From My Kitchen To Yours: Gyoza

Gyoza. Dumplings. Pot stickers. No matter what you call 'em they are delish. I once walked like 30 minutes into the heart of Chinatown in NYC to get dumplings. Five for a $1. I wish I could do that anytime I pleased, but since I cannot I headed into the kitchen to give my gyoza cravings some justice.

I'm proud to report I tried my hand at making my own and the results were wonderful. Plus the best part is that you can get creative and put whatever you want in these little suckers and they will most likely be awesome.

I was lucky to find a little Asian store in the DC suburbs selling most of my favourite ingredients. Since it's off the beaten path and one of those tiny-aisle, full-on-fish-on-ice types of places, everything is dirt cheap. I got the wrappers for less than a buck.

Once you track down the pre-made dough for the Gyoza (although you can make it if you have a lot of time on your hands) you'll need the following ingredients:
- About a pound of ground chicken for the filling. (I used chicken as per my man's request but beef, shrimp, pork, veggies, tofu can all be used.)
- 1 scallion finely chopped
- 2 cups cabbage (I ended up using Bok Choy because I had an abundance of it laying around and I honestly didn't notice a difference in taste)
- a dash of garlic powder
- 1 egg
- 1 carrot finely chopped
- a little less than half of an onion chopped
- a dash of both vegetable oil and sesame oil
- a pinch of minced garlic
- less than half a cup of water

Make sure you have defrosted the Gyoza wrappers ahead of time. Then you sautee the garlic and onions with in some vegetable oil. Once the onion becomes transcluent in color, add the cabbage, scallion and carrot until the cabbage leaves are wilted. This takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Then throw in your filling, the garlic powder and the egg. Once the meat (or tofu, etc) is cooked through and the egg isn't runny remove from heat.










Now for the fun part....spoon about a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of a gyoza wrapper. Pinch it closed. You can use some water or egg white or oil to seal it.

Then add the sesame oil to the same pan and brown the gyoza on both sides. Make sure not to burn them.

Finally add the water to the pan and cover. The water should come up to less than halfway on the little guys. Let them steam and remove from heat once all the water is gone.










Now get ready to induce some food coma. When I made these the plan was to share with my entire house. The plan miserably failed as none were left in the end. In all honestly I burned a few from the batch making them inedible, but not THAT many. I think the man and I just started eating and couldn't finish until they were all gone.

DIY Project: eyeglass cloth

Last weekend something absolutely dreadful happened...I dropped my Versace glasses (case and all) into a puddle. It wasn't just any puddle. It was a puddle of greasy oil in the Post Office parking lot.

If you know me at all, you know I love my glasses. I also loved the wonderful case and little eyeglass cloth that came with it. The case was able to be salvaged but I decided it was time to trash the wonderful eyeglass cloth -- Versace logo and all.

Thus to get over my grief I decided to create a new eyeglass cloth.

Made of the softest cashmere I had in my stash, I'd say it's better than the cloth that came originally with my glasses.

I also embroidered a little pair of glasses on, because A) it looks cute and B) I have more than enough free time on my hands right now.

DIY Project: bookshelf for too many books on the cheap

It's true, I own way too many things....especially books. So now that I have to add my books to the bf's collection it is obviously time to get a bookcase so there are not random stacks laying around like in my previous place.

We had an empty wall that is perfect the home for our books, but we didn't want to spend a bunch of money at Ikea for something that would break in a year as most of their furniture has in my experience. Thus, we borrowed an idea from my friends Erin & Chippy and decided to build one with wood and garden stones. (Their shelf was for CD's so we had to adjust as necessary for the varying heights of books).

All we needed were 5 pieces of lumber that we later sanded and a shit ton of garden stones:





















We stacked the stones like so:












After stacking the stones, the bookcase became stable:











Thus it was time to fill it up:









I think the bookshelf makes a great focal point for the room. It's also right across from the bed so I'll have something else pleasing to look at every morning (other than the bf who was patient enough to listen to my idea for the bookshelf, then help me make it).

DIY Project: desk for the corner

The bf and I recently moved into the master bedroom of a great house and the room is huge. This is good news as I'm a pack rat who tends to keep everything (which was apparent when my stuff helped to overfill a car and a moving van).

Thus we're trying to keep our new room minimal, yet functional. The bf bought me a great dresser that also doubles as a desk which is perfect for storing my laptop. However, he has a desktop and we needed a place for it without taking up a lot of room.

We found the solution in a folding table from IKEA for about $60. When it is folded in half it fits perfectly in one of our corners.











The shape was perfect but it was kind of an ugly looking. So I decided fabric in a pretty, yet manly design (this is for the bf, not me) would make it an excellent addition to our room. Before covering it with fabric, we gathered some paper bags from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and cut them into long strips which we covered the table with to protect it as we might want to use the table for something else down the line.











Once covered with the strips of paper bags it looked like a miniature ironing board:











Then we flipped it over and began to cover it with fabric. It was easier to do so with the table upside down, especially when working with a hot glue gun that pretty much burned me every chance it got:











When finished it look like so:











And finally all set up in the corner:

sock it to you

I've been dreading the attempt to make socks ever since I started knitting. A few weeks ago I got over my fear and about 2.5 hours later I had to frog the whole thing. It looked like it would fit a baby which is cool cause I love babies. And I'm sure a few of my soon-to-be expecting friends would love some socks. The problem is the socks were supposed to be for ME. Thus, this business of making socks isn't as easy as I thought it would be and it confirms why I've been subconsciously avoiding them.

Yet, I'm back on the sock bandwagon and so far things are going swell. Now I just need to get used to knitting with 5 needles and feel like I'm wrestling an ornery octopus.

See what I am about the mess of controlling 5 DPN's at once?









And this time there's lots of ribbing so hopefully the sock will stretch to fit properly: