April 11, 2013-
SquEEEEEEeeee!!!! I'm *sooooo* EXCITED!!!
Aunt Karen and Uncle Chuck arrived very late last night – they're finally here!
Mark has created a fairly open itinerary for them:
Day 1: Resting up from the long journey; followed by a walk around our housing complex and a quick trip to the plant market. I was a wee bit surprised to see that several of the quirky shops in the plant market were closed. Darn it!
Dropped the girls off at school and then posed for photos in front of the school:
Stayed for the Silly Assembly at school because we learned that the Elementary Choir was going to perform:
Strolled around our quirky neighborhood (with all the empty shops):
Driving to the plant and flower market…
Let's play I Spy….
I spy lots of color:
Saturday, Day 2: Visit Ancient Culture Street (ACS) and then make dumplings (jiaozi) with David and Lynn in the evening.
At the start of Ancient Culture Street:
Aunt Karen & Uncle Chuck:
Uncle Chuck with one of the treats we got for them to try…it's hard to explain what it is (it has an edible "plate"). You just have to try it!
Lunch…we explored a new "food market" or "food street" in the heart of the city and thought it'd make for an amusing lunch stop:
Watching chestnuts roast in what looked like a vat of black pebbles(?):
closer view of the chestnuts:
Mark also picked up some big wheels of pur cha (some sort of green tea that Mark enjoys drinking; he drinks coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon):
Just need a quick trip to the veggie market to pick up supplies for tonight's dumpling making session.
Time to head home and it's…
Dumpling Making Time!
David and Lynn arrived with an armload of dumpling making supplies- jiaozi flour, ground pork, a huge wooden cutting board, tiny dried shrimp, a soybean milk maker and the dried soybeans to make the hot drink. Plus they brought lots of tasty goodies – most of which we've never tried before. I think our favorite were the sesame crackers (they're a great hummus shovel!). We (somehow) had the rest of the supplies.
We got the ENTIRE family involved making the dumplings…which took us – what?- three hours to make?
LOL!
Not a meal to start making from scratch when you're super hungry!
We made two types of filling- one was pork with finely diced leeks mixed with some sauces (I know they added sesame oil and water that was infused with a certain type of peppercorn) – the other was a finely chopped summer squash, scrambled eggs, rehydrated wood ear mushrooms (very popular in Chinese dishes) and teeny tiny dehydrated shrimp. David & Lynn- please correct me if I got these wrong or if I forgot important additions.
Lynn got the dough started by adding warm water to a bowl of the jiaozi flour. She eyeballed the amounts using a bowl and mixed it until she got a stiff-ish dough. I can't remember the flour to water ratio. Anyway, you cover the bowl and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes. After it's rested you start kneading it….and kneading it…and kneading it some more. It should be elastic and smooth. Lynn cut the dough into several equal pieces (four? five?) and then set aside all but one of the pieces. That one piece she snapped off little pieces of dough (you know it's kneaded the right amount if the dough makes a snapping sound when quickly pulled apart). You flatten out the pieces initially with your hand and then rolling them. The rolling is a bit of artwork in itself. I think by the end we got the hang of it…you turn the piece as you're rolling it out (the goal is to make the center of the disk thicker than outside part). After that you fill them with a tiny bit of filling and close them up. They need to be sealed properly otherwise their contents end up spewing out while cooking. David boiled our jiaozi when he had enough them ready to be cooked.
Even the girls are getting into the dumpling making action:
When all the filling had been used up and we had leftover dough Lynn suggested making dessert dumplings with the leftover dough. Those were a tasty treat with a sugar filling inside.
A feast of dumplings!
Were they delicious????
Why yes- they most definitely were!!!!
(naturally the girls grabbed the dessert jiaozi first!)