There are so many things to be thankful for this year. My girls are happy, healthy, and loving their school and friends. Our hot dog shop, Dobbs Dawg House, is growing with another store and catering service. I am enjoying my consulting work and starting my entrepreneurial venture. My relationship with my husband is getting stronger each day. My life is not perfect but I feel blessed for all that’s within it.
As with all Thanksgivings in the past, I ate two Thanksgiving dinners. My Aunt hosts a wonderful dinner at her home in Long Island on Thanksgiving and a couple days later, my mom cooks a dinner of her own. She started this tradition because she always spends enough money to get a free turkey from the grocery store and believes in a lot of leftovers. Her turkey came out perfectly. I don’t think the picture does it justice.
We all help make dinner. It takes a small army to get the dinner on the table.
Our holidays are a mix of American and Chinese. This year my mom included Lobster Cantonese in our Thanksgiving dinner.
We ate dumplings for appetizers.
Here was our Thanksgiving dinner. I’m going to do some close-up pictures of my favorites.
I love lobster, especially Chinese style.
Homemade cranberry sauce. Perfect with turkey.
My brother is a foodie, he went to cooking school at the French Culinary Institute and is always eating at these fancy restaurants. Green bean casserole is his favorite dish at Thanksgiving. I don’t know how that can be but it is.
My mom’s stuffing is requested at both Thankgiving dinners.
We have to have greens at the dinner table. Chinese leafy green vegetables sautéed in garlic.
And of course mash potatoes. I don’t need them to be fancy…just potatoes, milk, and butter.
My sister made an apple pie for dessert. I made vanilla ice cream for the pie. I let the girls eat ice cream cones before dinner because the ice cream was so good.
Here was the Thanksgiving spread at my Aunt’s house. I couldn’t get all of the dishes in one photo. I still can’t believe I ate another Thanksgiving dinner after this.
As much as I love the food at Thanksgiving, my favorite part is spending time with my family. On Thankgiving day we ate appetizers with my in-laws. My brother-in-law, Chris, is entertaining the kids with a fireman puppet. We were watching a replay of the Thanksgiving Day parade on the TV.
This is the kids table at my Aunt’s house. Since I have my own kids, I can’t sit at this table anymore. I miss it.
Mike and my Baby before my mom’s Thanksgiving dinner.
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Feeling blessed,
The Dumpling Mama xo
My Grandmother taught me how to clean leafy green vegetables, like bok choy, choy sum, or yu choy. My grandmother is a very clean person. Everything from her home, to her hands, and even her vegetables are very clean. She grew up in a small village in China where there wasn’t running water or modern sanitation. Everything was washed thoroughly to minimize germs. This is her method of cleaning vegetables. It might be more effort then your current cleaning process but I guarantee you will never chew sand when eating your vegetables.
When you buy your leafy green vegetables, especially if they are sold pre-packaged, you will have some leaves that are discolored or have holes. Always try your best to pick the vegetables that have the best looking and healthiest leaves (ex: not yellow, no holes).
The vegetables will have sand stuck to them because they grow so close to the ground. Do your best to pick the ones with the least amount of sand. I won’t buy vegetables with a lot of sand because it is too hard to remove all of it.
You want to prepare the best tasting leafy green vegetables so remove all imperfections such as, yellow leaves and leaves with holes.
Then cut the ends of the stems. Depending on when the vegetables are harvested, the ends could be dry. I usually cut up to a 1/4 inch off the ends because the ends are dirty from being so close to the ground.
Once you have removed all of the imperfections from the leafy green vegetables, you are ready to clean them.
Put the vegetables in a large pot or bowl and fill it with enough water to cover all of the leaves. Add white vinegar using the measurements, 6 parts water to 1 part vinegar (6:1), to remove bacteria and pesticides. Use your hands to mix the vinegar with the water. Let the vegetables sit for 15 minutes.
(Here comes the big effort.) Take each stem, peal back where the leaves meet the stems, and use your fingers to rub out the sand. I use gloves to wash my vegetables because I have 
Grab the bottom of the stem, submerge the vegetable into the water and give it a shake to remove any remaining sand. After the shake, place the vegetable on a plate or bowl.
