Chinese Style Dumplings with Bok Choy and Broccoli

As you've probably gathered from my brief absence, there hasn't been much in the way of culinary creations in my kitchen of late. Rob was out of town for the last half of the weekend and first part of this week, so the girls and I have been surviving on lentil soup and quinoa-black bean salad for the last few days. Not to mention the weather has been beautiful and my computer usage has been minimal (I predict fewer blog posts as the weather gets nicer!).

So, of course, with Rob's return home I was excited to get back in the kitchen, and even more excited to try out this vegetable dumpling recipe from the current issue of Vegetarian Times. I generally flip through VT and mark all of the recipes that are labeled vegan, or that are easily veganizable. This recipe was labeled as vegan, so I was super excited to try it out.....I'm a sucker for anything Asian!!

I wrote down all of the ingredients I needed and headed to the store to get the stuff. Asparagus, edamame, bok choy, and won ton wrappers.....easy enough, right. Right, hit the produce section and the Asian foods section. No won ton wrappers in the Asian foods section....where to look now? Well, as I'm passing by the "vegan" section (tofu, tempeh, Vegenaise, FYH cheese, etc.) I spot the Nasoya won ton wrappers, great, I grab them and head home.

As I was getting the filling prepared and starting to form the dumplings I happen to glance at the back of the package......eggs. There are eggs in the freakin' won ton wrappers, WTH??? There goes my vegan dinner. I did find a recipe for vegan won ton wrappers on vegweb, but I'd already purchased these, my money had already gone to support animal cruelty, and I had no time for making and rolling out my own wrappers (maybe next time).

Now, I take total blame for not reading the label before I purchased the wrappers. I totally took it for granted that they were vegan, given that they were located in the section with all of the other "vegan" items at the store. Not to mention, VT labeled this recipe as vegan (and apparently after some Internet searching, vegan won ton wrappers are difficult to come by). At the very least VT could have put a disclaimer, warning that most commercially available won ton wrappers are not vegan.

Aside from their un-vegan-ness, the dumplings were very tasty. The filling is a mixture of ginger, garlic, edamame, asparagus, soy sauce and sesame oil. You just steam them with the bok choy for about 8 minutes or so, and they are ready. The only trouble I had was that the dumplings are quite sticky, and if you get them in the steamer basket touching, they are nearly impossible to separate without tearing them open.

Expect to see these, or something similar popping up here again, whenever I can find the time to make my own wrappers.