Day 80 - Dumplings Galore

Dumplings.

A lot of people have a big BIG love for them.  My son happens to be one of them.  We’ve made gluten free pot stickers before, and that was my plan for today.  More gluten free pot stickers (which are pretty good).  But I got a little ambitious, decided to change it up, and went with steamed dumplings instead.


I come from California, home of dim sum (2nd home, actually, after, you know, China). Dim sum is Chinese breakfast and while I’ve heard they have some good places in Dallas, I’ve yet to venture that way, and so I decided to try to make some yummy dim sum-like dumplings on my own (with the kids).

They were surprisingly easy.  What got complicated was that we decided to make 5 kinds.  That’s what happens when you have a 10 year old vegetarian, a 13 year old child with celiac disease, some meat-eaters, and a type 1 diabetic all in one household.  You have to meet all needs.

So nothing is particularly easy in our kitchen.  But we’ve done pretty well, and our dumpling extravaganza was a major success.

The great thing about this dumpling adventure was discovering that the gluten free dumplings are gluten free by nature.  The wrappers are JUST like the ones at the dim sum restaurant and that’s just how they are--made of white rice flour and tapioca starch.

We made gluten free pork and gluten free shrimp dumplings.  We made pork dumplings and shrimp dumplings with wonton wrappers.  And we made vegetarian dumplings with bean sprouts, scallions, nappa cabbage, and ginger.

The recipes were from this awesome website all about... DUMPLINGS!

So, if you have an hour... or three... try your own dumpling extravaganza.  You won’t be sorry.

Day 18 - Pan Fried Glazed Pork

Cookbook - Jamie's Food Revolution

Today is Tuesday, if you didn't notice, and I believe we made the most super yummy delicious thing ever. Let the record show that this is only the second time in my memory that I've had pork, aside from sausage and bacon. Pork tenderloins and pork chops are not part of our usual diet.

It was very, very fast and easy to make. You just get some pork chops, put them in a bowl with some olive oil and salt and mix it up. And then you cook it in a pan. After it's cooked you put some maple syrup or honey or apple sauce (or chutney, which we did not have available because it is also not part of our usual diet). We used honey for some and maple syrup for other. Then we squeezed lemon juice on them.

Lovely dark reddy-golden color

Jamie says in his cookbook, and I quote, "Have the confidence to cook them until almost a dark reddy-golden color." First I took it off too early and it didn't have the color or the glaze. So I put it back on and cooked it a little more.

Lovely presentation, right?

The verdict is a lot of thumbs up by me, my brother Alex, Sophie... by everyone. Sophie says, "It was supercalifragalisticexpeialidocious."

A little blurry, but still lovely, right?

We had it with white rice, which was good. 2 THUMBS UP

Until next time...

Jared

Day 16 - Sweet and Sour Pork

Cookbook - Jamie's Food Revolution

Today we, Sophie and I worked together, made some sweet and sour pork. It was quite yummy. I quite enjoyed the experience.

This is Sophie holding our finished dish.

Although I do think I added just a wee bit too much Chinese 5 Spice powder.

I liked the sauce. It was definitely not your regular sweet and sour pork. It's not like the sweet and sour pork with the red sauce. There was a medium dark brown sauce instead. I didn't like the taste the first time it touched my tongue, but then after I took the whole spoonful, it was very yummy. It had a great aftertaste, if I may say so myself. I had 2 helpings.

It was quite easy, like everything has been so far. You cut up all your veggies like onion, bell pepper, cilantro, and ginger.

All our chopped stuff

You cut the meat into bite sized pieces. Then you cook the pork in a wok with oil and the Chinese 5 Spice. After it's browned, you put the pork into a bowl then cook the veggies into the wok, add soy sauce (we used gluten free), balsamic vinegar (sophie says not too much of this), corn starch, and pineapple, the pork and let it simmer down for a few minutes.

We're learning to have all our stuff ready to add

Oh, I forgot to mention that you need to make rice. We already had some from yesterday so we didn't make fresh today, but you should, if you know what I mean.

Put some rice and lettuce on a place, 1/2 of it rice, 1/2 of it lettuce, scoop your pork into the middle--or on the rice or on the lettuce--and sprinkle on some cilantro leaves and sesame seeds and bon apetit, por favor.

The finished Sweet and Sour Pork

DOS (2) THUMBS UP

Thank you for reading our cooking site!

Until next time...