Dumplings

Potstickers, gyozas, whathaveyou. A while ago some friends and I had spent the afternoon making batches of Chinese dumplings and frying them up for dinner. We each went home with freezer bagfuls for a rainy day. This rainy day I pan fried some of the pork and yellow chive dumplings, making sure to get nicely browned, crispy bottoms. For the dipping sauce I like to mix equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar, grated garlic and a dash each of sesame oil and Tabasco sauce.

Crab Cakes

I love crab cakes and I've made them several times before using various recipes, but none to my satisfaction. Recently I was craving them and used some canned crab meat I picked up at Costco. I improvised adding leeks, mustard, mayo, garlic and worchestershire sauce. Baked, then fried. Liberal drizzle of lemon-paprika aioli with some more on the side. I must admit they're still not the perfect crab cakes of my dreams but they're the closest yet.

Mini Quiches

Mini quiches with proscuitto cups I made for a holiday party this year. I got the idea from this recipe on Epicurious, but improv'd the quiche filling itself because I was in a rush. Chive and asiago, anyone?

Artichoke Dip

So Sunday night during the Oscars, I had this hot artichoke dip simply because I needed a reason to finish up those baby artichokes from last week. And like all my recipes, I just eyeball everything and adjust according to taste and ingredients on hand (and sudden whims).

Prep and steam (or grill, or sautee) the artichokes until cooked, then set aside to cool. Meanwhile, roughly 1 cup of light cream cheese gets mixed with a tablespoon of mayo, handfuls of grated parmesan and romano cheese, some finely chopped green onion, a big dab of dijon mustard, a dash of Worchestershire sauce, grated garlic, salt, pepper and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Chop up the artichoke and add it to the mix. Spoon the mixture into a ramekin (did I mention the oven should be at 400F?), top off with powdered parmesan cheese (for texture, and also because I keep it around for making cheesy croutons) and bake until brown and bubbly! Sometimes I add some bell pepper to this and if you have crabmeat around, this could easily become a great Crab & Artichoke Dip. In any case, you need to serve with homemade pita chips or Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips, because those tasty mofos are the crispiest beeyotches you have ever had. Trust me.