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[KayentaMoenkopi]

Anyway, the Shurikens were only half of the pastry dough. I have really been having issues with my blood sugar of late. That strawberry birthday cake? 2 bites and I got to feeling funny. It has even gotten to the point where I had part of a soda the other day and it made me feel funny so I had to dump it out. Time to get serious I suppose with my hypoglycemia and stop being an idiot. So yes, I can't eat these treats! But not to worry, I took the other half of the dough and made pepperoni rolls.

Now...this may or may not be true, but...I heard that they do not have pepperoni rolls everywhere in the USA. Which to a West Virginian is like saying you don't know what hamburgers or hotdogs are. See, local lore has it that the pepperoni roll was invented in WV as a handy food, by the Italian immigrant minors, to take down into the coal mines. You can validate that or not, here in WV we like to say this is fact.

Oh gee. I went ahead and looked it up and they are credited with being invented in Fairmont WV, according to Wikipedia. You can see in the article what a 'real ' one looks like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepperoni_roll

Normally the pepperoni roll is a regular bread roll with pepperoni with or without cheese baked inside. Just plain bread dough. But I thought what the heck and used the pastry dough instead of making up more bread.

So again I rolled out the second half of the dough, cut it into strips, cut those into squares and then I cut those into triangles.


The I used sandwich pepperoni that was about 2-3 inches in diameter. But lots of people use stick variety and quarter them lengthwise as filling. This is a whole slice folded in half.


Then I had some shredded mozzarella cheese and made one with it. That is when Mariko said, "Aren't you going to use the smoked mozzarella slices?" And OMG...what a great idea. So I changed up and instead put a square of that on top of the pepperoni. And forgive me but I had only 1.5 hours of sleep and didn't take a picture of that [Of the meat roll, not a sleepless Moenkopi]. I just wanted to get it done and crash. The deal was I was racing time. People to show up...the potential of the dough drying out...yes I had it wrapped in the plastic wrap to preserve moisture, but we are talking 13 + hours at this and even this amazing dough has its limits.


And then again, no photo of how we did all the rest after this example, but this one was rolled up in the dough. Afterwards when we changed the cheese, we started rolling the meat and cheese up first, then placing it on the dough at the base of the triangle. Tuck the corners in over the edge of the meat roll, and roll it up in the dough. This change in technique really produced a tighter wrap and I was much more pleased with the look of it. You can see in this picture how not rolling the meat and cheese up first created a loose wrap.


And bake till done. Around 12-15 minutes at 350 'F. Again, the first one at the bottom of the picture is that loose wrap while the others were done with the improved method of rolling the meat and cheese up before we wrapped it in the dough. These are more of a finger food type pepperoni variant to the Hogi bun sized traditional pepperoni roll, but that did not cause the taste to suffer n the least!


And so all across the state in places that range from gas stations to grocery stores you find the traditional rolls bagged up and sold by a variety of WV bakeries.

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Monster sized onion rings.

took some sweet Vidalia onions and sliced them up and then separated the rings.
dipped them in egg wash, then flour, then egg wash, the bread crumbs.
and fry.

we found this recipe where you put thin slices of cheese between two rings first then fix them up. God what a night mare! made like 6 before we said to hell with that. And that is why we had smoked mozzarella left over for the pepperoni rolls. Such a pain and no time to waste on failed food prep before the guests arrived for the weekend. We had like 26 or 7 on the first day and like 19 the second.

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Egg rolls!

One green cabbage large
one small purple/red cabbage small
4 carrots
fist sized onion
egg roll wrappers
water with a bit of flour mixed in...very very runny...for glue!
FOOD PROCESSOR!

Yeah, i sued to grate all this up by hand and just forget that. Puts chunks of veggies into the food processor and grind! Not to a pulp. just small pulses to dice it all up fine.



Lay out one of the egg roll wrappers on the diagonal. They are quite thin and store bought. You must keep them covered or they will dry out and crack on you. Place your filling just a little lower than the center. Use your hands to see it forms into a nice log. I used to blanch it is boiling water first. So not require. And you never get all the liquid drained back out. I used to put sesame oil in it too, but they flavor is much too strong and...metallic tasting to suit me. I have also put all sorts of cooked meats in, chicken, pork, shrimp, that imitation crab legs stuff...but these are just plain jane and amazing even so.



Next you want to take your flour/water glue and smear it all around the edges. Keep a paper towel or something handy to dry your fingers again before you begin the wrapping process. Fold over the bottom upward to the center and press down trying to keep it snug against the filling. A loose roll will not fry very well and possibly break. [hand model...ME]



Then you just go through and fold up the sides. Again, keep things tucked in snugly to make a tight wrap and keep your hands dry.





When you roll it up at last, pushing forward away from you, it seals it well just from the pressure of your hands. Think of rolling up a poster to fit inside a tube for storage. don't pull too tight though. these wrappers are about two pieces of notebook paper thin and will tear.



So heat your grease. This was vegetable oil as we were skimping...due to the expense of the entire weekend. And I strain the cracklings out from time to time and reused the grease as long as it was not darkened...that would give the food a scorched flavor and ruin it. But I don't save it for use in another project, just to get these all fried. Don't let them touch. they will weld together and be a disaster. And don't leave them go too long. They fry up much quicker than you would think and can burn so easily.



