Pork Potstickers

Josh absolutely loves Potstickers. So I though I would make some for the party with his friends. These turned out INCREDIBLE!! They were a little labor intensive to make, however they were totally worth it. The other good thing about these is that you could make the whole batch of them cook just a few, freeze the rest, then pull out a couple at a time to cook when you have company pop over. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients:

Filling:

3 cups minced nappa cabbage (also called Chinese cabbage) leaves (about 1/2 medium head)

3/4 tsp table salt

3/4 lb ground pork

4 minced scallions (about 6 tablespoons)

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

4 tsp soy sauce

1 1/2 tsp minced or fresh grated ginger

1 medium garlic clove, minced

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

Wrappers:

1 package wonton wrappers ( it was the only thing I could find, I really don't know how many it made, probably at least 40 or so?)

dish of water

2 Tbsp vegetable oil( I used olive oil)

Directions:

1. For the filling: Toss cabbage with the salt in colander set over a bowl and let stand until cabbage begins to wilt, about 20 minutes. Press the cabbage gently with rubber spatula to squeeze out any excess moisture (I ended up having to grab it with my hands and squeeze out the liquid), then transfer to a medium bowl. Add the remaining filling ingredients and mix thoroughly to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until mixture is cold, at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours.

2. For the dumplings: Place 1 rounded teaspoon of filling in the center of the wonton wrapper. Use the photos below and this website to help you know how to fold the wontons. I did find it very helpful to place water on the edge that you are trying to join. It helps the wonton wrapper stick to itself.

Place one teaspoon of filling in the center of the wrapper.

Fold in half once.

Fold in half the same direction again.

Fold the corners onto each other like shown in the website directions. It's really hard to explain, but they end up looking like "nurse's caps".

Transfer the dumplings to a baking sheet and repeat with the remaining wrappers and filling. The dumplings can be wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 1 day or frozen for up to one month. Once frozen, do not thaw before cooking, start directly with step 3.

3. Line a large plate with a double layer of paper towels; set aside. brush 1 tablespoon of the oil over the bottom of a 12inch non stick skillet and arrange half of the dumplings in the skillet, with a flat side down (overlapping slightly if necessary). place the skillet over medium-high heat and cook the dumplings, without moving, until golden brown on the bottom, about 5 minutes.

4. Reduce heat to low, add 1/2 cup of water and cover immediately. Continue to cook, covered until most of the water is absorbed and the wrappers are slightly translucent, about 6 minutes.


Uncover the skillet, increase the heat to medium-high, and continue to cook without stirring until the dumpling bottoms are well browned and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes more.


Slide the dumplings onto the paper towel-lined plate, browned slide facing down, and let drain briefly (if you let them sit too long they will start to stick together. Transfer the dumplings to a serving platter with scallion dipping sauce.

Let the skillet cook until just warm, then wipe it clean with a wad of DRY paper towels and repeat step 3 and 4.

Scallion Dipping Sauce:

Makes 3/4 cup

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp mirin

2 Tbsp water

1 tsp chili oil (optional)

1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 medium scallion, white and green parts, minced

Combine all ingredients in bowl and serve.

Orange Cranberry Barbecue Meatballs

These were something my mom used to make for our Holiday Open house at Christmastime. They are quite delicious. and very very easy to make.

Makes about 24 meatballs.

Meatball Ingredients:

1 lb. ground turkey

1 egg white

1 green onion with top sliced

2 tsp grated orange peel

1 tsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/8 tsp ground red pepper (optional)

Sauce Ingredients

1 can (16 oz) jellied cranberry sauce

1/2 cup barbecue sauce

Directions

1. Combine cranberry sauce and barbecue sauce in slow cooker. Cover; cook on HIGH 20-30 minutes or until cranberry sauce is melted and mixture is hot.

2. Meanwhile, place egg white in medium bowl; beat lightly. Add turkey, green onion, orange peel, soy sauce, black pepper and ground red pepper, if desired; mix until well blended. Shape into 24 balls.

3. Spray large nonstick skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Add meatballs to skillet; cook over medium hear 8 to 10 minutes or until meatballs are no longer pink in center, carefully turning occasionally to brown evenly. Add to heated sauce in slow cooker; stir gently to coat.

4. Reduce heat to Low. Cover; cook 3 hours. Transfer meatballs to serving plate.

It really is a simple thing to make and you really could make the meatballs ahead of time then just stick them in the crock pot a few hours before your guests arrive to heat everything together.

Cooking up a storm

So last weekend Josh and I went to Buffalo to celebrate his birthday with his friends and family. Friday night we had a get together with his friends and since his friends so graciously let us use their house I made sure I had plenty of food to feed everyone.

