Cindy Schultheis-Corrales

My new favorite! Great recipe. I used walnuts and made the recipe exactly as directly. Next time I think I'll add a bit more cayenne pepper

I made this pretty much as recipe stated. However I replaced pecans for walnuts, omitted green grapes and added dried cranberries. Instead of the entire amount of mayo, I balanced a portion of the mayo with plain yogurt. I also used Ethopian Berbere spice plus curry. Delicious!

Instead of the 4 lbs. of ground beef, I used 1-1/2 lbs of ground pork. I also used about 3/4 cup of green cabbage instead of napa cabbage. For the cabbage I put it in a separate bowl with sea salt and masticated it - squeezing out excess water. I had two package of won tons (which I cut the corner off and basically rounded the corners). This turned out making 100 of the best pot stickers I've ever had! I would have given this recipe 5 stars except I think the amount of ground beef was way off track. One pound of ground shrimp and 1-1/2 pounds of ground pork with the other ingredients was, in my opinion, right on.

I make this with brown/wild rice combo (with a bit of cumin seed) instead of the barley and white rice. The cumin blends nicely with the herbs. For the brown rice I use Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice recipe on Foodnetwork website. To that I add: 1/4 tsp. cumin seed

I'm basing my 5-star rating on the version I made. I didn't use the garbanzo beans, but used instead my pinto beans made from dry beans plus I didn't add vegetarian "meat" substitute. The flavor comes from from the herbs mostly. The corn adds nice sweetness and wholesomeness. Definitely a "make-again" recipe. BTW, I am not a vegetarian but loved this recipe. I don't miss the meat at all.