I have been inspired by Gretchen Rubin to create my own happiness project for this year in 2018. I decided this year that I can choose to be happy and I can choose to do things I want to do. I have decided to share to hold myself accountable and because feedback always helps for these types of goals. I am starting with my own commandments to live by:
January: Cultivate Routines February: Love My Body March: Do What I Love April: Challenge Myself May: Tend to the Spirit June: Laugh More July: Be An Activist August: Be Creative September: Go Slow October: Trust My Intuition November: Be Playful December: Achieve Elfhood I look forward to sharing my more detailed plans on the first of each month and throughout. Are you starting any projects in the new year or any resolutions? I love resolutions and reflecting on the past year and here are some of the ones I am doing. In addition to thinking of a word for the year and answering some questions in my new planner. Happy New Year All!
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Last year (2016), I started getting back into reading. I read more and books for fun rather than just what was new or exciting or would help my teaching career at the time. I found the Modern Mrs. Darcy Blog and her reading challenge inspired me. So I completed it. This year 2017 she had two challenges; Reading for Growth and Reading for Fun. I decided to do them both and as of midway through last week I accomplished that task. I have found more time this year to read than before. I have cut back on TV, movies and Youtube videos to do so, but I have found it to be a worthwhile investment. I also have been listening to audiobooks which have been engaging and fun, something to do as I clean the house or exercise, things I want my mind to be elsewhere when I am doing. I have recently, in the last few months, been more actively choosing my books, tending towards more self-improvement/memoir. I am not done reading for the year. I still have a stack of 7-8 books from the library calling my name, all of them good. As of this moment, I have read 106 books this year, I will wait to see what the total will look like by the 31st. I figured in a way of honoring last year I would share with you my choices for the reading challenges and my thoughts on the books. I completed the Reading for Fun Challenge first, the last two categories that were the last ones I read were an essay collection, which upon further looking I realized I read many essay collections so this was actually not as hard to fill and a Newbery Award winner or Honor book, which I would have never read except for the challenge. Reading for Fun
Reading for Growth
I am looking forward to reading more books in the new year. 2018 reading challenge here I come! I have written this blog for about 4 months now and I have decided to alter my focus starting now at the end of this year and in the upcoming year. I still will write about food both eating and cooking, but I want to expand into some other areas of my life that I want to write about and share. I have decided that this blog will be one I want to actually continue rather than just scrapping it as I have done with blogs in the past. I am just realizing that although I am passionate about food, I am not so innovative to be able to cook a new recipe every week and have it turn out delicious. I do not want to share food that I did not love because that would not be me.
One of the ways I want to refocus is a few twists on the title of this blog. I have been considering Always More Pie in a few ways. First I have realized that the metaphor that many people use of wanting another piece of the pie or that the world is a pie with finite slices so better to take my piece so I can have more. I have realized that there really always is more pie, there is no final piece, we can make and create more than we can imagine and I prefer to think that the world is infinitely capable to encompass our many dreams. Additionally I have thought about the initials of my blog AMP. I did not realize it when creating this blog, but amp appropriately describes how I like to live my life. I like to amp up the things that work well and create a more intentional and well lived life. I appreciate your continued support as I work to really make this blog feel like home. I am not an expert dumpling maker yet, I have watched videos of others who know how to do it with much more skill and visual appeal. I am working towards getting there, but alas I am not there yet. I do have to say I love flavors and making these dumplings was a fun experiment in flavors. I made three batches of dumplings in the testing to ensure they tasted perfect, and probably around a dozen dipping sauces. Since I am no expert in dumpling making, I used a resource for actually forming dumplings was this video from the Omnivore's Cookbook, and by the way I am in awe of the skill at dumpling making, I have a lot of room to grow. Many of these ingredients are hard to find, I would suggest looking in your local asian market, that is where I bought mine. I would also say if you feel nervous, it is okay the more you do it the easier it will be and people really want to be helpful so do not worry about not knowing everything. I realize as I have started to cook Asian food, I have a distinct idea of what constitutes a dumpling, which is different at least in my mind than a potsticker. When I want dumplings, I want a little bit of a thicker dough and I want them to be steamed, I do not want a thin wrapper, if I did I would use wonton wrappers. If you feel like making dumpling dough is too challenging feel free to use wonton wrappers, but I was going for the dumpling of my dreams. As I did some research, I realized that this distinction is purely in my head and not really substantiated elsewhere, but that is what I was going for when I attempted to make dumplings. To begin you will need to mince 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger and 2 teaspoons of garlic. Then add that to a bowl and mix together with 1 lb. of ground pork, 2 teaspoons fermented black beans or black bean sauce, 2 teaspoon chili bean paste, 1 tablespoon mirin, 2 tablespoons of reduced sodium soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground Sichuan pepper. If not available at your local grocery store, try your local Asian grocery store. The ingredients are well worth the trip. Next set that aside in the fridge while you prepare the dumping dough. To do that start by weighing out 20 ounces of all purpose flour (1 lb. and 4 oz). Next bring water to a boil and add 1 1/2 cups of water to your bowl stirring with a spoon to combine. When the water is mixed in a bit use your hands to combine the dough. Then knead the dough for 4-5 minutes until it is stretchy, it will probably be a bit sticky so you can coat the kneading area with flour as needed, but try to use a little as you can. Next place the dough in a gallon ziplock bag or some other airtight container and allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes