The things I do to make my child happy...

I prefer recipes that involve a minimum amount of work. 5 or 6 ingredients, one pot, that sort of thing. Labor intensive (even mildly so) is not really my thing.

BUT

Elizabeth is obsessed with dumplings right now. Or at the least the idea of dumplings. I blame Ni Hao, Kailan's grandpa. It's a long story. But anyway, she really wants to eat dumplings, but not just any old dumplings, VEGETABLE dumplings. Just like Kailan's grandpa makes. But since she's never had a vegetable dumpling, and has never seen one other than the cartoon version, she doesn't really know what she's looking for.

So. I've been doing sort of cultural tour of our area on the hunt for acceptable dumplings. That pretty much involves Elizabeth suddenly shrieking from the back seat of my car "MAMA!! A CHINESE FOOD PLACE!" At which point, if at all possible, I pull in and order their dumplings. Or potstickers. Or whatever. Sometimes the spring rolls. Just in case we happen upon whatever she has in her head that a vegetable dumpling is. Call me an indulgent mom, I don't mind. At least SOMEONE in my family is interested in ethnic food, even if it's just the thought of it, and I end up eating everything myself.

So, despite the fact that just the thought of making dumplings was exhausting, since, as I said, I'm a 5 ingredient kind of cook, I thought I would Google myself a dumpling recipe. A VEGETABLE dumpling recipe.

I set myself some ground rules. I must not need to make my own dough, and the recipe could not include tofu (if I look at the stuff I can't eat it). I didn't mind if there was some meat in the filling, as long as it was mostly vegetables. I found the perfect recipe here.

So. I set out.

I gathered ingredients, which alone was was more work than I am generally willing to do, since I had to chop up at least 5 different things:
I cooked the filling:

Filled won ton wrappers:

See?

Cooked them (that's actually a little bit of oil and quite a bit of water. It made for this fascinating and deadly combination of steam and wildly spattering oil. I'm still wondering if I did something wrong, but they looked and tasted fine at the end, so I guess not):

Admired them:

And ate them. No pictures were taken of the carnage.

Elizabeth ate one. Only one.

In her defense, they did have quite a bit of ginger. And ginger is not really something we're that fond of in our family (we could take or leave Cumin too. Which wasn't part of this recipe, it's just a fact I'm just letting you know). So while I found it part of the tasty package, she definitely noticed the ginger.

Will I make them again?

That's a good question. There were a lot of steps, and steps are what I don't care for, I like to just throw a bunch of things in a pan all at once, and if I can throw them in whole, that's even better. But it was an easy recipe, and they were definitely good.

So maybe in a month or two I'll give them a shot again.

But I think we'll skip the ginger.