Dumplings!

I have been wanting to cook my own dumplings for awhile. However, with the Christmas season hustle & bustle increasing exponentially by the day, I decided not to bother with making the dumpling dough from scratch (though it's still on my to do list to try). I looked at quite a few recipes trying to find a vegetarian filling that I thought would be tasty and determine whether a pre-cooked filling is preferable. I ended up creating a blend of a couple different recipes and have definitely sided with the pre-cooked filling camp! These take a while to do so a dumpling day with a friend would be far more fun. I think my filling might make about 100-125 dumplings, so you could also cut this recipe in half if you just want enough for a single meal. Or use the extra filling as a taco filling or over steamed rice.

Filling

Raw Dumplings

Beautifully fried/steamed dumplings with sauce

Vegetarian Dumplings
1 1/2 c. finely grated cabbage
1 1/2 c. finely grated carrot
5 green onions, finely chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1 can water chestnuts, diced
2-3 Tbs minced ginger
sesame oil
soy sauce
rice vinegar
fish sauce (or oyster sauce)
1/2 c. cilantro, finely chopped
dumpling wrappers (100?)
**Optional - can replace some of the veggies with crumbled, marinated tofu

1. Heat 2-3 Tbs sesame oil (or canola oil) in a deep skillet and add ginger and garlic. Saute until fragrant.
2. Add cabbage, carrot, green onions, and water chestnuts. Saute on medium heat for 3-5 minutes until veggies have wilted just a bit. While they cook, drizzle on a bit of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and fish sauce to taste. I probably did one to two circles of the pan with soy sauce and rice vinegar and a couple of dashes of fish sauce. The filling should taste good on its own before it goes in the dumpling. There should be almost no liquid in the pan when you're done cooking.
3. Remove filling from heat and stir in cilantro.
4. Open the dumpling wrappers and keep covered with a damp cloth. Work on one to two wrappers at a time. Place a rounded 1/2 tsp of filling in the centre of the wrapper. Use a finger or brush to moisten along half of the edge of the dumpling. Fold and crimp the edges so it is sealed.
5. Lay out dumplings on parchment paper. If you're going to cook them soon, keep covered with damp cloth. If not, fill a pan and then put in the freezer to freeze. Once the dumplings are completely frozen, put them in a ziplock bag and store for later!
6. To cook. Heat canola oil in a deep skillet with lid. Put 10-12 dumplings in the pan and let cook until browned and a bit crispy on one side. Pour in 1/4 c. water (don't get splattered!) and quickly cover with lid. Let steam 2-3 minutes until cooked.
7. Serve with dipping sauce!

Cooking Doldrums

Honestly, I'm starting to get more than a bit disheartened with my last couple of weeks of cooking. If I believed in jinxes, I would say I was jinxed. I got the flu shot for the first time ever and promptly got a 2 week long cold.

I remade the pumpkin bread recipe that I raved about - half of the bread was perfectly cooked, the other half, when we finally got to it, was a mess of uncooked raw dough. After 65 minutes of baking!!! Utterly baffled. So sure that I mixed everything thoroughly before pouring it into the loaf pan.

I made pie dough - pie dough, something I usually do quite competently. This time instead of using all butter, I actually followed joy of cooking's recipe and used appropriate amounts of shortening and butter instead. I could not get the pie crust off the counter without it tearing into a hundred pieces. The top of my pie looks like I took a bunch of pie dough scraps and flung them haphazardly over the surface - which is basically the only thing I could do.

Not even cooking related, I tried to make one of my friend's a baby shower present. Yep it also got ruined.

I am getting to the point where I am afeared of baking. I hate to put in the time and effort and love, not to mention the cost of ingredients, and come out with something disappointing or inedible.

Is there any glass half full optimism to this situation?
I finally tried the new york times gluten-free pumpkin dumplings recipe and have to say, pairing them with a coconut milk/masala was pretty darn genius. But I think the recipe could be improved a bit by actually cooking the dumplings in a soup/stew/masala rather than in boiling salted water. And/or adding cumin/coriander to the dumpling dough itself. The recipe did let me use up a large delicata-type squash rather than using canned pumpkin. So I suppose that's a small plus?

Got it from http://villabloggera.com/tag/blah/

Peach Cobbler

The peach cobbler recipe that never fails: Thank you Allrecipes.com! Truly, this cobbler is a joy to my little transplanted Southern heart, not only because it involves peaches (my very favorite fruit), but particularly because of the crust. In this recipe, the batter rises up through the peaches and a ridiculous amount of melted butter to produce an amazingly sweet crunchy edge where it browns and a moist chewy layer of dough underneath. Fantastic when served hot with whipped cream or ice cream and equally delicious when eating by the large spoonful from the pan the next morning for breakfast :)

Peach Cobbler
1/2 c. butter, in a 9 x 13 pan, melted
1 29 oz can sliced peaches (don't use the liquid) (or an equivalent amount of fresh sliced peaches/thawed frozen peaches)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 Tbs flour
1 c. white sugar
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 small pinch salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 c. milk 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. You can put the 9x13 pan with the 1/2 c. butter in the oven to melt as the oven heats.
2. Combine the peaches, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, and 1 Tbs flour in a large bowl. Stir and set aside.
3. Combine sugar, flour, baking powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and pinch of salt. Whisk milk into dry ingredients until smooth.
4. Pour batter over melted butter in the 9x13 pan. Spoon peach mixture evenly over batter.
5. Bake for ~ 1 hour, edges should be nicely browned, and the centre should be mostly firm to the touch. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Gratuitous Liquid Nitrogen Photos of Making Buttermilk
Ice Cream (sorry no recipe - M. made it up on the spot)

Exciting, no?

