Back to the grind

After a week of chilling out, having hot dates with my wife, eating great food and sleeping in until 10 a.m. every morning, here I am, back at the office.

Holy gyoza! part deux

yum.

Holy gyoza! B's big potsticker project

I'm taking advantage of my time off from work this week to do a few things that I've always wanted to do but just haven't had time. For instance, I decided to try to get rid of some of the drops of dried candle wax spread about on the kitchen floor. So, I squatted down with a lighter and a piece of paper towel to melt them away. But that got old quick, so I decided to make a big batch of potstickers.

After a failed attempt at grinding my own chicken (it was ugly), I decided to go to a professional and get some ground pork. Once I got all my ingredients, I started with this:



Rum and pineapple soda -- this actually goes into the cook, not the food.

Now, for the 'solid' ingredients:



Looks almost good enough to eat raw: ground pork, grated ginger, crushed garlic, chopped scallions, shredded napa cabbage, salt, pepper and a little Chinese five spice powder. I salted the cabbage and squeezed out some of the liquid before I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients in the food processor.



I brushed a little water around the edges of the wontons and sealed them as best I could. I made a few mutants before I managed to get some pretty decent looking ones.



I made two cookie sheets worth of these little love dumplings, covered them loosely with plastic and put them in the freezer. About an hour and a half or so later, I placed them in a large ziploc freezer bag.

My favorite way to eat these precious morsels is to brown their bottoms in a pan with a little bit of oil. After a few minutes, pour in a little water, cover the pan and steam them for close to ten minutes (since they are frozen and contain raw meat). I eat them with a dipping sauce made out of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes and chopped scallions.

mmmmmmmmmmm

B's Staycation part 2

Woke up this morning when my body told me to get out of bed. Stomach told me I was hungry and should seek food. So me and Mrs. took a little trip to Sea Salt. If you try to go to this place on a sunny summer eve - you can expect a wait. The first time we went there last summer, we waited in line for an HOUR. Normally, we would have said, 'forget that shit.' But we had taken our bikes there and by the time we made it, we were too hungry to find a plan B.



Ah, but on a Monday afternoon, the wait was minimal and as you can see the food was a treat. I was craving fish tacos like a traveling hamster and that's what I got. And yeah, I picked the cilantro off. Apparently, I have the 'cilantro tastes like soap' gene.

Time off...

Last year I took a week off from work around my 40th birthday, just so I could hang out and screw around. Well, this year, I can't wait until September, so I'm taking this week. My goal is to do pretty much whatever I feel like.







Today, Sat. I took the bike out for a long ride down the Midtown Greenway. And fired up the grill and burned some chicken.





Per a previous post, I like my job, but sometimes I just get really tired of having a schedule: getting up by a certain time, putting on appropriate clothing and being in a certain place for a specified amount of time. For the next week, I'm staying up until I get tired, getting up in the morning when I'm ready to get up, wearing what I want to wear and not keeping a schedule.

ahhhh.....

Let's face it...

Commuting to and from work day in and day out gets to be a big drag. So I made a short video that attempts to make the drudgery of driving cool. Check it out.