Vegetable Potstickers with Dipping Sauce

Sometimes you just gotta have appetizers for dinner. This is actually one of my favorite things to do. Pair a tasty appetizer with a giant garden salad. It’s called balance, or so they say. Real talk this recipe is easy, tasty, and you can store uncooked leftover potstickers in the freezer for when the craving hits again. To be honest, we didn’t have freezer leftovers. However, once we develop some self control I imagine this recipe will be a tasty left-over treat. Recipe was adapted from Half Baked Harvest. Definitely check out their gorgeous recipe blog!

Serves: about 30 potstickers. Time: approximately 30 minutes

Ingredients:

For the potstickers:

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 inch fresh ginger, grated
• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• 36-40 wonton wrappers

For the sauce:

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons garlic chili sauce
• 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey

Directions:

1.) Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the cabbage, carrots, and ginger. Saute until the veggies soften, about 5 minutes. Add the soy sauce, chives, and sesame seeds and cook another 2-3 minutes.

2.) Mix together all of the sauce ingredients and set aside.

3.) Assemble the potstickers by spooning 1 tablespoon of veggie filling onto each wrapper. Moisten the edge of each wrapper with a bit of water. Fold the dough over the filling to create a half moon shape, pinching the edges to seal. Repeat with the remaining wrappers.

4.) Heat a large skillet with the remaining sesame oil over medium-high heat, add the potstickers and cook until the bottoms are golden brown, about 2-3 minutes.

5.)Pour 1/4 cup of water into the pan and immediately cover with a lid letting the dumplings steam for 3 minutes.

6.) Serve with sauce and enjoy!

*Photo is an original belonging to me

*Recipe adapted from Half Baked Harvest.

Sriracha Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry

My husband and I will soon be entering a transition period in which our “home roles” reverse. I will be launching a career and he will be staying home with our kids more frequently to accommodate my work schedule. This means that I will be letting him take the reigns in the kitchen a little more often. This is a beautiful thing and is one of the reasons why I started this blog. I wanted a place where all of our favorite recipes could live and be accessed from anywhere by anyone. I will admit that I am a little concerned about this transition as my dearest husband has trouble making mac-n-cheese from a box with clearly listed instructions… That said, I took on the hunt for this recipe as a challenge to find a dish similar to the meals my husband makes when he has to cook. There are a few things he can whip up for dinner really well and his go-to dish is ground beef tacos. This recipe is as easy as ground beef tacos, takes about the same amount of time, and the flavor is phenomenal. I am confident that my husband can pull this recipe off. This recipe was adapted from a fabulous recipe blog called Budget Bytes. I highly recommend Budget Bytes to everyone as the dishes look delicious and the author, Beth, breaks everything down financially for people like me who like to eat under budget.

Time: 30 minutes  Serves: 6-8

*Photo is an original belonging to me

 

Hearty Hot and Sour Soup

 

My gosh this soup has so much flavor! With this recipe you’ll expect tons of veggies, tons of spice and such a savory broth. Don’t be surprised to find yourself slurping up every last drop of this stuff. I had started getting tired of the traditional vegetable soups. You know the usual culprits – barley vegetable, summer vegetable, root veggie puree. We desperately needed something different so I turned to my recipe companion, Pintrest. I fall so hard into the Pintrest web but have climbed my way out with some killer recipes, this being one of them. The original recipe does include tofu and mushrooms, but there are just some things I cannot stomach and those are two of them. So if you want to make this soup even more hearty then you will want to visit the original recipe posted at http://www.joanne-eatswellwithothers.com.

Serves: 8     Calories: 200/serving     Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 jalapeno, minced (Add an extra one if you really like it hot)
• 1lb bag of carrots, peeled and sliced into disks
• 1 small savoy cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 2.5 quarts vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
• 6-8 leaves bok choy, thinly sliced
• 1 (14 oz) can of diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp sesame oil

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add in the onions, ginger, and jalapenos Cook for a few minutes, stirring.
2. Add in the carrots, and cabbage. Cover and cook for about 3 minutes, or until cabbage starts to wilt. Add in the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
3. In the meantime, whisk together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, cold water, and cornstarch in a separate bowl. Set aside.
4. Add the zucchini, and bell peppers to the pot. Simmer until the veggies are tender, about 8 minutes. Add in the soy sauce mixture and stir until the soup thickens, about 8 minutes. Add in the bok choy and tomatoes and bring the soup back to a simmer. Stir in the sesame oil.
5. Dish and Enjoy!

*Photo and video are originals belonging to me

*Recipe adapted from http://www.joanne-eatswellwithothers.com

Bangers and Colcannon with Guinness Gravy (Irish Sausages and Mashed Potatoes)

Lately I’ve been struggling to find quality recipes and when I was about to give up on new recipes I found a fantastic site called yummly.com. It lets you choose a cuisine, diet, and even specific ingredients. You can really customize the type of dish you want to make and this week I decided to pick from the “Irish” tab. This recipe was one of the first to come up and it ended up being an amazing dinner. I could not get my hands on any English or Irish sausages like the recipe calls for so I had to use regular sausages. Nonetheless it came out amazing and the gravy is to die for! These are also the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever made. The cabbage and bacon (we used turkey bacon) complimented each other perfectly. This will be my standard St. Patty’s Day dinner for now on.

Serves: 4     Calories: 520 (I know that’s kind of high for what I usually cook)    Time: approx 1 hour – 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1/4 lb bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces (We used turkey bacon to cut back on calories and fat)
• pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp butter (we used margarine, once again to cut back on the bad stuff)
• 1/4 small head of cabbage, sliced very thin
• 4 green onion, sliced
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp oil (we used canola)
• 1 lb sausage, Irish or English preferred (we used regular sausages since we could not find the Irish or English ones)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 clove of garlic (you know me, if it calls for one clove I use two haha)
• 1 tsp thyme, chopped
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 bottle of Guinness
• 2 tbsp mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp butter (once again we used margarine)
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• milk to taste

Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, add potatoes and simmer until tender (approximately 20-30 minutes)
2. Cook bacon in a large pan over medium heat until it starts to curl. (about 3-5 minutes)
3. Add 1 tbsp butter (or margarine) to the bacon and season with salt and pepper. Cook until it foams, about 1 minute.
4. Add sliced cabbage to the bacon. Mix to coat and let cook until tender (approximately 10 minutes)
5. Add the green onions to the cabbage mixture and cook for 5 minutes.
6. In a separate pan heat 1 tbsp oil over medium heat.
7. Add the sausages and cook until golden brown (approximately 2-4 minutes per side) and then set them aside.
8. Add onions and sauté until tender (approximately 5-7 minutes)
9. Add garlic and thyme and sauté until fragrant, 1 minute
10. Sprinkle in flour and let it cook for a few minutes
11. Add Guinness, mustard and worcestershire sauce and brown sugar along with the sausages and simmer for 10 minutes.
12. Remove sausage again and continue to simmer until the gravy reduces by half (approximately 10 minutes)
13. Drain water and mash the cooked potatoes. Mix in cabbage followed by 1 tbsp butter (margarine),  sour cream and enough milk until you get your desired mashed potato consistency.
14. Spoon mashed potatoes, or colcannon if you want to be correct :), onto plates and top with sausages.
15. Drizzle, or as Perry says “pour” gravy over top and enjoy!

*Photo is an original taken by me

**Original recipe found at http://www.yummly.com