Dumpling Disaster

As the title suggests, today we decided to try making dumplings and I'm sure you're smart enough to know how they turned out.  We also wanted to have sweet and sour chicken balls and noodles with the dumplings.  Before we could start this ambitious supper I had to go to YooHoo for groceries.  While Ryan and I were gone shopping Tim and Nicholas made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies using rice flour and, since we can't find chocolate chips here, a smashed up IKEA chocolate bar.  They were absolutely delicious!  Thank goodness for that because the rest of the meal was pretty crappy.  I used the glutinous rice flour to make the dough for the dumplings and filled them with a mixture of hamburger, garlic, shallots and a little spice.  If you've never used glutinous rice flour it is incredibly sticky and difficult to work with but I got the dumplings put together and everything seemed fine.  I decided to boil them instead of steaming or frying and shortly after putting them in the water things started to go bad.  The dough started turning gooey then some of it became slime.  I thought that maybe if I fried the ones that were still somewhat intact I could save them.  Fat chance!  All I got after frying them was a wok with a layer of the goo stuck to the bottom and chunks of beef sitting on top.  We decided to try and salvage the beef so I kept it in the oil for a little longer to let it cook.  There was still a film of slime around them and we could have gotten past that but unfortunately I didn't leave them in the oil long enough and they weren't cooked in the middle.  We didn't realize that until we sat down and started eating them.  And perhaps you're wondering about the sweet and sour chicken balls?  Well, since I spent so much time on the damn dumplings I didn't get a chance to make the chicken into battered balls so that was a bit of a flop too.  I did get the sweet and sour sauce made as well as the noodles, but they weren't the best either.  The whole meal was pretty disappointing and the only thing that saved it was the cookie for dessert.

So another weekend is finished and we are into the middle of August.  Hooray!  The cool weather should be on it's way soon.  For all you Nova Scotians that are cursing me for saying that, I do feel bad for you (can you hear the sarcasm in my keystrokes?) and I would trade with you if I could.  Unfortunately, physics still prevents that so I guess we will all just have to live with what we've got and complain to anyone who will listen.  Have a great day everyone, whether it's hot, cold, or somewhere in between.