Gow Gees and Gyoza

Hello There! Today I am making gyosa, and I am very excited. I have always loved asian food. I find all the flavors, textures, and methods SO AMAZING. This recipe is for the filling and the dough itself, which are both pleasantly easy to make. I loved the process of making them too, as I felt it was so relaxing. These dumplings are soft, smile worthy, and really pack a punch. The recipe for the filling is a little loose as you can adapt it so easily. If i'm being honest, any leftover vegetables you have lying around will work, throw into a saucepan, sauté, a spice here and there, and its perfect! These are just my suggested ones. You must try them. With no hesitation.





Prep and Cook Time: 3- 4 hours
Makes: 40 Gyosa
Virtuousness Level: 8/10

Ingredients:
(Dough)
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup boiling water + 3 tablespoons

(Filling)
(as much as you want of each)
Purple Lettuce
Bean Sprouts
Onions
Mushrooms
Pepper
A little oil for sautéing
Chili
Garlic
Salt
Pepper

1. Sift the flour and salt into a big bowl. Put the kettle on.



2. Slowly add the water to the flour until it forms a rough dough, using chopsticks.



3. Cover and let sit for 1 hour.



4. Bring dough out and knead for around  5 minutes. Yes, 5 minutes.

5. Roll into a long log, and cut into 40 slices. Like little dough balls.

6. Take the great pleasure of rolling each one out individually and and cutting them into circles with a glass. Spoiler Alert: VERY time consuming. But relaxing.







7. Pile up on a plate, and leave to rest while you make the filling. At this point you are probably tired from all there kneading and rollin and cutting and laying. But you must make the filling anyway. Trust me. They're worth it.

8. Chop up all vegetables and sauté the mushrooms and onions in a little bit of oil on a hot pan first, until the onions are see-through.





9. Add in everything else (should all be chopped), with the spices.

10. Set to the side, and get a work station ready, for the assembly of the gyosa. This includes: a bowl of water, the gyosa wrappers, a single plate, and trays to place finished gyosa on, the filling , and a pastry brush.

How to Wrap:
This process is actually fairly simple once you get used to it.
Here is how you make the Gyosa:
Place a tsp. full of filling in the middle of the wrapper, and wet the sides with water.



Bring the two ends together and crimp all the edges with your fingers.

How to make the Gow Gee:
Place a tsp. full of filling in the middle of the wrapper, and wet the sides with water.



Bring all ends together in the middle and pinch were they come together.





11. Either place on a tray in the steamer for 15- 20 minutes, or set a big saucepan of water over the heat, and let it boil.

12. Set a colander over it, place the gyosa and gow gee inside, cover, and let steam for 20 minutes.

13. Enjoy! These are best served with sweet and sour sauce, and a side of edamame beans.

XXVL

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi guys! This recipe might just be the holy grail of everything chocolate and cookies. The base of this is from the minimalist baker book, but I have made tweaks that suit me personally. I absolutely adore her book "Everyday Cooking", and it is an absolutely amazing book to have as a vegan. Everything is so fast, simple, and yummy. I have taken some more pictures this time in order to give you very clear step to step instructions, as all steps are necessary and important in this recipe.These cookies are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and cover inside AND outside your mouth with chocolate. What more could one possibly wish for? As soon as this touches your tastebuds, your frown will MOST definitely turn upside down.





Prep and Cook Time: 50-60 min.
Makes: 15 cookies (various sizes)
Virtuousness Level: 2/10 (apple sauce? Nope)


Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup of any vegan butter (softened)
3 tbsp. HOMEMADE applesauce (I will explain)
11/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 500g Dark chocolate bar (My fav is Bournville)
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 tsp. Salt

1. Take your chocolate bar , and cut it up into chocolate chips. Aim for a range of different sizes, small to VERY BIG. Once you have achieved the desired size, plop HALF into a bowl, and send to the freezer. This is so that half of your chocolate chips melt into the cookies and half don't melt, and stay big chunks of chocolatey goodness. This gives a really great texture to the cookie.



2. Now to make the apple sauce. It is important that you make this yourself as it gives you the perfect compliment of cinnamon with your cookies, rather than store bought ones that give another sweet element to the cookie. My recipe for the perfect apple sauce will be linked here.

3. Now to start on the actual cookies, you will need your butter to be in a big bowl. Whisk this for around one minute with an electric mixer and 3 minutes by hand. It should be a lot lighter at this stage.



4. Now add in your sugars, and your vanilla, and mix for the same time as before, one minute with an electric mixer and 3 minutes by hand.



5. Add the apple sauce to the mix and beat until incorporated.



6. Set a piece of parchment paper down and and sift your flour, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch and salt on top of it. Then pour it into the mix and whisk until incorporated.





7. Add in both chocolate chips, fold in, and place the bowl (with some clingfilm over it) into the freezer for around 15 minutes (Now, you CAN place them in the fridge for 30 minutes but thats just another 15 minutes without cookies, and who wants that?)





8. Once the long 15 minutes have gone by, take the dough out and shape into balls around 1 tablespoon full, place on a tray around 1 inch to 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly.

9. Sadly, you must part way with your cookies once more and place them into the freezer again, for another 15 minutes, so that they do not spread too much in the oven, and instead give you a really nice, thick, fudgy cookie instead of a flat one.

10. Preheat oven to 175 degrees celsius.

11.  YAY! Take them out of the freezer and plop them into the oven. Let bake for 12 -13 minutes. Give them time to cool on the tray for around 3 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. Don't worry if they are a little soft before coming out of the oven, they will harden when out.



These are so good! I highly recommend that you make these sometime. Today. RIGHT NOW.

XXVL

Apple Sauce

Hi guys! So a few weeks ago I was making Chocolate Chip Cookies and needed to make applesauce for them. I found that making it at home was so easy, and made the cookies even better. So, I thought I would share my recipe for an extremely simple applesauce that spreads the smell of love through your kitchen. Here it is!

Prep ad Cook Time: 5 mins

Makes: 6 tbsp. Applesauce

Virtuousness Level : 10/10

Ingredients

1 apple

2 tsps. cinnamon

A few drops of water

1. Chop up the apple into pieces.

2. Put in a microwave safe bowl, mix with cinnamon, and microwave at 30 second intervals until VERY soft.

3. Blend with a few drops of water until gloopy, but still reasonably thick. It doesn't have to be perfect!

There it is! You can either add it to a recipe or eat it alone (it kind of tastes like baby food). It is a really good recipe, that I se often! Hope you enjoyed!

XXVL