Wrapping up summer

The end of cousin camp brings about feelings of sadness and relief in equal amounts. We love this tradition of togetherness and summer adventure, but after a week of coordinating four families and the needs and wants of seven small children, I am more than ready to return to our routine in all its mundanity.

Sadly, we have just one full week left to enjoy before we lose the freedom of summertime, so we have no time to waste in lazy recovery.

Every year I look back on camp and marvel at how the children have changed. Their personalities developed in unexpected ways and their capabilities as a group continued to improve. We were able to tolerate longer events and more exciting excursions, and I can’t wait to see how much they will be able to experience together next year and in all the years to follow.

At some point during these weeks, we change the kids into the “Camp Kenai” shirts my sister-in-law provides, and we gather them all up in the yard to take their camp picture, and it’s always a disaster. The younger ones need a snack or bribe to stay in position, the older ones get frustrated that it’s taking so long, and for four years now the camp picture has featured at least one child in tears … my child has been crying in the picture for two of them.

But these pictures are so special exactly because they aren’t perfect or overly posed — they’re a snapshot of our perfect little ones as they truly are right then, preschool angst and all.

One of my Korean teachers told me once that if you make beautiful dumplings, you will make beautiful babies. To celebrate all our beautiful dumplings (and to clear out some old shrimp in my freezer) I made shrimp shumai to pair with our soup for our first quiet family dinner at home after the goodbyes had been said.

These dumplings are relatively easy to make and are very forgiving, perfect for inexperienced folders. This is a great way to use up very old, possibly freezer-burned shrimp that might be tucked into a corner of your freezer.

Shrimp Shumai

Ingredients:

1 pound shrimp — thawed, deveined, shell and tail off

¼ cup mirin

6 stalks green onion, chopped fine

1 teaspoon salt

1 inch fresh ginger, finely minced

2 tablespoons potato starch (or corn starch)

1 package gyoza wrappers (round shape)

Directions:

Clean and inspect your shrimp thoroughly for any pieces of shell or veins. Pat dry.

You can use the small bowl of a food processor to grind the shrimp, but I think hand chopping provides a better texture. Either way, process the shrimp until it is a lumpy paste.

Fold in the green onion, ginger, salt and mirin, until combined.

Sprinkle on the starch and stir until well mixed. There should be no pockets of dry starch.

Prepare a baking tray with a layer of parchment or wax paper as a landing zone for the dumplings.

Make a fist with one hand with the opening up and place a wrapper on top.

Press the wrapper down into your fist just enough to create a small well.

Take about a teaspoon of the shrimp paste and drop it down into that well.

Press the paste down into your open fist until the edges of the wrapper start to wrinkle at the top.

Take two fingers and pinch along the top of the dumpling all the way around. You don’t want to seal the top; the shrimp paste filling should be visible when finished.

Set aside and continue until all the filling has been used.

To cook, steam in a parchment lined steamer basket for 10-15 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the shrimp reaches 145 degrees.

Freeze the rest flat and store frozen in a zip-top bag for up to three months.