I made several different dishes.

-Orange Cranberry Barbecue Meatballs

-Pork Potstickers

-Bean and Corn Salsa

and of course

-Mint Oreo Cupcakes

I'll post these each in a different post so they are easily linkable from the side menu.

Chocolate Fluffernutter Cupcakes

I decided I would bake Josh some cupcakes for Valentine's day. He loves chocolate and Peanut Butter so I thought these would be really good.

I used a boxed cake chocolate cake recipe just because this was going to be an invention anyways, so I at least wanted the cake part to taste good. I used Devil's food cake which was really good, but next time I would try something that would be a little firmer. It was hard to hold these and bit them. They were really moist, they fell apart very easily


I then used a disposable piping bag with a large round tip to pipe marshmallow fluff into the cupcakes. THis was rather messy and didn't result in a lot of fluff inside the cupcake. Next time I will use the idea I found afterward from Baking Bites and cut out a cone shaped section and then pipe the fluff that way.

I then made some peanut butter buttercream frosting from a recipe I found on the Wilton website.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/3 cup butter
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 4 cups (approx. 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar, sifted

Makes: About 3 cups.

Instructions

Cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add peanut butter, milk and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Keep icing covered with a damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

The frosting tasted great. However, it was rather liquidy. It really needed more confectioners sugar. If I make this frosting recipe again I would wait to add the milk until after the confectioners sugar. Also I should have let the frosting cool in the fridge and set it would have piped much better and have been more firm.

The finished cupcake. I did add some cookie crumbles to the top which tasted really nice.


A cross section of the cupcakes. Unfortunately when I went to cut this one, it toppled over before I could cut it so the icing was all messed up. But you can still see the piped mashmallow fluff in the center.


Over all these were really delicious. Josh has eated 5 today. I would modify these with the few things above, but they were still delicious!

Wedding Items for Sale

For sale from my October 2008 Wedding

Shippable Items

Unused items from bathroom baskets-$10


2 Fall Themed Rectangular Baskets - $5ea or both for $8.50

2 small green gourds- $5 for both

1 painted 6" terracotta pot-$5


4 4" galvanized pails-$2ea or all for $6

Amber colored Pillar Candle Holder (used for memorial Candle) -$5


Olive Green tea light holders -$5 for both


Various spools of fall colored ribbons, some new, some partly used

#1 (orange/green double sided)-$2

#2 (4 spools of NEW brown organdy ribbon)-$3 for all
#3-(orange shimmer ribbon) - $2
#4(Gold Sheer ribbon)-$1
#5(Navy and Yellow skinny ribbon, only used about 1ft of each)-$2 for both
#6 (orange sheer and opaque ribbon NEW)-$4
#7(3 spools Fall printed ribbon) -$2

Spool of 2mm "pearls"-$4


Satin Cording (approx 1yrd)-$1

Ivory and white heart Garter (NEW)-$1

5mm flat sequins (approx 1000)-$4


Burgundy Organza favor bags 3x4 (approx 30)-$3

1 Leaf pomander/kissing ball-$4

Large Grapevine Pumpkins-$10 for both

Funkin filled will fall florals - $7
Foam-core covered with batting and Brown Leaf embossed fabric-$5 for both SOLD



*If you are interested in any of the items, please email me at tanaylor@gmail.com
*The buyer will pay shipping for all items through USPS Flat rate boxes as long as the item fits into one of those boxes. If you would like insurance on the item you are purchasing please let me know when you email me.
*Some of the items are very delicate, I will do my best to package them so they won't break, but of course sometimes things happen.
* I will accept pay pal payments for the items and shipping costs, unless the item is being picked up, I will then accept cash payment.

10 things...

So since I really don't have anything exciting to post I figured I'd at least write down all the things that have been going wrong... I mean on.. yeah on... in the past month or so.

1) I applied for Unemployment at the beginning of Jan.  I had to go through hell to get it because my employer didn't report my wages to the unemployment people.  So I had to file an appeal and go through a big old hassel, but I got approved.  I just got my first payment last week.

2)We are moving out of our apt in two weeks.  We have been periodically going down to do packing, and pick up some of the boxes so we don't have to get as big of a truck.

3) We are living at my parents house.  It sucks, but it is pretty much all we can do until we find jobs and an apt.

4)I've applied for a bazzillion jobs, gotten a few emails back, mostly scamish type stuff.  I am highly interested to hear more about a retouching artist position I applied for and whom responded back to me this week.

