Hellooo! So glad to know that you are still here. It was never my intention to go this long without a recipe or even just a post, but I seriously underestimated how little time I would have, especially after I returned to work after my maternity leave.
So what’s new since then? Well, as I previously mentioned I’m back to work at my full-time job. Things got a little hectic last fall as we juggled the new routine of earlier mornings, daycare drop-offs, getting back into the groove of work, daycare pickups, and then rushing home to cook supper. I feel very fortunate to live in a country where I was afforded a long and generous maternity leave and we lucked out getting a toddler spot at a daycare that is a 15-minute walk from our home and is also somewhat on my work commute. The daycare waitlists here are very long and finding a spot can take up to a year or longer depending on the area you live in. Even though I had applied for spots in my first trimester, actually securing a spot was something that lingered on the back of my mind as my return to work date was approaching. We recently had our scheduled one-on-one meeting with one of the providers at Thomas’s daycare to go over his recent milestones and it was a great reassurance and reminder that he’s in great care while Trevor and I continue our careers.
Speaking of Trevor, another big change in our household is that he recently turned into a freelancer! This has been a great move for us and it has given him so much more creative freedom in the jobs he has been undertaking. It’s also been nice to have someone at home to dump food into the slow cooker or pull the chicken out of the freezer so that we can get a jump-start on supper Thomas and I come home, haha. 🙂
On the days where we don’t rely on our slow cooker for supper, I find that having a large freezer bag full of homemade gyoza has been a lifesaver. Just throw a dozen or so in a pan, cook up some rice and steam some broccoli, and I have a balanced meal ready to go in under 30 minutes. Thomas isn’t a big meat eater (#toddlerlife), but he eats anything mixed up with rice and of course he loves dipping food in gyoza sauce.
I’ve been making my Grandma Kay’s gyoza recipe for a couple of months now and at first, I was super intimidated with pleating, but now it’s my favourite part of the process. I usually set everything up on the coffee table in front of the TV and throw on an old episode of Game of Thrones as background noise. Plus, I find that as long as you don’t overfill your gyoza and the edges stick together, the pleating doesn’t have to be perfect. It is very forgiving once you actually cook them.
Gyoza Filling