry up the remaining green onion and ginger and few drops of soy sauce.
7. Pour this mixture over the fish. It should smell very fragrant.














8. Consume with steamed white rice.

Whole Stuffed Camel

I was introduced to this lovely recipe for camel today!!

Stuffed Camel

1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
60 eggs
12 kilos rice
2 kilos pine nuts
2 kilos almonds
1 kilo pistachio nuts
110 gallons water
5 pounds black pepper
Salt to taste

Skin, trim and clean camel (once you get over the hump), lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100.

Shararazod Eboli Home Economist, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
http://home.tiac.net/~cri_d/cri/1997/camel.html

Leftover Turkey? Make turkey soup!

When I made the Thanksgiving turkey, after the turkey was carved, I immediately bagged the carcass (with vegetable stuffing) and threw it in the freezer.

I finally decided to take the turkey carcass out and make soup out of the bones, leftover turkey meat, and vegetable stuffing.
Nothing beats hot brothy soup on a chilly evening!!


Brothy (Leftover) Turkey Soup

Ingredients:
- 1 Thanksgiving turkey carcass. (and any other leftover turkey bones you have)
- Handful of excess Thanksgiving turkey (in chunks or shreds)
- Vegetable stuffing from the turkey carcass' cavity
- 3 stalks of celery, chopped
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 Italian squashes, sliced
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 3 tsp salt
- 6 cups boiling water
- Add any herbs if you desire. I didn't, but you sure can.

*note: salt and pepper amount varies depending on your preference, and also on the saltiness of your turkey bones and meat. Adjust accordingly*

Instructions:
1. If your turkey bones/leftovers were in the freezer, defrost your frozen goods.
2. Tear your turkey carcass into small pieces, so they fit into your pot.
3. Fill a pot with 6 cups of water, and bring to a boil.
4. Submerge your turkey carcass, vegetable stuffing, and any turkey bones, and boil for about 40 minutes. This creates the broth for your soup.
5. Skim off any foam or fats on the surface of your broth.
6. Wash and chop all your fresh vegetables















7. Place the carrots and onions into the soup, and boil for about 8 minutes.
8. Toss chopped celery and leftover turkey meat and boil for about 3 minutes.















9. Toss in Italian Squash and bring soup to a boil.
10. Add the salt and black pepper and herbs (optional)
11. Let soup simmer for another 10 minutes, or until desired vegetable tenderness.















12. Soup is done! You can either discard the turkey bones from the soup or enjoy your soup while gnawing on the turkey bones.

Breaded Pesto Pork Chops

A quick post, a quick recipe!
Perfect for pesto fans, such like myself.

Breaded Pesto Pork Chops

Ingredients:

- 3 pork chops

- 2 tbs basil pesto (store bought is fine!)

- 3/4 cup bread crumbs

- ¼ cup parmesan cheese

- salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Wash and pat dry your pork chops
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Sprinkle your pork chops with salt and pepper
   
   
3. Thinly coat the pork chops with pesto
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Mix parmesan cheese and bread crumbs together in a separate bowl
   
   
5. Coat the pork chops in the bread crumb mixture.
   
   
6. Preheat oven to 400 F.
   
   
7. Place pork chops in a oiled baking pan, and spray the top of the pork chops with cooking spray, to make the bread crumbs crunchy.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Bake at 400 F for 15 minutes, and then decrease temperature to 350 for another 20 minutes. Turn the chops halfway.

All done! Close-up shot:

Popular Pumpkin Pie!

I made 2 pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving this year, that received many many praises!!

I also personally feel that these pies were the best pumpkin pies I have ever had, and this was my first time making pumpkin pie too!!

I hope every thing I make in the future will just get better and better.

Popular Pumpkin Pie
for this recipe, I actually followed the recipe printed on the Libby's Pure Pumpkin can but made a few alterations and revisions to the recipe, to my liking :)

Ingredients:
- 1 canned pumpkin, 29 oz. (I used Libby's canned pumpkin)
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2.5 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1.5 tsp ground ginger
- 4 jumbo or large eggs
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cans (2 fl oz each) evaporated milk
- 2 pre-made deep dish pie crusts (you can find this in the frozen section of the grocery store.
You could also make your own pie crust at home, but I feel that is too time consuming and not worth the effort.

Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, cinnamon, salt, and ginger.

2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, then add the vanilla and canned pumpkin. Mix.

3. Combine the sugar and spices into the pumpkin mixture.















4. Mix while slowly adding the evaporated milk.

5. Stir and mix thoroughly.















6. Pour batter evenly between the 2 pie crusts.















7. Preheat the oven to 425 F.

8. Bake pies for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 F and bake for another 50 minutes.

9. Stick a toothpick down the center of each pie. If the toothpick comes out clean, then the pie is done!

Serve with whipped cream if desired. Let pies cool before serving



*note* if you feel that the pie comes out wetter/soggier than you would like, you can add 0.5-1 tsp flour to the pumpkin batter prior to baking.






Such a delicious dessert

Jeff's Yummy Smashed Potatoes

Jeff made the mashed potatoes for our Thanksgiving dinner, and they were wonderful!
Perfect saltiness and texture. Not too dry at all =)
He should contribute to this blog more often.. =D

Jeff's Yummy Smashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
- 2 pounds of potatoes
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup half & half

Instructions:

1. Wash and scrub potatoes.















2. Peel and cut the potatoes into 1 inch cubes.
3. Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes or until potatoes are thoroughly cooked.















4. Drain the potatoes and mash.
5. Add half&half, butter, black pepper, and salt, and mix/beat until seasonings are evenly distributed. An electric hand beater could also be used, but Jeff used his arm muscles instead =D
6. Add more salt or pepper if desired.















(Don't forget to enjoy this with Jen's homemade gravy! =D)