Pumpkin Fail! Pumpkin Granola Bars & Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt

I was so excited about this recipe, really really excited. What could be a better fall snack than a pumpkin chocolate chip granola bar? The photos were so pretty, with the shiny blue ribbon and parchment paper packaging, but honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out how this recipe is getting such high circulation on the internet. In retrospect, my common sense alarm should have gone off in a recipe that asked for 3 1/2 c. rolled oats and only 1 c. of liquid -- how are those oats going to cook? The answer is - they're not. Okay and I confess I didn't follow the recipe perfectly - I took out 1/4 c. of brown sugar and I added an egg, but really I don't think that's the reason why these bars are incredibly incredibly chewy. Not like a chewy granola bar chewy but like chewy as in a cow ruminating on cud chewy. As in the only thing I can do with them is try to crumble them up and pour milk over them and pretend I'm eating an oatmeal/cereal hybrid.

And then there was this recipe: Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt - sounds tasty - like frozen pumpkin cheesecake but healthier right? Lesson: Don't be deceived by photos that like some kind of siren calling lure you in promising untold delights only to crash your cooking ship upon the rocks of a grainy/unscoopable/unpalatable dish. Who knows, maybe with vanilla yogurt as opposed to kefir yogurt, it might work, but I doubt the texture would be that different....

*SIGH* Tomorrow is another day right?

More Fall Photos!

Remembrance Day - Walk Around Stanley Park Seawall

Cute Molly Photos! She is obsessed with the rug in front of our sink...

There is lots of rolling...

And grooming... usually followed by more rolling..

 

Pumpkin Extravaganza Continues... Pumpkin Bread!

So I recently did a pumpkin loaf bake-off (competing against myself of course!) to see which of two pumpkin loaf recipes came out on top: the Epicurious recipe for Pumpkin-Walnut Bread versus the food.com recipe for Pumpkin Bread. Now it may well be due to under-baking the Epicurious recipe that it was not my favorite of the two, but I wasn't all that happy with the flavor either. I liked the less cloyingly sweet flavor of the second recipe. When I baked the food.com recipe the first time, I did not have any applesauce on hand so I used 1/2 c. oil in total, and instead of water, I used the whey from kefir cheese! It does produce a smaller loaf (8x4" as opposed to a 9x5"). 

I recently baked this loaf again with a few more variations. I used 1/4 c. homemade applesauce (which had no added sugar), and reduced the sugar in the recipe to 1/2 c. + 2Tbs. I was also a bit lazy and tried substituting 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spices for the spices listed in the recipe below, but I think it is indeed better with the spice amounts shown below. This produces a moist loaf - not sweet at all. If you want a sweet loaf, use 3/4 c. sugar with the applesauce. If you use apple juice instead of water, and decide to add raisins, the bread will be even sweeter still.

Pumpkin Bread
3/4 c. sugar (or reduce to 1/2 c. + 2 Tbs)
1/4 c. oil
1/4 c. applesauce
2 eggs
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp all spice
1/2-1 tsp vanilla
1 c. pure pumpkin
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. + 3 Tbs flour
1/3 c. water, kefir whey, or apple juice
3/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
3/4 c. raisins (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8 x 4 loaf pan.
2. Whisk sugar, oil and applesauce together. Beat in eggs. Whisk pumpkin, spices, vanilla and water (or juice) in.
3. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.
4.  Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until all the dough is moistened. Fold in nuts and raisins.
5. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 70-80 minutes until done.
6. Cool on a rack.

Another quick bread

I came across this recipe when I was looking for an easy bread to cook in a limited amount of time (i.e. when you don't have the time to let things rise with yeast). Most quick breads I'm familiar with are either tea breads (pumpkin bread, banana bread, etc.), brown breads (think molasses and Boston), or cornbread - but rarely something I would happily use for a sandwich loaf - until now! Not only that, I also found that I could use up kefir yogurt in place of the buttermilk! Two birds, one stone. It was a good day.

Quick Wheat Bread
2 c. bread flour
2 c. whole wheat flour (I have also tried using 1 c. whole wheat & 1 c. spelt)
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 egg
1 3/4 c. buttermilk (I used 1 1/2 c. kefir yogurt + milk and 2 Tbs vinegar up to the total amount - you can use any combo of yogurt+ milk or just buttermilk)
2 Tbs melted butter, slightly cooled
Optional: Sesame seeds and/or sunflower seeds (herbs might be nice too)

1. Sift dry ingredients together
2. Beat egg in a small bowl, then beat in buttermilk and butter.
3. Fold wet into dry ingredients, adding seeds in.
4. Butter and flour an 8 x 4" pan (this is essential to getting a tall loaf!) and pour batter into pan.
5. Bake at 400 degrees F for ~50 minutes. Bread should sound hollow when tapped on the top.
6. Cool on a rack and then store in a ziplock bag for freshness.