Gyoza, yum

We made gyoza by hand this weekend, and it was good. Gyoza are small dumplings, filled with a mixture of vegetables and meat (or tofu, I suppose, although I would rather just have vegetables at that point). I love to order gyoza when we go out to an Asian restaurant, but I also love to eat them at home. Because I don't really like buying frozen meals, I don't buy them at the grocery store, which severely limits my access. Now, though, I have made them and know I can make them any time (well, any time I have an hour to fill all the dumplings and then another 30 minutes to cook them...).

I used a recipe I found here*, and modified the process just a bit. Instead of hand chopping the vegetables I used my Cuisinart to chop all the vegetables and to mix the pork in, and since I know my own limits, I used store-bought won ton wrappers instead of making them from scratch. It took a while to fill all the wrappers, and the filling did use an entire package of wrappers, but with Benjamin doing the cooking part, everything went pretty smoothly. They were so yummy, and we have plenty in the freezer for my next snack attack.

*(I am sure there are plenty of other variations on this recipe out on the interwebs, and even, gasp, in cookbooks. This just happens to be the one I used.)

Blooming, commence!

The weather must have been listening to last week's whine, because we had lovely weather for the rest of the week and into the weekend. Miikka got several walks in the park, since it was too nice to just walk the neighborhood. I spent hours in the backyard, cleaning up leaves and ripping out ivy. Why would anyone voluntarily plant ivy? It is a horrible menace, climbing my oak tree, squeezing itself between the boards of my fence, and infiltrating my flower bed. (OK, that flower bed isn't really "mine" yet, apart from general land ownership, since I haven't planted anything in it, and have generally ignored it since we moved in, but it will be mine one day!) Anyway, I ripped out as much ivy as I could, with some "help" from Miikka. I even got the first spider bite of 2010! Wahoo.
The flowers that a previous owner planted have started blooming. I took these pictures on Saturday afternoon, when this was one of only a few miniature daffodils out; by Monday afternoon, the plants were awash in yellow and the crocus plants were starting to fade out.

I also took the first steps towards putting my own imprint on other areas of the yard. When we moved in, there was a clematis blooming on the end of our deck. Now, I don't have anything against clematis, and it was an interesting one, but to be honest, I prefer roses. I want my flowers to have a scent. So, we ventured out to White Wagon Farm and bought three new rose bushes, including a climber to go in place of the clematis (which I had trimmed down the week before - it may still come back, which would be fine, but it may not...). We also bought three blueberry bushes, which, if we can keep safe from squirrels, birds and Miikka, should provide us with some wonderful fruit. Miikka is indeed going to be a problem in our garden plans; as soon as I got done planting the roses, he started trying to dig them out again. Even the thorns on the rugosa rose didn't dissuade him. And he loves vegetables, so I have no doubt he will try to eat them, given the chance (once they are actually planted that is. next weekend, hopefully). We are going to have to install some chicken wire fences, I am afraid. Ah well, at least we have a garden in which to have these problems.

I'll take an order of spring please!

See this, Spring? Can we have some now? Please?

OK. It is March, enough with the cold weather, the gray skies, and the brown grass. I am ready for Spring! Ready to plant my garden and watch sprouts grow. Ready to have daffodils, tulips, and anything else blooming that I can. We just had a lovely weekend, with sun and almost warm temperatures, which we enjoyed enormously. We took a hike with the dog, and I got out to do yard work both Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday and today, however, have returned to winter. It is cold, it is gray, and I have had enough. Please, spring. Please.