Gyozas

I love gyozas! As an appetizer, or paired with an Asian noodle soup, these little fried dumplings are always delicious. I got this recipe from my dear friend Sandi (see her recipe HERE) and revamped it a little for my tastes. The wonton wrappers are a little thinner and lighter then regular gyoza dumpling wrappers, but they are a good size and easily available at most grocery stores.

Gyozas

500 g ground pork
1/4 cup fresh grated ginger
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 green onions, chopped fine
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp vegetable oil
pinch of red pepper flakes, or squirt of sriracha
1 egg
wonton wrappers

Mix the pork, ginger, garlic, green onions, soy sauce, oil and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Beat the egg in a separate bowl.

Take out 2 baking sheets and cover with damp paper towel.

Spoon about 2-3 tsp of pork mixture onto the wrapper. Brush a little egg with your fingers around the edges and fold wrapper in half, into a triangle with the meat in the middle. Fold up the bottom corner of the triangle. Make sure fold these tightly, as any extra air in the gyoza will have it puff up and separate later.

Place on a baking sheet and cover with the dampened paper towel. Continue until you run out of filling (Nick and I made about 40).

 If you're not going to cook them right away you can place the baking sheet of gyozas in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour, before putting them in a bag.

To cook them, place a skillet on high and add gyozas. Toast on one side until golden brown. Add 1/4 cup water and cover with a lid to steam for 5 minutes.

Eat them with Sandi's delicious dipping sauce!

Gratin Dauphinois

 My wonderful friend Sandi recently moved into her own townhouse, so to celebrate we got together to make a fabulous meal! Below is the recipe for the potatoes we made which were by far the best part of the meal (who doesn't love garlic, cream and potatoes?!).

Gratin Dauphinois

1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups whipping cream
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs potatoes, sliced very thin (best to use a mandolin)

Bring first four ingredients to a boil over medium low heat, in saucepan. Remove from heat.

Layer ½ of the potatoes in a glass baking dish – pour over the garlic and ½ of the sauce. Layer remaining potatoes and cover with last of the sauce. Press potatoes into the milk.

Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees F, then press potatoes into the milk again. Continue cooking for another 25 minutes.

Check the potatoes and cook a little longer if they aren't soft enough to your liking.

Very flavourful!

Cooking doesn't happen without friends!

Good cooking is rarely a individual event - there are a lot of people who inspire and support my food endeavours and I thought I'd take the time to showcase some awesome people:


First of all, my boyfriend Nick, who eats whatever food experiment I put in front of him, and most importantly washes the dishes afterwards!

Beyond that, he is also a very talented artist and designed my title banner!



If you want to see more of his art check out his BLOG.

My former roommate and very close friend Stephanie has joined the food blog ranks and is posting all her amazing baking recipes! She's a whiz at easy, healthy cooking so you can expect some great stuff from her!



Here is her BLOG.

Another close friend and pie maker extraordinaire, Sandi, will likely be talked about a lot on this blog as we cook/bake together quite frequently. She's a science teacher, and great photographer so her post are always fun!


Her blog is HERE.