5) Josh still isn't any closer to getting his PhD.  I really really hate his advisor, it is taking her forever to get stuff back to him.  However, he is also dragging his feet, mostly because he is still depressed I think.

6)Last week I took my car in to be inspected in PA, just so I didn't have to worry about getting it done right away here.  Well it would need over $2000 just to pass inspection.  The car is only worth at most $1500.  I'll be bringing it in to my mechanic here in NY to see if it will pass NY inspection, hopefully he can at least get me another 6mths out of the car. We definitely can't afford too many repairs right now.  Though I know there is a problem with the power steering that would need to be fixed.

7)Our apt company tried to make us renew our lease because we missed the 120 day cut off to opt out(NYE).  Also even though we are leaving due to no jobs they will not let us out of the rest of our lease, unless they find someone to take it over.

8)Josh's student loan money still hasn't come in.  We cannot pay bills until this money is in. Bills include rent for an apt we are not living in, my health insurance(hopefully this will be changing asap though since I can get on the NYS health one or medicare/aid, whichever is not for old people, my student loan payments, josh's car insurance (especially important now that that is the only drivable car), electricity for the apt we are not living in, Josh's credit card bills, my credit card bills, and you know the rest of those types of things.  He called today and they told him he needed to fill out a full time status waiver thing since he is only taking one credit hour.  Well the issue is, he did do this over two weeks ago, maybe more than that.  I am so ready for him to be done dealing with that awful biology department.

9)Josh still doesn't have many job leads. He did apply for a position with the Army Corp of Engineers.  He would be a civilian, but there could be an off chance that he might have to go overseas(Iraq), though a friend of his that also works for them, said that it is really more of an optional thing, though Josh is sure he would have to travel. He never heard back from Roswell about either of the two jobs he applied for there.

10)Did I mention we have no money.  I feel bad mooching off of my parents, but it sucks.  After I get my NYS license on Monday, I'll be starting to go to temp agencies here, even though we want to end up in Buffalo. Also considering prostituting myself now...or selling organs.. either one sounds equally unappealing.  

I really hope things start to turn around for us soon.  I figure bad things come in threes... though right now we're going on 103 I feel like.  I hope that we can at least get Josh's loan money within the next week.  Though right now not paying rent doesn't seem so bad.  We want to get out of the lease at the end of this month anyways...... maybe they will just kick us out if we don't pay soon? One can only hope somehow we can get out of that soon.

If anyone has happy news for me, feel free to leave it as a comment.

Chicken Tacos

So I wanted to post this today after last night's yummy dinner. I had wanted to make something with chicken since we had brought it back to my parents house and it needed to be cooked.  I wanted something healthy, something a little different, but very yummy.  I did some searching on the web to find something that looked like everyone would like it.  I stumbled upon multiple recipes for chicken tacos and decided that that would be good.  One recipe in particular stood out because it used a homemade Taco Seasoning.  That definitely was it.

Chicken Taco's with Homemade Taco Seasoning

Seasoning:

1/4 cup dried minced onion

1 Tbsp chili powder

2 tsp paprika

2 tsp dried crushed red pepper flakes

1-1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp marjoram

1 Tbsp salt (I used sea salt)

1/4 tsp pepper

2 Tbsp corn starch

1 Tbsp dried minced garlic

1 tsp ground cumin

Prep:

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  It will make the equivalent of 6 packets of store bought taco seasoning. 2 Tbsp is the equivalent of 1 packet.  You can reserve the rest in an air tight container for later use.

Chicken Tacos

Chicken breasts (I used 5 and it made 6.5 large tacos)

Taco Seasoning

Green Pepper (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

Lettuce

Tomato

Salsa

Cheese 

Whole Wheat Taco or burrito shells (we happened to use burrito since we had them on hand)

Other toppings you might like for your Tacos

Prep:

Place chicken breasts into a pan with 1-1/2 cups water and 2 Tbsp of the homemade seasoning mix.  When the chicken is halfway done or fully done, remove the chicken shred it and add it back to the pan with the water and seasoning.  At this point you'll want to add in the chopped pepper and onion to the pan.  When the chicken is cooked take a taste to make sure you don't need to add more seasoning to the mix. When the liquid has evaporated and the pepper and onion have fully cooked you are ready to eat!  Top however you would like.

This is a great healthy meal.  The seasoning I might tweek again next time. It might have just needed a bit more, or I'm just getting used to this new seasoning.  I really liked it though because it didn't taste like I was ingesting a full day's worth of sodium like I do with the store bought seasoning.

Next time I make these I'm going to make sure I take pictures to add to the post.  I completely forgot this time around.

Happy Superbowl Sunday!!