Down Time and Egg Rolls

Nothing is more awesome than hanging out with your family and eating some good home-made food, am I right? So, hanging out with my little sister and fiancee while making home-made egg rolls was fantastic! We played Wii Golf and Mario Kart until my parents got home from a graduation party, and I made about 40 egg rolls for dinner (and lunch and snacks since we didn’t eat them all). If you are health conscious, you can load up on the veggies and find wrappers that are made for baking instead of frying and still get the same delicious egg-rolly goodness.

I forgot to take pictures of actually making the egg rolls because the process is pretty quick, and it’s risky to step away while either the filling or the roll are cooking. Overall, it probably took me an hour and a half to make 40 rolls, and most of that time was spent cooking the filling.

All you need to make one batch of egg rolls (about 22 rolls, depending on how many wrappers you get in the package) are the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cabbage
• 1 small onion
• 2-5 stalks of celery (you can substitute this for a teaspoon or so of celery salt)
• 2-5 carrots
• 1-3 chicken breasts (how many chicken breasts depends on how chicken-y you want your egg rolls) (also, if you are a vegetarian, you and substitute the chicken for tofu or for more veggies)
• up to 1/4 cup of soy sauce
• up to 2 tablespoons of ground ginger
• salt to season
• one package of wanton wrappers
• vegetable oil (you can use any type of oil–you can also use a Fry Daddy instead of a pot)
• Butter (optional; can be substituted with oil)

Here are the utensils you will need:

• Deep pot to boil the chicken and most of the veggies in.
• Sautee pan to mix/cook the filling in.
• Fry Daddy (optional; you can fry them in the deep pot used to boil the chicken in. All you have to do is wash it out and add an in and a half of oil.
• Slotted spoon
• Wooden spoon
• Standard eating table spoon (not the super round table spoons, but a soup spoon)
• Food processor (if you don’t have one, just shred things by hand/knife/whatever you want)
• Cookie sheet
• Cooling rack
• Paper towels

Here are the steps to delicious egg rolls:

1. Fill a pot with water, season with salt, and add the chicken. Cube the celery, carrots, and onion and add to pot and bring to boil until the chicken is cooked and the veggies are fork-tender. Once everything is cooked, drain the broth. You can drain it with a bowl underneath it to save the homemade broth–that’s what I like to do since it gives you so much, and it’s really tasty.
2. Next, place the sautee pan on the stove (or next to you, whichever is easier for you) and whip out your food processor. Slice the 1/2 head of cabbage into small-ish chunks and shred them. Depending on how coarse you like your filling to be, shred accordingly. Be sure that all pieces are uniform and that you didn’t chop up any of the stem–it’s very bitter tasting. Add a tablespoon or two of butter (or oil) and sautee until the cabbage is soft. Remove from heat.
3. Now shred the cooked veggies and chicken and add to the sauteed cabbage. Stir together and add your spices to flavor. I wound up adding about a 1/4 cup of soy sauce, a tablespoon of ginger, and a tablespoon of salt, but my fiancee loves the taste of soy in his egg rolls. Keep in mind that the juicer the roll, the more chance the roll has of ripping/tearing or falling apart.
4. I like to make all of the rolls before I begin cooking them. That way, my attention isn’t divided, and I don’t have to constantly stop what I’m doing, etc. Fill each wanton square with one soup spoon of filling. Follow the directions on the back of the package on how to roll and seal the egg roll. Some require you to wet the edges with water, some egg. The back also tells you where to place your filling and how to roll it up. This is the other large chunk of the time. Be sure that your rolls don’t touch one another or they will stick together and break when you have to pull them apart. Just place them on a flat surface that is cool, not warm or hot. Before you move on to step 5, place folded paper towels on the cookie sheet and place the cooling rack on top of that. This contraption drains the excess oil, but lets the rolls crisp up since they aren’t just sitting on the damp, oil-filled paper towel.
5. Once they are all made up and the oil is hot enough, begin frying them 4-5 at a time. Make sure that once you set them in, you nudge them with whatever utensil you have so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Roll them occasionally, and let them cook until nice and golden brown, about 2 minutes (depending on how hot your oil is, you may cut that time in half.) Always keep you eye on it so that they don’t overcook.
6. Let them cool, and tada! you have delicious, crowd-pleasing egg rolls. You can serve them as a side dish, or you can chow down on them as an entree, but either way, they are a yummy way to get your veggies.

The egg rolls will keep for up to seven days in a Tupperware in the fridge. To heat them up, if you want crispy rolls, you can re-fry them or pop them in the oven. For those of you who can’t wait to continue eating the deliciousness, just pop them in the microwave for about a minute or so. I hope this post has been hunger provoking, and inspiring to you all. It’s always nice to know that just because something looks or seems difficult to make, it doesn’t mean that it really is–most of the time it’s pretty easy!

Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

Ultimate Bacon Burger

You can consider this to be a distant continuation of my Bacon Love post since bacon is the most versatile and amazing thing in the world (okay, maybe not, but it’s pretty close.)

Last night, I was given the opportunity to make dinner for my family and my fiancee. I knew that he had been wanting a decent burger (not those nasty fast food burgers, but an actual hand-molded beef patty) for a long while, so after work, we went to the store and picked up some ground beef, bacon, Lipton Onion soup mix (this will be explained shortly), buns, and all of the other stuff you wind up buying when you go to the store (like French fries and condiments and shampoo…)

When we got home, I again forwent shedding of my dressy work clothes, and set straight to work seasoning the meat and forming big patties. I mixed in freshly ground peper and sea salt, a tad of sugar (it helps with the beautiful color and caramelized sides when you grill burgers), and a packet of the soup mix. You see, the spices in the mix and the chopped, dried onions add an entirely other dimension to the burgers! It really is spectacular. Your taste buds will rejoice.

