appetizer plate

There are times when I go out to eat and I kind of just want to nibble on the appetizers- more fun, more variety, less COMMITMENT than a full on meal-meal.

Now, some cuisine styles don’t exactly lend themselves to making a healthy meal out of appetizers (“Ooh, mozarella sticks and calamari!”) but if you stick with Asia, you can do all right.

With that in mind, I made myself an appetizer-platter style dinner.

Number one, I had a DUMPLING REVELATION today. I have been going through life with mediocre gyoza. NO MORE. Now that I’ve had real, authentic, HMart, made in Korea, quality filled dumplings, I cannot satisfy myself with Trader Ming’s. I have no idea how to read the brand name of these dumplings, but if you can get your hands on them, GET THEM!

On the left are vegetable dumplings (mostly soy and cabbage, and sooo light and sweet and mild and complex in flavor) and on the right are kimchi dumplings, which are wowzas and flavor packed and kind of crazy looking:

I rounded out my hot appetizer plate with some “Asian meatballs”. Meaning, of course, Trader Joe’s turkey meatballs with Sriracha. A common theme of this blog lately has been “everything tastes better with Sriracha.” Cause…. it does!

To get in some cool temperatures, I tried to recreate those awesome sesame dressed salads they give you at sushi bars:

Okay, okay, so not really, but it was good. That’s mixed greens, cucs sliced paper thin, and julienned carrots (they look like carrot sticks in this picture, but use the cucumber slices for scale- they were small, honest).  I dressed it with, in descending order of quantity, seasoned rice vinegar, Sriracha, lime juice, sesame oil, and honey.

Great dinner!

Question of the day: Is anyone else a Cooking Light subscriber? Does anyone else haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate their new format?