man,
i don't know.
i made dumpling cookies.
i did.
i thought that'd be just about the coolest sh!t for the lunar new year.
and for the record,
i still think it's pretty cool.
you know that i'm a holiday kind of guy, don'tcha?
i am.
i was never a school-spirit, pep rally,
sportsball-game facepaint and pompoms type of person.
nope....not one bit.
i'm pleased to report that even now,
after a damned dog's age,
i'm STILL not into that stuff.
it's too weirdly fanatical,
and uncomfortably contentious.
i don't feel better by attaching my identity to external entities,
and i don't feel included by joining a throng of revelers.
that ain't me, man.
but,
a juicy nationally-non-specific holiday?
a big action celebration of time and space?
like, for example, lunar new year?
hell yes, friends,
i will bricka-bracka firecracker rah-rah sis-boom-bah THAT extra hard.
i like all the GOOD ones:
lace and chocolate and flowers are for lovers on valentine's day.
everybody is irish on st. patrick's day. (and remember it's okay not to drink)
pagans and the proletariat go apesh!t on MAYDAY.
force feeding freshness on may the fourth,
tacos and salsa and sh!t on cinco de mayo. (no wall can stop that!)
damn, early may is no joke.
tricks and treats get got by all the dressed-up children on hallowe'en.
there's gratitude and generosity on thanksgiving (sorry DAPL)
and XI-mas, (one louder than Xmas)
there's solstices, equinoxes,
plus we can't forget about sandwich week,
heck,
even the regular ol' western calendar new year is pretty rad.
yeah!
...so,
since it was a new moon,
and a new year,
and a flaming hot fire rooster of one at that,
i got into the mood, and into the zone,
and made dumpling cookies to munch up while i worked\ the day away.
uh-huh.
here's the thing-
i put the dough in mid-sized muffin tins,
and the bottoms taper a little bit,
but in the opposite direction of dumplings.
i'm gonna still go ahead and count it as a win.
ok?
ok!
so,
y'wanna see 'em?
check the teleport:
TET TET TET TET TET.
neighbors,
i'll tell you what-
that's some tricky dough.
really.
a combo of wheat and sticky white rice flour (the sweet stuff) challenged
my attempts to knead and roll it regularly.
i made it work, but it took a little actual work.
i used coconut yogurt to soften them up.
at the first scoople, it was all still too stiff and crumbly.
so, obviously, i added more,
and then it was all limp and blarpity.
awwwww.
here's the cool thing about rice flour, though.
it's very absorbent.
it wants to drink all that moisture into it's core, and hold it close forever and ever.
which was lucky-lucky for me.
*
here's how i did it:
-
1 cup sugar;
1 stick vegan butts;
1/2 tsp salt;
1 tsp vanilla;
^creamed and mooshed and smooshed and squished until it's all one soft mass,
to which i added 2 T toasted sesame seeds;
1 cup white sticky rice flour;
1 cup all purpose wheat flour;
1 tsp baking powpow;
1 tsp baking soda;
3 T coconut yogurt.
^that's the proper count of coconut scoops, i think.
...the rice flour is very tasty, and zero percent gritty.
which is awesome.
the sesame seeds add that nuttiness that makes it slightly less like a cookie,
and way more of a serving-up of savory sexxiness.
yeah!
you're gonna need a lot of flour to roll the dough, bro.
it's sticky.
...just like the name of the rice clearly tells you in advance.
ha.
anyway, i cut out two dozen+ 3.5" circles.
*
and then i made a little tasty sweet filler for the centers.
-
1 cup creamy natural real-deal peanut butter;
1/2 cup powdered sugar;
3-4 T non-dairy milk;
3-4+ T toasted sesame seeds.
whisk all that up,
and it'll firm itself up into a nice-nice and stiff pliable paste.
a little half a teaspoonish in the centers of each,
and then a crimp-and-turn technique,
gently,
will get you those pleated neat-o's you see.
-
guys,
i knew that the softness would want to undermine my efforts.
there's no good reason to willingly contyinue with foreseeable,
and therefore preventable,
impediments to the production of cuteness for your mouth.
and THAT'S why i used the muffin tin, man.
smart.
i baked the whole tray for 15 minutes at 375F,
and i might've given 'em a turn,
and then let 'em hang out for one minute more, too.
i'm not afraid to eyeball the outcome, and adjust for doneness.
i mean, c'mon.
don't sell yourself short.
i don't know you, but i believe in you.
why?
because nobody wants treats that suck.
real talk.
-
and how do they taste?
F*ing expert.
duh.
don't be dumb.
***********
i celebrated solo after work with a big fat feast for myself.
and i did it all, and i ate it all BY myself.
yeah.
that's sort of become my thing.
however,
before i got into any of that,
i also rang in the lunar new new with a dog kennel full of diarrhea.
uh-huh.
i'm going to look at that as what it truly is,
rather than an omen for the rest of the rooster-
it's simpy an unfortunate dietary result of doo-doo buttery dog-walk opportunism.
yep.
crabtree will sniff out the grossest skuzz on ice and suck it down faster
than i can wrest it from his mandible.
he doesn't care about consequences.
not when there's awful offal right there in front of him.
seriously.
dogs don't understand the future.
it's just a special little gift for me, in my future,
when there's filth and effluvium caked in between the creases and cracks.
awesome.
so, he wet on a rice-heavy restriction until his b*hole isn't a volcano,
and i ate all my tasty treats a full hour later than i'd have liked.
that's what you do when you have a needy little nerd
who waits around all damned day for you.
it must've been awful to burst at the seams like that,
and then have to hang out for who knows how long.
don't worry,
after i bathed him,
and dried him, we snugged up exxtra good.
he's my dude,
that's what we do;
never quiet, never soft.....
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