A Little Ice Cream
Don't tell Ping, but yesterday afternoon I asked Cici if she wanted to go with me to get some ice cream to eat. I know that she loves to eat the oreo slurries or whatever McDonald's calls them, so I wasn't surprised that this was her choice of places to go. She has been very good about coming to the office and studying this summer, so I wanted to give her a treat, however small it might be.
Earlier, when I woke Cici up, I steamed some dumplings for us to eat. I also put one of her favorite frozen buns (the round Chinese buns - this one was full of spinach) in the steamer with the dumplings. Some of those very sweet ears of corn on the cob from Costco also made it into the steamer. After we ate, Cici expressed an interest in learning how to use the steamer, so we had a little cooking lesson.
But back to McDonald's. Do you really think I made it through that drive through without a vanilla cone?
Earlier, when I woke Cici up, I steamed some dumplings for us to eat. I also put one of her favorite frozen buns (the round Chinese buns - this one was full of spinach) in the steamer with the dumplings. Some of those very sweet ears of corn on the cob from Costco also made it into the steamer. After we ate, Cici expressed an interest in learning how to use the steamer, so we had a little cooking lesson.
But back to McDonald's. Do you really think I made it through that drive through without a vanilla cone?
If you did Lee it's because Cici hog tied you first.
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LOL
Now Michael, Cici and I have this special father/daughter bond. Don't ask, don't tell. Especially don't tell! She even gave me a bite of her Oreo slurry with no hint of concern about me eating off the same spoon with her. But I doubt that she would ever tell anyone about this.
Ping knows the two of us only too well. She knows that Cici will cover for me and vice versa, so she always digs a little deeper. Niu baobao, she says, talk to me. Me? I say. We joke about this, but one thing that Ping knows for sure is that I love our daughter very much, and I will do anything for her.
Cici knows it too!
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Lee, I am totally addicted to dumplings (or pot stickers as we Americans call them). However, I just can't eat the regular ones anymore. Mingjun makes homemade ones. We discovered country style pork ribs (almost no bone or fat) for 99 cents a pound at Safeway and stocked up. She uses the cleaver to chop up the pork very fine, and adds cilantro and other things (she does this while I am at work). After the flavor in these, who can eat the somewhat bland mass produced ones?
We went to the local turkey barbecue this weekend, and turkey will soon be making it onto our shopping list
You of course remember Ping reads this, and you are outing yourself, right?
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I agree that homemade dumplings are usually better, Craig, though I have had a few that I didn't particularly care for. Ping makes great dumplings, fortunately, but without her here, I bought some that turned out to be pretty darn good. I bought them in an Asian food market, though, so the odds of them being good were higher than buying them at Costco, for example. I checked the ingredients before I bought them, and they included cabbage, which is a key ingredient for my taste. My preference is to eat dumplings that have been steamed, rather than fried (i.e. potsticker style).
I know that Western food stores don't typically have ground pork, but we buy it often at the Chinese or Asian food markets. Even though they have ground pork available, we prefer to select our own chuck of fresh pork shoulder that they display, and have it ground for us while we watch. That way we can control the amount of fat that ends up in the ground pork.
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We don't have a steamer, but Mingjun boils hers. They actually turn out really well that way, I always thought steaming was the only way. I think we will have to find a way to set up a bamboo steamer, I think that will make her very happy.
Mingjun seems to prefer to "grind" her own with a cleaver
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I prefer boiled over pan fried, but if you set up that bamboo steamer that might do the trick. I line our steamer with leaves of Chinese cabbage and the dumplings retain all of their flavor. I was telling Ping about it tonight and she sounds excited about using it. I need to try it with some fish.
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