Gyoza dumplings.

I had the day off work today and had a hankering for Japanese gyoza dumplings and thought it would be fun to make some ( not many people think making Gyoza dumplings on your day off is fun, especially some of my friends but to me it's a day well spent!) so I took a bus into Brighton and went to "Yum Yums" which is an amazing oriental supermarket selling everything you could possibly want to make a delicious authentic Asian meal.



I had looked on the Internet for the basic idea of how to make the dumplings and what should be in them, most were just pork but some had pork and prawn and thas's the way I decided to go as I think the prawns add sweetness. Obviously adjust the measurements to how many dumplings you are making.

quarter of a Chinese cabbage
2 gloves garlic, minced and crushed into a paste
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 Chinese spring onion
6 ounces ground pork
1/3 pound prawns, shelled, deveined, and chopped
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 pack Gyoza wrappers

Put the chopped cabbage in a bowl and add the garlic, ginger, spring onion, pork, and prawns. Stir the ingredients so they come together. Add salt, sugar, pepper, soy sauce, and sesame oil and combine well.
Scoop up about 1 tablespoon of filling and put it in the center of a gyoza wrapper. Fold, pleat, and press to enclose the filling into a pleated crescent shape. Place the finished dumplings on a plate lined with parchment paper (to avoid the bottom sticking to the plate). Repeat the same until the filling is used up.Heat up a frying pan over medium-high heat and add 1 1/2 tablespoons oil. Add the dumpling's one at a time and fry them for 1-2 minutes, until they are golden or light brown at the bottom.

Add 1/4 inch depth of water into the frying pan and cover it immediately with a lid and lower the heat to medium. Let the water bubble away until it’s dry, for about 6-8 minutes. After the water is gone, remove the lid and fry for another 1-2 minutes until the bottoms are brown and crisp. Transfer the dumplings to a serving plate and serve immediately with a dipping sauce if you remembered to make or buy one which I did not but they tasted amazing if I do say so myself.

Cherries and Halloumi but not together!

I am very prone to having a look around the aisles at my local Aldi as you can find some great bargains there occasionally, especially in the fruit and veg section and yesterday was particularly wonderful as they were selling big punits of gorgeous ripe cherries for 69p and considering how expensive cherries are usually I thought this was a great bargain and have been eating cherries in Greek yogurt for my breakfast for the last few days. I am off to buy more today to make some kind of summery pudding with them and will hopefully be putting the results on here!



I don't know about the rest of you but I love love love halloumi, what's not to love about crispy on the outside soft on the inside salty tangy fried cheese served with roasted vine ripened tomato, fresh salad and olive oil on a hot summers day. The only bad point is the incredible moersihness of this crispy fried treat that I ate a whole packet of at lunchtime today, whoops.

I am actually back now I promise.

I have not been here for ages I know and I am very sorry but I had an unexpected trip to Cornwall and have just got back and to be honest I would not have had it any other way so there, anyway moving on!
Mercer and I stayed in St Agnes and it was so stunning with lovely local shops including two butchers, two fruit and veg shops, a deli/fishmongers and a bakery all selling fresh delicious local produce.



One night we had steaks cooked on the BBQ from one of the local butchers with potato salad and we had bought these beautiful bags of salad with edible flowers in them to have with it, another night we had fresh crab and scallops with home-made garlic mayo and chips and oh God it was heaven!!! As the weather was so gorgeous we did Lot's of clifftop walking and on one of them we stopped in a bay where there was a small cafe selling an ice cream called a hedgehog which was local vanilla ice cream dipped in clotted cream and the rolled in toasted caramelised nuts and although it may be one of the most fattening things to ever pass my lips it was very much worth it!
We ate out a few times and one of my favourite places was Blue Bar in Porthowan and the views were stunning over the beach and the food was great to, I had a big bowl of mussels and chips and mercer had a chili beef pizza and everything was fresh and delicious. This is a photo of the beach that the Blue Bar looked over and Blue Bar.






It really was so beautiful there and I wished that I didn't have to come home!

Didn't make it.....

As some of you may have seen I had a post up here a few weeks back saying I had been invited up to London for the Masterchef auditions but I had to remove the post because your not supposed to tell anyone! But anyway I never made it to the audition sadly, due to some unforeseen circumstances that had to be put first and that is also the reason I have not been here for a few weeks but I am back now.
I still have not got the camera my Brother was going to lend me as he needs to use it so the camera phone it is, joy!
Right then, I am off to the shops to look for some inspiration for tonight's dinner so I will be back later with the results, horray!

Sunday Roast Beef and The Coach House

Oh how I love a good Sunday roast and this Sunday's was particularly good as we had my favourite roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings including a very yummy cauliflower cheese and home-made red wine gravy but alas I forgot to take a picture until it was just to late and the whole lot had been scoffed and I am
still not in possession of the camera I was going to borrow off my Brother over dinner with our Mum so it may have not been the best photo anyway. But we
did have a great dinner with our lovely Mum at 'The Coach House' on Middle Street in Brighton where we had a great meal starting off by sharing scallop's with parsnip puree, pistachio dust and vegetable crisps which was absolutely heavenly and I could have easily eaten it twice over again!
For our mains my brother ordered the rib eye steak with peppercorn sauce and chips, my Mum had roast mackerel and I ordered the beef pie but unfortunately they had run out so I copied my Brother and had steak to that was cooked perfectly to medium rare and last but not least my Mum had home made Cinnamon ice cream which was some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted and me and my Brother went for caramelised banana with roasted marshmallow, chocolate ganache and vanilla ice cream, all very yummy indeed and i would highly recommend them not just for the food but for the lovely atmosphere and service to.

Quesadilla

I had Quesadilla's at a friends house the other day for the first time and couldn't believe how tasty they were so decided to make some at home this evening with Mercer and it was one of the easiest and tastiest evening meals ever!
We popped to the shops and bought tortilla's, salsa (I do make it normally but it had been a long day!), cheese, green jalapenos red onion, kidney beans to make re-fried beans and a pack of organic stir-fry lamb to have on the side.
I just spread a layer of salsa, re-fried beans, cheese, cooked lamb strips, onion and jalapenos, folded it in half and then dry fried it in a heavy based frying pan for about 5 minutes on each side and served it with sour cream and it was perfect.




And at last tomorrow I am meeting my Mum and Brother and will get that lovely camera to take some photo's of my food that will actually do it justice!

Steak Dinner

Tonight me and Mercer at last ate the two steaks that we have been meaning to eat for the last 4 days, various things kept cropping and getting in the way and yet another night would pass with them just sitting unloved in the fridge, but not tonight dear reader oh no! I just pan fried them both to medium rare and served them with sauteed potato's, salad and my version of burger sauce which is just mayonnaise, BBQ sauce and English mustard mixed together, simple!



And can I just apologise for the photo quality, it's just that I don't currently own a digital camera and am relying on my old camera phone and Mercer's Photoshop skills.
My Brother is going to lend me his high quality, expensive and hardly ever used digital camera for an extended period of time so at some point very soon you will all have some high quality pictures of my yummy food to look at I hope!