After you have finished pulling back the leaves and shaking each vegetable, you will see the water will have sand on the bottom and might be a tint of brown depending on how dirty the vegetables were. Empty the water and rinse out any remaining sand on the bottom, put all of the vegetables back in, and fill it with enough water to cover all of the leaves. No need to add vinegar to the water. Repeat the steps of pulling back the leaves and rubbing out the sand and shaking each vegetable at least a second time. Do it a third time if your vegetables are very dirty and you still see a lot of sand at the bottom of the pot after the second washing.
There is effort to this cleaning process but your leafy green vegetables will be very clean and there will be no sand left on the leaves or hiding in the creases. I think one of the worst experiences at a Chinese restaurant is chewing sand when you eat Chinese leafy green vegetables. My Grandfather use to own a restaurant in Chinatown, NY, and my mom told me the restaurant didn’t have time to follow a process like my Grandmother’s to clean the vegetables. They just soaked the vegetables in water for an hour or so to loosen the sand and then gave them a massive shake.
Another Halloween has just passed. The festivities started out with my Baby’s school Halloween parade. The whole school circles the parking lot twice to “The Monster Mash” playing in the background. When my Princess was in the toddler class, she pretended I wasn’t there. As soon as my Baby saw me, she wanted me to hold her hand while she walked in the parade. Toddlers are so unpredictable.
After the parade, the class got together to take a group picture. There aren’t many things cuter then a group of 2-year-olds in costumes. My Princess had her school parade at the same time so my Grouchy Husband and I had to split up parade duty.
Later that day, we went to a nearby town to trick-or-treat. The town closes the streets where the shops are so they can hand out candy to the kids. This year, I let the girls be whatever they wanted. My Baby wants to do everything her big sister does so they were both Cinderella.
My girls don’t just give me simple smiles when they pose for pictures anymore.
These are silly princess curtsies.
This is just being silly.
We spent the day at 
The farm has a big petting zoo. You can buy milk bottles and ice cream cones filled with food to feed the animals. I think this is the only petting zoo that uses ice cream cones. The girls had a blast feeding the animals.
You could only give the milk bottle to the sheep and goats. They preferred the food so the girls had to try hard to find animals that wanted the milk.
All of the girls took a pony ride. They even let my Baby on with my Grouchy Husband walking next to her. She had this expression on her face the whole time. I don’t think she could believe she was riding a pony.
We visited the bird sanctuary this year. You buy these $2 sticks of food, hold it in front of where the birds are sitting, and they walk onto your stick to eat. This was sooo much fun and the girls were in complete amazement to be holding a bird. If we lived closer, I would visit the farm often so the girls could spend time with animals and I wouldn’t have to take care of them.
The girls took a train ride and got the caboose all by themselves.
My Princess and A got on the stage of one of the live performances for a dance party. This was so cute.
We ended the day taking a family picture in the pumpkin patch. I was so tempted to use this picture for our holiday card but thought the pumpkins would feel off-season.
In 
This past weekend we went to visit my sister and her husband, Mike, in Boston. My whole family (parents, younger sister, brother) went to visit and it was kinda a big deal because my sister went to college in Boston, lived in Boston after college and grad school, and my parents never went to visit her. My family is from New York and we are very New York-centric. Shopping is better in New York, restaurants are better in New York, we have better culture, more airports, etc. When we travel, it’s usually to amazing ski mountains or to see a natural wonder, things that cannot be found in New York. I use to think like this also but since our 
My Dad wanted to take a ferry ride so we went on the 
We walked to the cruise from my sister’s apartment and on the way back stopped at the 
After the carousel we stopped at 
In the afternoon my Princess baked an apple pie with my sister. She has loved to cook and bake since she was little.
For dinner we went to the Brazilian steakhouse, 
We celebrated my sister’s birthday at the restaurant. Her birthday was in September right after 
The next day we were all leaving to go home so we took it easy and went to a playground in the 
He decided to try them also.
My Princess was amazed how well he did the monkey bars. We actually all were.
