It Only Hurts When I Blog

Happy Memorial Day, Bloggies!

I hope you have the day off from WORK today.

I'm writing my blog early so we can go do some sightseeing later this morning.

I know, I should be blogging about something more patriotic, but I SAID I wanted to talk about making wontons today - so I'm going to. So there.

The photo you see here is my finished product - wonton soup with a few green onions on top. YUM-O!

Apology - I didn't make the stock for the broth, I used a watered down cup-a-soup. I admit it. Hey, I could have just poured chicken stock out of a can just as easily. Next time I might.

Ok, so here's the rest of the process, for those of you who want to try making wonton soup yourself. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT.

First - I tried the round wonton skins this time instead of the square.

I found them easier to work with and fold, and I think they are very attractive! ;-)

I didn't use the traditional pork for the filling, I used ground white meat turkey.

I made the filling into little 'meatball-like' teaspoonfuls, so it was easy to assemble the wontons.

There isn't much work to making the filling - meat, green onion, pepper, soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil, and I threw in a little minced cabbage for additional veggie-power.

My ground turkey had been frozen, so I actually cooked the little wonton filling 'meatballs' on a cookie sheet before I placed them in the wrappers.

(Since I was going to freeze them, I didn't think it was a good idea to re-freeze the filling without cooking it).

Wontons are low in calories - one wonton wrapper is 16 calories, and the filling's caloric value depends on what you put in it.

The ones I made are about 25 calories each including the wrapper, which means you can eat all you want of the little darlings.

The wonton skins (which are really the same as pasta rounds) dry out pretty quickly, so you have to 'stay frosty' and get the edges moistened with water, put the filling inside them, and then seal and crimp the edges together.

I worked with a dozen or so at a time, keeping the rest under a damp paper towel.

Confession - don't be too lazy about crimping the edges, I had one wonton 'open' while I was making my batch of soup. Oops.

I froze most of the wontons in Press-and-seal wrap, and I'll just drop them in boiling broth and simmer them for around 8 minutes. The fresh ones I cooked for 6 minutes.

Last photo - this is what the wontons looked like prior to cooking or freezing.

Aren't they BEE-YOU-TI-FUL?

Makes you want to run down to the store and make some, doesn't it?

By the way - I bought the round wrappers at Wal-mart superstore, they only sell the square ones at the grocery stores I go to.

Well, I'm going to 'wrap it up' for now and go do fun stuff for Memorial Day.

TTFN!