up to a few hours. The bag or container will steam up and the dough will soften. I prefer to use a ziplock bag because you can get more air out of the bag and twist it close to the dough to cut off extra air. This dough will dry out so you want to keep it as airtight as possible. Once your dough is rested, take a piece of your dough and roll it into a snake shape. Slice of coin sized pieces and dip the freshly cut edges in flour. Then use a rolling pin to flatten them into a flat circle. You could alternatively roll out the whole dough and then cut out circles if you want them to be perfect, but you will need to work quickly. This dough does dry out quickly so while you are working on some of your dough keep the rest tightly wrapped, I typically use a large gallon bag and I twist it to prevent the air getting closer to the dough. Once your dough is in a circle add 1 tablespoon of the pork mixture and form them into dumplings and set them aside underneath a cloth. I put them all on a large sheet pan covered with a kitchen towel. I tried this a number of ways, you can just fold them into semicircles and pinch the outside together or if you want to have them be more visually appealing you take one side of the dough and pinch and twist it and then squeeze it onto the other side to get a more traditional dumpling shape. Above is my best looking dumpling, but it took a bit of practice and I am still not perfect. Continue this process until you have all the dumplings formed. Then bring some water to a boil and steam them over the water for 15 minutes or until fully cooked. The best thing about steaming dumplings is you can make them larger and it is not as big of a disaster if they break or are not folded tightly because they have a substantial amount of filling. One tip for having them not stick to steamer is lightly coat it with oil before you place dumplings in and then they will usually release a little easier. I personally prefer a metal steamer to a bamboo steamer because the metal is easier to clean and maintain. Also the condensation does not drip onto my stovetop from the metal steamer. While you are waiting for that to happen you can make a sweet dipping sauce. I mix together 1/4 cup of reduced sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/8 cup of rice vinegar and 1/2 a teaspoon of granulated garlic. When done garnish with a chopped scallion and enjoy! Pork DumplingsFood, while it is my favorite thing, I have started to realize it is also my Achilles heel. I love food so much that sometimes I focus more on food than I should, meaning I eat more than I should and I do not think about things that are not food as often as I probably should. I use food to avoid things I would rather not deal with or talk about, this is not always true, but is a crutch I sometimes use. I think as humans we are very easily able to deny the things that bother us and pretend they are not problems or do not exist. I think this is the case for most people, but for me denial of my fault is not an option rather than denying my fault's I focus on them so acutely that they supersede everything else. I want my life to be simple and easy and I am working hard to make it so, to cut out the extraneous with an Exacto knife, to carve my life from the block and turn it into what I want it to be. I want it to be simple and I want to be able to know and my core what I believe in and what I stand for, instead I find myself continually stuck. I think I have eliminated something and it comes crawling back. Most of these things are not life changing, but just the small daily actions that make up my life. Do I watch TV, do I not. These are small changes with lasting impacts. Some of the things I have cut out remain cut no matter what has happened since. Once clear food related example is soda. For many years, I used to drink soda, mostly diet soda, but still it was something I enjoyed. Last year though I read a book called A Big Fat Crisis. I got it from my library because it came up underneath the search for books about intuitive eating. I got it and was intimidated by it's textbook like demeanor, but once I jumped it I could not put it down. I was devouring the information inside and I came out the other end a convert. One comment Deborah A. Cohen makes is that soda is just a sugar water, and that one phrase has since stuck with me. I know this is obvious, but I had never heard it phrased in that way and that single reframe changed my mind as to how I looked at soda. I have tried it since then, a sip here or there, but in general I am not a fan. I drink water or plain tea and occasionally hot chocolate, in the extreme sometimes milk but only if I am eating pancakes. I have realized that by cutting out soda not much has been lost, I am basically the same as I was before. The thing about cutting apart your life is you start to realize what matters to you. You are able to get rid of the distractions and point at yourself and actually recognize the person you see. I can find the me-ness apart from the world at large, apart from all the things trying to tell me to what this or do that. The fact that I have a budget and I do not buy many things may be a denial in some ways but it gives me great freedom in others. I feel free from stuff, free to do as I want, free to focus on what matters, free to spend my time as I choose. This freedom has helped me recognize my values, as distinct from the community I was raised in. I value the small life, the small moments, reading a new book, frequently going to the library, cooking delicious food, warm cups of tea, spending time with friends, spending time with my husband, exercise and movement. I am finding the parts of life that are me, and letting go of the hustle and bustle. I will probably not be aware of the news of the world, I will probably not know who celebrities are, I will not be current on most entertainment contents movies, or TV. Those things do not give me life, they in fact make me feel bad about being who I am, they make me strive to not be myself, which only ends with me in tears. I am realizing I need to own myself flaws and all. I may never be the skinniest person, but in reality I am not sure being smaller would have any impact upon my life except the need to buy new clothes, something I hate to do. I instead get to choose to be happy, to enjoy tasty food, to spend my time in a way I love and to live my days. I recently started reading the book Notes from a Blue Bike and Tsh Oxenrider says in the prologue that it is about "us living life, instead of life living us" and that is what I am cultivating. I want a life that I live, that is according to my values and who I am, not a life spent trying to achieve or gain notoriety or fame. I want to love the daily parts, the mundane parts and to appreciate the small things because that is most of my life, small ordinary moments that I am choosing not to let pass me by. |
About MeI'm Sarah; a wife, traveler, foodie, and adventurer. Archives
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