After the playground we walked through the 
Here we are walking and talking through 
Then we walked past the finish line for the Boston Marathon.
The night before I took this picture of the prayer ribbons that were tied to the fence of the Arlington Street Church, just down the street from where the marathon bombing occurred.
We finally reached the restaurant! My brother wanted fried seafood so my sister brought us to 
And the gentlemen.
I even got a shot of my Grouchy Husband and I.
It took a little while for the food to come so thank goodness there were toothpicks the girls could play with. Taking a toothpick out of its wrapper can be better then playing with toys.
The appetizers were amazing. Fried calamari, fried oysters, fried clams, and steamed muscles. Yum..meee.
I ordered the lobster roll on a bed of lettuce. There was so much lobster and it didn’t have a lot of mayonnaise. It was perfect, one of the best lobster rolls I’ve ever had. A bloody mary would have made this meal perfect but they only serve wine and beer. But they serve fresh cut fries and that almost made up for it.
In 
). I haven’t eaten pasta in a long time. On the detox, I saw a recipe for 
. Each day you are able to eat either one green-tip banana or a green granny smith apple. My favorite way to eat a banana in a 
Over the summer, I spent some time at my parents house in Upstate New York because my Princess attended a nearby camp. At the farmer’s market, I picked up some portobello, king oyster, and fresh hen of the woods mushrooms. I love mushrooms so I decided to make a mushroom dumpling. 
First, brush the caps clean and remove the stems. Chop all the mushrooms to a similar size.
Chop the shallots and garlic.
Heat up some olive oil in a large pan or pot on low heat. Add the shallots and cook until translucent.
Add the mushrooms, butter, salt, and pepper and cook on medium heat until the mushrooms start to release their juices. Stir the mushrooms while they cook.
Put the mushrooms into a bowl and stir in the garlic, parsley, and salt.
Using either store bought skins or 
Coat the bottom of a non-stick pan with oil. Fill the bottom of the pan with dumplings. Line them up snug. Coat the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of water, put a cover on the pan, and cook on medium heat. After fifteen minutes check the dumplings to make sure most of the water has disappeared. Wait another five to ten minutes. When all of the water is evaporated and the bottoms are brown and crispy, the dumplings are ready to eat!
These mushroom dumplings are amazing. After you bite into the crispy skin, you then savor the buttery mushroom filling…heavenly. This is the dumpling for any mushroom lover.
Growing up I didn’t really celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. The only reason I knew it was that time of year is because we would have mooncakes in the house. This year I wanted to celebrate with the girls. Even though they are 5 and 2, I wanted to expose them to the importance of the festival, build our own traditions, and have fun.
The calligrapher, Tianyi Shan, had an activity table where you could trace her brushstrokes. My Princess chose to trace the characters for mooncake. She got to take home her sheet of traced characters and a few messages done by Tianyi Shan for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Tianyi Shan was very patient and helpful with her instruction.
During the Sensory Mooncake Experience, we learned mooncakes are round to symbolize a full moon, usually have four egg yolks to symbolize the four phases of the moon, and helped establish the 
My Princess did a shadow puppet craft of the jade rabbit. According to Chinese legend, a beautiful woman, Chang Oh, was married to Hou Yi, a skilled archer and great general in the Imperial Guard. He shot down eight of the nine suns that mysteriously appeared in the sky and was awarded by the Emperor with a pill of immortality. Chang Oh was envious so she ate the pill and escaped to the moon to hide. On the moon she found a jade rabbit under a tree. The air was cold on the moon and she began coughing, eventually coughing up the pill. She wanted to amend her devious act so she asked the rabbit to pound the pill into many pieces and scatter all over the earth so everyone could be made immortal. Then she built a palace for herself to live on the moon. She is known as the Lady of the Moon and you will see her design on the mooncake crust and packaging.
We made these beautiful lanterns at the Lantern Making Workshop. Lanterns are lit and carried throughout the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate the brightness of the moon. My Princess and I had a great time decorating and building our lanterns.
At the 
Mid-Autumn Festival Day, I found a