laundry

Laundry list? French laundry? Money laundry?? No, just laundry. I promised myself I would do no blogging til I had done ALL of the laundry today. And I do mean ALL...clothing, diapers, towels, bed sheets, socks (the only thing I bleach). So it's 7pm, and while the diapers are still in the dryer and have yet to be folded, everything else is indeed done and PUT AWAY.

I had intended to share my gyoza recipe over the weekend, but a plethora of kids' birthday parties, Star Wars characters at Build-A-Bear, and an excess of hiking on sunday kind of quashed that plan too.

So here it is, monday again. But a RAINY monday, thank goodness. We need the rain here desperately. However it does nothing good for food photography. Meh.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: mini gel cups; checkered apples; Pichu sandwich of Tofurky, lettuce, mustard & Veganaise; baby carrots; meatless meatballs; gherkin pickles.

Now, on to the problem of the not-so-spiffy napa cabbage left under the lettuce in the produce bin. Bleh.

Napa cabbage is my
favourite. Not that
cabbage is in general
my favourite, it's not.
But I like the light &
mild flavour napa
cabbage has. It's great
cooked or raw. But I
had inadvertently left
a lovely little head of cabbage in the bottom of the bin too long, which makes me angry, because I hate wasting food. I mean, we compost all produce scraps, but we only get a couple of heads of napa cabbage from the farm each year, and I hate to pitch it all in the compost pile.

So I began removing the
outer layers. The frilly
leafy part was pretty
gnarly, but most of the
inner rib was perfect.
So I salvaged that, about
a cup's worth, and set it
aside for a few hours
while I took out some
frozen dumpling wrappers to thaw on the counter. The ones I had are Assi Brand imported from Korea. I buy them at the local asian market in the refrigerated section. They are one of the few I've found that are free of eggs.

Sunshine Gyoza

1 cup chopped cabbage rib
(or bok choy stems)
1 small leek, sliced thinly
(or scallion)
1 tsp. grated ginger
1/4-1/2 tsp. hot sauce
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Barbecue Sunshine Burger, thawed & crumbled
24 gyoza skins
oil for frying (optional)
shoyu for dipping (optional)

Dice cabbage. Slice leeks. Grate ginger. Chop garlic.
Mix first 6 ingredients together.
Thaw or nuke the Sunshine
Burger for 30 seconds.
Crumble and mix into cabbage.
Spoon 1-2 tablespoons onto
each gyoza wrapper. Fold in
half and pinch the edges
closed, then press the edges
with a wet fork to secure.


Heat peanut oil in a non-
stick saute pan and fry
for about 1 minute on each
side, or until lightly browned.
Alternately, you can steam
these (in single layers so they
don't stick) for a few minutes.

Drain on a paper towel
on a large plate. Serve
at any temperature.

All four kids absolutely
loved these, as did my
husband. Yippee for such
a yummy cabbage
delivery system!My lunch hike bento: blanched spinach w/shoyu on the side; soba noodles; Sunshine gyoza; mini tofu broccoli quiche.