Happy (Chinese) New Year!

I am back my foodie friends!  We had a busy, but wonderful, holiday season and now I am trying to get caught up with real life.  I’m a bit behind on posts, but here are a few you can look forward to: Kalbi (Korean short ribs), Artichoke Pie, Arancini, Swedish Meatballs, Baked Potato Soup, Goat Cheese Quiche, and much, much more!

For now, let’s talk about Pork and Shrimp Potstickers (made in honor of the Chinese New Year), and Purple Brussel Sprouts with Browned Butter and Lemon.  When I took the kids to the farmers market last week, I asked them to find fruits and veggies from every color of the rainbow, and to our surprise and delight, we found purple brussel sprouts!  I trimmed the bottom, quartered them, and drizzled them with olive oil and kosher salt and roasted them on a sheet pan in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  Then I took 2 Tablespoons of butter, and browned it over medium heat in a small skillet, and poured it over the brussel sprouts in a bowl.  I squeezed some lemon juice until it tasted yummy and added a little bit more kosher salt.  Simple and SO delicious.  We all scarfed them down and my kids even asked for seconds.  I’m not sure there was a discernable difference between the purple brussel sprouts and the green ones, but my husband was convinced these were less bitter.  And the reason I’m talking about them before the potstickers is because those purple brussel sprouts stole the show!

Okay, now onto potstickers, which I got the recipe from FineCooking.com.  The mixture of pork, shrimp, and other yummy stuff was easy to mix up – you can easily substitute the pork with ground chicken.  Also, next time I would do either pork or shrimp because I didn’t feel like the shrimp flavor really came through.  I do wish I had ground my own pork shoulder in the food processor (next time!), because my 95% fat free ground pork that I got at the market, made the dumplings not as moist as I would like.

A few more recipe notes: I did not make my own dumpling dough – just bought the round dumpling wrappers from the market.  Also, I did not have rice wine or sherry, so I used marsala.  The scallion-soy dipping sauce took the potstickers over the top (salty, sour, and sweet), I’m only sorry I forgot to take a picture of it!  If using store-bought dumpling wrappers, dab a little water around the edges, or if you have a 4-year-old kid, they would be happy to do that for you.

Assembling them was pretty easy and this particular recipe made tons!

So, I froze half of them and can’t wait to put them into broth with some veggies, for won ton soup!