MeanFace and I went to a local restaurant that serves Chinese food, but really specializes in dumplings. Their dumplings are pretty big and not your typical half-moon shaped dumplings. When they’re making them they squish the filling in the dough a certain way in the hands that gives them that funny shape. Wish I could see how they did it. You can choose from the common pork and napa cabbage filling to something like vegetarian and there’s also a variety plate with four different types of dumplings. They’re served pan fried or boiled, or frozen if you want to cook them at home. We got them boiled. Pretty tasty! I’d go back. Their other dishes like noodle soups looked good too because their noodles are hand made, maybe like the chewy skin of the dumplings.

Came home and made a ginormous pot of chili. MeanFace gave me some cayenne pepper, which I couldn’t seem to find at the grocery store. They were out or something. I used a slow cooker recipe from MeanFace’s sister and combined it with a Washington Post recipe for turkey chili. Didn’t use the slow cooker because it would’ve been too small for the amount of ingredients I had. Obviously still having difficulty judging how much is enough when I shop for ingredients. Invariably, I get too much, figuring too much is better than not enough. Besides, leftovers are even better!

Here’s the gist of it:

• 3 lbs ground turkey
• 3 green bell peppers (capsicum in Australian, heehee)
• 4 medium sized yellow onions
• 8 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce (each can is 29 oz. size)
• 4 cups of dried beans (roman, black, and kidney) - cooked in advance
• chili powder (many shakes)
• cayenne pepper (1 tsp about)
• salt & pepper
• shredded cheddar

Cook the turkey, breaking it up. Add the garlic and onions, stir around for a bit, then add the green peppers. After it’s all semi-cooked, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer on low heat. Not sure how long I’m going to let mine simmer, but it’s still cooking right now and smells great! The shredded cheddar is optional when you serve it.

Seeing as how Winter decided to return, I thought some comfort food was in order. Last night, I made two pots of chicken soup. See? I’ve improved from the three pots I had to make last time due to too much chicken. This time, I left out potatoes and peas, and added cabbage. I also left out the thyme because my audience did not like it at all last time I made it. So it’s chicken soup, but a little different.

3-26-07 Update: Made a new batch of chili this past weekend and decided to add cumin, carrots, and a jar of salsa. The last 2 ingredient ideas came from the sister who has no qualms about adding even potatoes to her chili. Sounds good to me! Maybe I’ll add celery and oregano next time, in addition to all the other ingredients. The recipe is so elastic.