Meatless Monday and Vegetable Dumplings
03
Dec 2012
One New Years Eve, shortly after I moved to Boston, I had the brilliant idea to make spring rolls for our party. Little did I know that I would spend hours in the kitchen during the gala chopping and frying up a storm. Luckily my friends didn’t mind keeping me company in our tiny spot and they ate those delights until there were no more to be had. I learned an important lesson about prep work and getting ingredients in place before you’re ready to go.
Such was the case when I thought I’d take a stab at vegetable dumplings.
The recipe comes from Deb Perelman of the Smitten Kitchen who was in town last week celebrating the release of her new book. It is great to see so many bloggers having success in the publishing industry with cooking and design books. All the time and hard work is paying off, and it’s exciting to see companies take notice of the influence bloggers have in their respective niches.
So back to the point of my New Years story-there is a lot of chopping in the recipe, and if you do that first and then come back to the rest, it makes for a more enjoyable cooking experience {at least for me-my shoulders start to ache}.
I would suggest cutting the tofu smaller than I did, it makes it easier to seal the dumplings. And you could certainly seal them flat, instead of making the pleats. I happen to like trying to make my food pretty, in case you hadn’t noticed : ). I didn’t have any of Deb’s sob inducing sticky mess-perhaps because she put the fear in me and I was careful with the water, but freezing them as instructed made everything go smooth as silk.
These would certainly be a lot easier the second time around, and were well worth the effort. I could see getting carried away with a whole variety of fillings: shrimp, roasted vegetable purée, crab meat, goat cheese. Oh yes, they could be habit forming. And I have enough in the freezer from this batch for another meal. So give them a try and see what you can come up with, they are a great vehicle for some creativity!
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