Cream Cheese Wontons

Wedding weekend? Resounding successful check. Gre forever?  Check.  Applications?  Almost semi-check.  Now what's a girl to do to while away these summer days!?  I was talking with my sister yesterday and she said it took her about a week after the craziness had subsided in which she was a bit dazed about what to do with her time, but then she realized that she could do whatever she wants to do! For her that means artsy creations and fiddle time and crafts.  For me, yesterday, it meant making something that I have been craving for far too long: GF cream cheese wontons.  Ohh yum, I know they aren't remotely healthy, or anything nutritionally anything for you, but dear god are they good and in life I can't even tell you how many years it has been since I have eaten one.  Years guys, years.  If you scour the internet for recipes it is a seriously dire situation.  I mean, they are vaguely referenced in a few places, and the one thing I found that was actually helpful was an entire page into comments on how to make regular cream cheese wontons and was posted four years ago!  Yikes!  I knew I would need some rice paper and rice flour, so I set off towards Denver's version of United Noodle (Minneapolis's awesome asian market..swoon!), also known as H Mart.  It was quite glorious, and to be honest I can't believe I haven't been there yet!  It's only six miles from my house, and it is a gigantic catch-all of asian anything you could possibly want and more.  They've got a huge produce section with both exotic and indigenous fruits and vegetables, sea food, meats, two aisles of noodles,  frozen dumplings, all different kinds of rice and flours.  It was pretty much asian market heaven.   In any case, I picked up some rice flour, rice paper, green onions, vegetable oil and of course some mochi.  I stopped by the regular store to pick up cream cheese, eggs and milk and I was all set!

Gluten Free Cream Cheese Wontons

Wrapper:
Rice paper sheets
2 cups rice flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Filling:
Cream cheese
Green onions (chopped)

First mix the filling ingredients together and set aside.  I just used cream cheese and green onions, but add whatever you like to yours! Beat the eggs. Brush the beaten egg onto the rice paper until the paper gets somewhat flexible. At that point cut the paper into 4 sections if you have large sheets, or just use one per wonton if you find the smaller ones like I did.  Put a  dab of the filling in the center of each paper section. Pull the 3 or 4 sides of the paper up and pinch at the top, being careful to make a good seal.  Some of mine felt like they had too much wrapping so I trimmed them a little with my kitchen scissors. The egg helps to set the seal, but be careful where you put it once your finished with this step because I had one or two stick to the cutting board!

Next mix together rice flour, and milk.  I made way too much batter (1 C flour and 1/2 C milk), so I think a guesstimate of less should do just fine.  Next time I think I will just add a little of each until the consistency is a pretty thin batter. Heat your oil on the stovetop, dip the prepared wontons in the batter and then drop in the oil. They take about 2-3 min. to cook, or just until they are golden.

 

What a tasty treat we had for dinner last night!  Well, that's not all we had for dinner of course.  We saved room for mochi too! Mmmmm healthy..

it's wedding time already?!

Oh man, I think this blog is slowly morphing itself into a dog blog, or a complain about the GRE blog.  I need more things in my life!  SO, in honor of my best friend Annie's wedding which is coming up so quickly, I thought I would finally post about the second bachelorette party I have ever helped throw!  Did you think that maybe you would have heard about this in the month that the party occurred?  Maybe, if I was really lazy, the month after?  Well folks, it is indeed rounding up onto two months post party, but the wedding isn't for another FOUR WHOLE DAYS so technically I am still ahead of schedule, right? 

 Here is our bride-to-in-four-days-be...

(ARGH, side note to tell you that blogger deleted my whole post...I will cobble it back together)

 As you can see, Annie was dressed to the nines with her pink sash, glittery cowboy hat, and a lai acquired from the taxi driver!

Aly and I put together a  non-traditional party that was a combination of bridal shower, yummy snacks, games of course and the main event: a pedal pub!!  Basically a giant bicycle/boat/moving bar that we pedaled ever so slowly around St. Paul. See?

It was a lot heavier than you might think..or perhaps it looks heavy enough already to you.  Powered only by the strength in our legs, and not even all of our legs because some people were too short to reach, we meandered our way through the streets (two streets) of St Paul, stopping to wet our parched throats at a few bars a long the way.  Let me assure you, even though it was a chilly rainy evening, we were sweating upon arrival to every bar!  If it had been sunny I'm not sure if we would have made it very far! That rhymed.  In any case, it was a ridiculous fun celebration, topped off with music and dancing to end the night in style.    

 

The beautiful bride, Annie, and her two lovely bridesmaids/party planners!

evolution of a car cuddle

We spent the 4th in Utah visiting JP's family, and with my little haitian stomach bug in tow I didn't have the energy to take pictures.  Shocking, I know. We left the morning after I worked a night shift, and so I slept most of the morning in the front seat with my face mask and ear plugs in.  Obie likes to cuddle, and he slowly worked his way up to the front seat while I was snoozing:

 

don't think I am forgetting

all the things I have been doing, and all the pictures I have been taking of those things that I have been doing! I am going for round two of the GRE on the 19th, in hopes that I can boost my score for the last time before they change the whole darn thing! Considering I will be free of sickness that causes me to cough and threaten to be kicked out of the place, and I will have banished my gutteral companion that hopped a ride home from Haiti with me, I think I will be in top form this time around. Woot. That said, I have to go get ready for night shift, and night studying, but here are some pictures of out little bayou a few blocks from our house where Oliver is learning to love the water...

I won't bore you with details on how proud I am of my little man and how big he is getting!