April 2, 2010

Trip to Ridley Creek State Park and Making Vegetarian Dumplings

     Yesterday was such a beautiful day. Andy and I went for a walk at Ridley Creek State Park. The park is very beautiful. The area has been inhabited since the late 1600s and stone remnants of the period are scattered throughout the woods. There is a 4.3 mile paved walkway throughout woods and many dirt trails. Some historical structures to look out for include an early 1900s pump house( recently hit by a tree,) an early 1900s swimming pool, and the "Russell Cemetery" (1820-1861, There is an amusing bit of folklore about one occupant of this cemetery: Jesse Russell. Jesse Russell, a fox hunter, died on the 12th of September in1820 when he was 42 years old. It is said that he was buried standing up so as to better hear his hunting hounds after death.   

     We stayed on the paved trail mostly, only going into the woods once or twice to see some of the ruins. We ended up seeing lots of animals, including two snakes.

 

One time I was jogging in the woods with my mother. I saw a large snake sunbathing across the path. I pointed it out to my mother as "Snake!! Run!!" She took my advise and ran...right past the snake. So we were stuck in the woods with a huge snake in between us. Eventually another jogger convinced me that if I just ran past, it wouldn't eat me--which I was sure it wanted to do. :D I did run past and it didn't eat me.

The one snake Andy and I saw was a cute little garter snake, the other seemed a little bigger, but we didn't get a good look at it. It was a really nice day to walk and the trees create a canopy of shade.


Andy was nice enough to make vegetarian Chinese Dumplings with me yesterday too. Ever since I have become a vegetarian, I have missed the pork dumplings in Chinese restaurants (it's only been about 9 months.I barely have missed meat at all.) We used this recipe from the food network. This was our first time, next time we make these, we plan on using a hot pepper and less cilantro. They did turn out nice looking and were very tasty.


This is what the dumpling filling looked like. We ended up frying some dumplings and boiling some of them. We thought they were tasty both ways and dipped them in soy sauce.






We fried some of them in a little vegetable oil and they turned out a little crispy, similarly to the outside of an egg roll. 
The boiled dumplings were more like wonton noodles. I preferred them this way. These tasted very yummy, they didn't even need any meat for flavor. I would recommend these. I'm glad we found a non-meat alternative. 

We had a fun day but were really tired when we got home from our walk. We collapsed at home and later watched a movie. It was a fun day, I can't wait until the summer when school is over, especially when reenacting season starts.

3 comments:

  1. Ooh, those look SO good! I love the many uses for wonton wrappers :)

    Sounds like you had a great time, I don't know that I'd like to be buried standing up. . . Interesting story!

    I can't wait for reenacting season either! My site starts end of April.

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  2. Thanks for commenting. We did have a lot of fun. I like your reenacting dress, did you ever get it fixed from the bleach?

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  3. Yup! I turned it into a summer dress!

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