How to make the messiest potstickers ever

Let me start off by telling you I've never made potstickers before, but I saw the little pre-made wraps and figured since I'd made eggrolls several times successfully that potstickers would be relatively easy. WRONG.

I'm not giving you the recipe because this was a trainwreck that, after 90 minutes of working, left my kitchen looking like the Tasmanian devil tore through it. I will tell you that I used pre-made potsticker wraps, ground turkey, napa cabbage, onion, crushed garlic, oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

It started out looking harmless enough. I browned the turkey in my wok. While the turkey was cooking, I quartered the onion and put it in my food processor with some roughly chopped cabbage. I think this was where things started to take a wrong turn. By the time I was able to stir stuff around enough to get it all cut up, it was a light green mush. I decided to add the mush to the wok with the browned turkey. I also added my garlic and spices at this time.Then I cooked that for a few minutes until it was a soupy mess. Despite several rounds of draining and the addition of cornstarch (to thicken) it was still very watery and quite ugly looking.
After more draining, I set out my first 9 little wrappers and piled little mounds of filling on them. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all?WRONG! I wet the edges with too much water and quickly discovered that not only did I use too much filling on each one, but it was too coarse in texture for the delicate dough. This bastard dough didn't want to seal shut, it only wanted to tear open.

I gently placed my first batch into an oiled pan and fried each side for 2 minutes. Then I poured in about a 1/2 cup of water (too much!) which made the pan scream and sprayed my stove and me with an oil water mist. I quickly covered it, cursed it, and steamed for 2 minutes. What came out was a little watery slimy potsticker. Meanwhile I started on my next batch. I used less filling, less water to seal, less water to steam, and things were starting to look a little better. I kept working, batch after batch. I think I made about 50 or so of these little bastards. I threw out the remaining filling (which was about half of it). When hubby came home, the kitchen was trashed, but dinner was on the table. It looks harmless though, doesn't it?
They tasted excellent and the texture was perfect, but the mess and time consumed were too much for me. I'll attempt again, but perhaps follow some sort of recipe next time. Meanwhile, we've got leftovers for lunch!