Here’s some stuff I’ve made lately. Thumbnails are for pussies!

Orange Chicken. This is another of my favorite dishes from
The Chinese Kitchen.

Kitchen Curtains. These I just made on the fly with my new sewing machine. Pretty dark green gingham to go with the green trim in my kitchen. I’m hoping the color keeps these from looking too kitschy.

Wavy Scarf for my Mom. This was her Christmas present and it took FOREVER to make. I used Idena Bamboo…that stuff’s the best yarn EV4R. Durable yet soft. Splits like a mutha, but it’s a joy to have sliding through your fingers and it’s worth it for the end result.

And now, for some pots. I think I’ve only posted one pot here before. Here are the pots I’ve made that I’m more or less proud of:

This one I gave to my brother-in-law for Christmas. I think it’s the best pot I’ve ever made, so I hope he damn well appreciates it. :Þ

This was my favorite pot before the one above. It was one of the first pots I made.

This pot I gave to my in-laws for Christmas, with a gift card inside informing them that we’d donated an XO in their name. No, you’re really not supposed to throw pots with this coarse clay.

These were originally meant to be a set of three, but one of them split during firing. Pain teaches: I learned to cut out the slabs for only one pot at a time. I still like ‘em as just a pair; they’re sitting out on my kitchen counter.

Another of my first pots. This one I sent to my Uncle Scott.

Chun glaze experimentation.

Another pot.

This one sits in the hand so nicely. I gave to to HansO because he likes dark red.

Another very early pot. A gift to my in-laws.

Sadly, it seems like the best pots I made were the post I made a long time ago.

In the future, I’ll try to be better about posting pictures as I finish things as opposed to posting them all in one big glut.

Here are some pictures of what I make myself to eat when Johannes isn’t coming home for dinner:

Chinjiew Chicken:

General Tso’s Chicken:

From Eileen Yin-Fei Lo’s “The Chinese Kitchen”. I credit that cookbook with making me into the chef I am today. I make damn good food, and that’s a damn good cookbook. If only she had one on photography…

Last night I made some fabulous chicken strips. Chicken strips were the last thing on my list of foods I missed from the US but wasn’t able to recreate here. These things rivalled KFC. Here they are:

Here is the recipe:

I am lucky enough to be one of the few people in the western world who doesn’t have food issues. However, there do exist a couple of food items I love so much that I cannot control myself around them. One of these is lemon sorbet. The other is shanghai potsticker dumplings.

Today I made the dumplings. They are extremely labor intensive. I have to grind the pork, chop and blanch bok choy, chop and mix in about 10 other ingredients, and then let that mixture fester for four hours or overnight. Then I have to make the dough, which is a major pain in the ass. It’s just flour and water, but one recipe of dumplings calls for 32 dumpling skins. I have to divide the dough into 32 balls and roll them out, then pack and fold all 32 little dumplings together. The lucky people in the US can apparently buy pre-made dumpling skins, but such are not available here. If it weren’t for the making of the dumpling skins, I’d make these little treasures a lot more often.

After the dumplings have been folded together, they have to be fried, then steamed, then fried again, all in the same pan. It usually takes three batches of cooking to get them all made. They’re served with vinegar soy sauce. It’s just heaven.

I don’t make these dumplings for guests very often. I don’t like to share.

So, I made some apple butter the other day for use in another recipe. I hardly used any of the apple butter at all, and now I’ve got a whole jar of the stuff. What does one do with apple butter? We aren’t really bread people. Any suggestions? Anyone want some apple butter?