INSOMNIA.

This is my current condition.  Which is strange, since you think I’d be tired considering I just got home from school after spending what seemed like an eternity editing a television assignment.  I’m really just being whiny, I actually really like all my journalism classes and know that I won’t get anywhere without a few (several) late (attached to my iPhone) nights.  But if I’m going to waste away in an editing suite, I must reward myself by blogging.  So here we are.  Welcome to my online nest of sleep deprivation.

I know I’m a little late off the mark for the whole Chinese New Years thing, but I simply don’t have time to post things in time for actual holidays.  What this means is that my Valentine’s Day posts are very likely going to come popping up sometime around February 17.  You have been warned.

I made these potstickers/Chinese dumplings/whatever you want to call them with my friend Gord (author of the Savoury Starving Student, check it!) this past Sunday.  It turned out to be quite the afternoon adventure, and we trekked through the streets of Chinatown just as the Chinese New Years parade was underway.  It was super cool and I thoroughly enjoyed embracing my half-heritage for a change.  Finding the perfect little Chinese grocers, I was pleasantly pleased to find several boxes of these special chocolate-filled panda cookies that I really like.  I haven’t had them in years, so bought four boxes to compensate (which I am balancing with lots of fruits and vegetables, don’t worry mom).  Very yummy.

Back at Gord’s house, we prepared the filling for the dumplings, which was a combination of ground pork, ginger (SO GOOD), green onion, cabbage, etc. etc.  Gord got the recipe from the blog Use Real Butter, and I was pleased to see that there were detailed photos to guide us along every step of the way.  These detailed photos were especially helpful when it came to shaping the dumplings themselves.  It took Gord and I awhile to get the hang of the technique, and I made several dumplings that looked like that little hat the pope wears (I’m really sorry I don’t know the proper name for it, sorry if I offended anyone!) before finally making something that resembled a dumpling shape.

Now, you will notice by looking at the photos on the original blog that the dumplings in my pictures look kind of different.  This is because I took these pictures two days after we actually made them, and the poor little things did not bode well sitting uncooked in the fridge.  By the time I tried to take them out of their ziplock bag home, the dumpling skin had moulded together and become one mushy tangled membrane.  I tried my best to coax each one out in one piece, cooing at them in a ridiculous way as I tried my hardest to unstick them from each other.  Talk about siamese dumplings.  Anyways, you should know that these looked nicer the day that we made them and that, because of a series of bad food blogger mistakes, I managed to make them look like clumps.  You get the point though, right?

No matter how strange and tumor-like these potstickers looked, they were just as delicious as leftovers.  They tasted exactly like the dumplings my mom used to buy at the local farmer’s market when I was young.  Flashes from the past in food form are the best.

Also, yes, the soya sauce is in a shot glass.  I’m a student, cut me some slack.

PS: okay also just realized that these definitely look like little dumpling turds.  The bottoms are a bit brown, but again I must reassure that they tasted awesome.  Don’t judge a dumpling by its…strange outer shell?