Blot the grease on paper towels. don't let them touch! do not stack on each other.


Enjoy plain or with your favorite dipping sauce. [hand model: mariko]

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Gyoza! [hand model: mariko]

Wrappers

• 1 and 2/3 cup of flour
• 6 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons of boiling water
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Filing

• 3 pounds of fresh ground pork, not seasoned, or ground turkey
• 1/3 cup of diced cabbage
• 5 green onions diced
• 2 tablespoons of minced garlic
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of minced ginger root
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

You just mix in all the filing ingredients into the meat. We used turkey this time cause all we could find was sage sausage. I only wanted our own seasonings in these.get your hands down in there and work it around until it is well blended. We ended up having to add more soy sauce cause it was rather bland this time for some reason. We may have had too much meat. Anyway, put that in the fridge to chill and marinate within itself while you spend forever making the wrappers.

Mix up the wrappers by hand after it starts to form a nice lumpy ball of dough. It will pull away from the sides of the bowl nicely as you continue to mix it all together.


Roll into a log. This will be the consistency of soft clay...stiffer than bread dough but softer than modeling clay.



Divide the log into 3 balls and wrap them up in plastic keeping one out to work with. You don't want this drying and getting too stiff to work with.



Roll out a ball of the dough with your hands into a log about 1.5 inches in diameter. Then cut with a knife into disks about a finger width. You don't want these too small.




Wrap the disks up into plastic to keep moist and repeat with the other three dough balls until completed.



Now comes the never ending part. Making each wrapper. We made some, then filled those and cooked them. then made more just to break up the monotony of it all. You must make sure to keep the dough  wrapped up when not in use. Even after you make the wrappers. We kind of got an assembly line thing going to speed things along and not have too many wrappers sitting around and risk them getting dry. This is seriously not something I would enjoy doing alone.

So you take a disk and flatten it out trying to keep the round shape as you move. Turning it round and round in your hand working about the edges to aid this process.



Then you want to work with it on a flat surface to continue spreading it out thinner and thinner. Mariko used her finger tips, I prefer to roll it out with the heal of my hand. Pick it up and flip it over to keep it from sticking to the table surface and aid in getting a nice round shape until it is the size you want. Don't make them super thin cause they will tear.



Anyway, one you start to fill them I will say this. Keep a bit pf pare towel handy to dry your fingers on before you begin crimping the sealing edge to close these.

So put in a bit of the meat filling. Don't over stuff or it will all squeeze out the edges and just be terrible. Make it into a nice little ball to work with.



Fold in half. You can note the thickness of the dough pretty well in this shot.



Pick it up and it will look like a mini taco. You will want to spread the filling out along the wrapper with your finger but not clear to the edges. Leave room for crimping the edges where no filing will get in the way of the dough sides sticking to each other. Dry your fingers often!



You will then start the crimping process by using your fingers to make a back and forth sort of weave with the dough, pressing the sides of the wrapper together as you go along.



Continue and notice how the fringe begins to look quite nice. give it a little press between your fingers after each fold to stick them to each other properly.



Once completed, give it just a littel press at the corners to create a slight crescent of a curve. So pretty!



Fry in hot grease. Just on the bottoms until a bit golden to tan in color.



Place into a steamer. This is a nice bamboo basket one I picked up at a yard sale for $1.00 when I was running my Lady I work for around one weekend. Now the last time we did this, they just said to pour water into the skillet and cap with a lid and steam for 20 minutes and it turned out great. But I wanted to try out my new steamer basket. I did corn on the cob in it the say before which was so wonderful. And I think that the gyoza turn out less greasy this way as well, so nice experiment.



So the basket also has to layers so you can get more steamed at one time. Oh dear...time to change that grease! [hand model: Mariko is just not that hairy! This is Hiro Toranaga. ]



Cap with the lid.



Steam for 20 minutes over a wok. I make sure the water does not come up higher than the bottom wrack's interior shelf.



And so we have the finished product next to a plate of egg rolls. And I am so tired and sick of food! done even offer me a cheese stick next time you see me!

[KayentaMoenkopi]

So dinner has been kind of repetative since the big party, but tonight I did something different.

Shish Kabob

Ingredients:
Beef cut into chucks mized with Minced Garlic and soak in worcestershire sauce
Red, Yellow, and Orange Bell Peppers
Onion
Cherry Tomatos
Pineapple
Mushrooms
New Red Potatos
Zucchini Squash
Salt and Pepper to taste



Cut everything into fairly large chunks. The new red potatoes are fairly small, as are the cherry tomatoes so use them whole.



Don't poke yourself when you stab the chunks with the skewers.  Put them in whatever order you think works best.



Pan up and bake at 350'F until the potatoes are tender. I cover them with foil and didn't have enough skewers...yet...so just put the left overs into a baking pan, which I also covered with foil. Salt and Pepper to taste. These took 2 hours to get the potatoes done, but again I am using a roaster and not a proper oven. Just check them with a sharp knife and if it sinks in easily then the whole thing is done. These work great on a grill too. I like to eat them over rice sometimes, but not tonight.