Tag: First

Pork Dumplings

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These dumplings are far from beautiful. Like pies and my prior attempts at pierogies, I am still bad a sealing foods. Don’t let these dumpling’s appearance fool you though, because these dumplings were very tasty! This recipe takes a while to make, so give yourself an hour of just prep time if you plan on making your own wrappers. You could also just by store wrappers and that will help a ton. Learn from my mistakes by taking the advice next. First, make sure your dough isn’t too sticky for your wrappers. If the dough tries to stick to your hand, add more flour. Finally, these will stick to the pan once all the liquid is out, so use a stiff spatula and scrape the bottom of the pan to get that nice crisp bottom. You could also steam them, but I don’t have a decent steamer basket, so this faux steaming will work for me. These dumplings are savory and have so much flavor. The soy dipping also helps even out the flavor and is necessary for this recipe. This recipe makes 20 dumplings or 3 adult servings.

Pork Dumplings Recipe CardDownload

What You Will Need

Wrappers

  • 1 1/2 Cups Flour
  • 1/2 Cup Warm Water
  • Rolling pin
  • Cling wrap

Filling

  • 1/2 lb Pork, ground
  • 1/2 Medium Onion, finely diced
  • 2 Garlic cloves, minced
  • Ginger paste
  • Sesame Oil
  • Mixing Bowl
  • Frying pan and Lid
  • Stiff Spatula
  • Soy sauce, for serving

Directions

Making Wrappers

1. Mix together in a bowl flour and water until the dough comes together. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough should not be sticky. Once dough is formed, wrap in cling wrap for 30 minutes to rest.

2. Once rested, turn out onto floured work surface. Divide into 20 balls and cover with cling wrap when not working with them. Roll out each ball into a 3 inch circle. Set aside on floured surface.

Making Pork Dumplings

  1. Mix together in a mixing bowl, pork, garlic, onion, ginger, and sesame oil.

2. In the center of your wrappers, add 1 Tbsp pork mixture. Fold in half and seal edges. Begin heating your frying pan over medium heat.

3. Once hot, add enough dumplings to fit in pan without touching. Add 1/3 cup water, and cover for 5 minutes and cook undisturbed. Remove the lid and cook until all the water disappears and the bottom of the pan begins to turn a dark brown. Remove from heat. Using spatula, free your dumplings from the pan, plate and serve.

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Garden Amending and Planting Garlic

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If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen the post I added yesterday about planting garlic. This is the first year I am seriously trying to grow garlic, and so I’ve done a lot of research and I’m very excited to see what I can get. But, isn’t this garlic gorgeous! I bought these three varieties, all three are organic, disease free, and heirloom varieties. These varieties cam from MIGardener.com. They are not a sponsor, and many varieties are sold out or selling out fast. With that out of the way, before I could plant my garlic, I first had to pull my remaining plants from my raised beds and fabric bags. With this, I was able to save several Parris Island lettuce seeds. I will include those steps at the bottom of this post. I then amended my raised beds, then I planted my garlic.

My first frost day is only 2 weeks away when I planted the garlic yesterday. It is recommended planting garlic at least 3 weeks before first frost, but we just got over a cold snap yesterday where we had 4 nights of frost. The weather is calling for warm temperatures for the next week, so I’m taking a gamble that we won’t be getting another frost for a couple more weeks.

To amend my beds, I first pulled all my plants, but my marigolds. It was just a personal choice to keep them. I think they are beautiful and have a lot of life left in them, so it didn’t feel right pulling them yet, so I just worked around them. To make up for this, I will add some fertilizer in their place next spring to add more nutrients in those spots. Once I pulled the plants, I then pulled down all my netting. This made it easier to move the soil around. Our beds are 8 ft by 4 ft and pressure treated. We added in one fabric bag to one bed and two fabric bags to the other bed. We then split a bag of peat moss between the two beds. We also added 2 bags of aged cow manure into each bed and mixed it all into the top 4 inches of each bed. The reason we added the fabric bags was because the dirt in them had a lot of clay and dried out very quickly. We added 2 bags to one bed because the soil in that second bed was very poor, so we wanted more organic matter in the bed, so we added more dirt. You could also add potting soil if you needed to fill your beds more, but potting soil is expensive, so if top soil were an option, it would be better. I aim for a ratio of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost/manure, and 1/3 top soil for a healthy and balanced soil.

  • Plant garlic rows 6 inches apart
  • Plant garlic cloves 6 inches apart in a row
  • Place garlic cloves 2-3 inches under ground
  • Cover garlic with 4-6 inches of hay or mulch before your first frost
  • Plant garlic at least 3 weeks before your first frost to allow time for root development before they go into dormancy
  • Place chicken wire/hardware cloth over your beds to prevent animals from digging
  • Uncover garlic once risk of frost has passed
  • Water garlic often in the fall and spring and fertilize often in the spring and summer; garlic is a heavy feeder
  • Garlic is ready once the outer 1-2 leafs are dead and dry, any more than that and the garlic won’t dry and will just rot instead

Parris Island lettuce makes yellow flowers, that once fertilized become white fluffs with seeds attached. To get the seed, simply remove the heads that have already gone to seed, remove the stem, then remove the fluff from the seed. You only need a few flowers to get lots of seeds.

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First Post

This is not only my first blog post, but this is my first time doing this kind of thing. I was talking to my husband and we decided that it would be really fun to create a blog in order to share what we are up to with those who might be interested, but also to keep track of some of our projects and what we feel can be improved for the future. Learn a little bit more about us by reading our About page, or just continue reading to see some of our DIY projects, life updates, or interesting recipes I’ve tried/made! Thank you for your time!

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