Wontons with friends!

Since I started this blog, I have not cooked for anyone but family.  Not sure why.  I guess I am nervous that people will think I am weird, that it would turn out bad, or the pressure of cooking for someone else made me nervous. Seriously, even at birthday parties for my kids I freak out a little bit that everything tastes good.  After I cooked my tofu from the last post, my really good friend came over and wanted to know what the smell was and why I didn't cook for them more.  Honestly, every time we get together we end up ordering pizza.  I decided after that, that I should relax and share my experience with them.  This one looked fun to try.  I started with canned chopped artichoke hearts.  This is a new staple for me in my pantry.  I have added it to rice, pasta, or salads and adds veggies with not much thought.  

I added bacon, feta cheese, salt and pepper and 1 egg.

While cooking for this particular friend, she offered to help.  If you do not know me, I am a huge control freak.  I am pretty much in high gear when I am cooking.  Because of this, my children rarely get to help me.  LOL.  I made a change and let her help me.  We started with wonton wrappers and placed 1 tsp of the mixture in the middle of the wrapper

We then used our finger with cold water and outlined the wrapper.  The point of this is to seal the wonton.

This recipe makes 35-40 wontons, so while we were assembling the wontons we kept the other ones on a wet towel.

Once they were all made, I turned the oven on 200 degrees to be able to keep them warm.  I placed 10 wontons into a med-high pan with 1 tsp on olive oil painted on the bottom of the pan.

After two minutes on one side, I flipped them.  They are very delicate so I ended up using a spatula instead of a fork.  Once then are flipped and then browned on the other side I added 1/4 cup of hot water to steam them.  After they were steamed for 1 minute I placed them into the oven and repeated the process.

Here are the finished products.

Overall, they turned out pretty good.  Symon loved them.  In the words of my mom, " I love cooking for Symon because he loves everything".  As for my guests they said they liked them as well.  Lets be honest, we decided the bacon made them. I felt some of them were greasy.  After we ate them, we decided that it could be good if we added some heat with jalepenos or a spicy sauce.  We also had some spicy chip dip that we ate with it.  It was good.  I suggested soy sauce or a sweet and sour sauce as well.
I really enjoyed cooking with friends.  After looking back.  I will be trying it again.  These two particular people were great sports and can't wait to cook again for and with them.