Some people add small pieces of bacon to the beef mixture that gets formed into the hamburger patties, some people cook it separately in a pan and add it later, some people even wrap thier (raw) patties in bacon and cook. I don’t do any of these things. First of all, bacon pieces don’t crisp up when you mix them with the beef, the beef doesn’t have that delicious bacony flavor if the bacon is cooked separately, and I’m always scared the patty won’t cook all the way through which will be the result if you’re worried that your bacon is being over cooked and you take it off the heat (that, or you think that the burger is done just because the bacon on the outside is crispy and perfect–something that I’ve done before, too.)

I utelize the heat of the grill to render teh bacon fat (and 100% of the taste) into the burger. How? I place the raw bacon on top of the raw patties when I place them on the grill. When it’s time to flip the burger, I set the bacon on the grill, flip the patty, and replace the bacon. Doing this ensures that while the heat of the grill melts the fat onto and into the burger (I always close the lid so that the burgers cook faster), and since you place it on the grill every time you flip, you ensure that the bacon is getting nice and crispy!

Sizzling, bacony goodness, right there!

When the patties are done, I place them on a metal cookie sheet, but since I like my bacon crispy, I take it off of the burgers while they sit and leave them on the grill for a few minutes, or at least until they are crispy to my liking. You can add cheese or smother them in caramelized onions or load them up with whatever else you like, but this is the best bacon burger ever–hands down. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the burger once it was done grilling because I forgot. The burger was too tempting; I didn’t have the willpower to remember to take a picture since my stomach aparently took the place of my brain for a moment, but just imagine a big, juicy patty with a nice cruncy pile of bacon sitting on top on a bun surrounded by a moat of French fried and ketchup. Doesn’t that just make you drool?

Now that you’re probably craving this bad boy, go make one! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

Dessert Experimentation

For a while, I’ve wanted to experiment and make some stuffed desserts after reading about the (miraculous) York Peppermint Patty stuffed brownies on Foodgawker. After telling my mom about them, she urged me to make some. The next chance I got, I went to the store to buy the ingredients. The only problem was that I was pressed for time.

I was hungry and I didn’t feel like making a homemade brownie batter and then having to wait for it to bake. I just wanted a box mix so I could play around a bit.

They were out of boxed brownie mix!

So I grabbed a devil’s food cake mix, a bag of Yorks, a bag of mini marshmallows, and a bag of mini Rolos (okay, so my fiancee got those, but I used them anyway). We rushed home to start making dinner and dessert. I was super eager to try out filling these cupcakes! Without even bothering to change out of my work clothes (a shocker, I know), I began to dig out my cupcake pan and a big mixing bowl. I mixed the batter while trying to figure out the best way to stuff these cupcakes with the candy and what combinations would taste well together. I wound up putting two scoops of batter into the liners and adding the candy to the center of it before covering it with one final scoop. In hindsight, I should have only put one scoop, filled, and then added only one more since the cupcakes expanded beyond the pan, but that’s why I said it was an experiment.

The fillings from bottom to top (of the picture): York Pepermint Patties, marshmallows, mini Rolos, and plain cupcakes (for Orin since he wasn’t fond of the idea of candy stuffed cupcakes.)

They weren’t that bad! The marshmallow kind of dissolved into the marshmallow cupcakes and made them sticky, and the Rolos sank to the bottom of the batter instead of staying in the center, but those were the only ‘bad eggs’ of this experiment! The Rolo filled ones were my dad’s favorite, and of course, Orin liked the plain ones over the filled ones, but for me and my mom, we attacked the three Peppermint Patty cupcakes. They were out of this world! Even if all of the other cupcakes had imploded or refused to taste good (which they didn’t, but I’m just using this as an example), it was all worth it for those Peppermint Patty Cupcakes!

How can you deny this?! This was reminiscent of Heaven in a cupcake liner! I’ve decided to make my own recipe for a York filled cupcake (with icing!!!) just because this thrown-together concotion tasted so good!

I hope you’ve all been inspired to experiment in your kitchens! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

College Kid Blues: Meal Plan Got You Down?

For all of you college kids out there, does your meal plan fall short in your book? Are you tired of the greasy food and the leftovers on weekends? Are you sick of the ever shortening types of food your cafeteria offers? I have great news! But you must answer one final question: Do you have access to a microwave and fridge? (For you apartment dwellers, you can use the stove/oven if available.)

It has come to my attention that, since it is the ending of the semester, the cafeteria has begun feeding us less delicious food and more fried, repetitive dishes. But it’s not only now! I raise my hand with the countless others who have or had fallen prey to the Freshman 15. Want better meals that aren’t loaded with fats and excessive carbs? My solution is to make your own meals! (At least on the weekends.) I am creating a series called the College Kid Blues that will solely be about how students (and apartment dwellers) can make affordable, delicious meals while in the comfort of your own dorm room or apartment.

I know that many grocery stores offer “baby” sized foods such as half a carton of eggs, half-gallons of milk, etc. Most of these stores probably also offer the store’s brand of the foods that are a lot cheaper than name brand (which is ridiculous because eggs are eggs and milk is milk, etc.) The trick is to get kitchen staples that you can use in virtually every meal:

• Flour
• Sugar/Brown Sugar
• Olive Oil (it’s healthier than butter and keeps longer)
• Instant broth (Like bullion or canned stock)
• Salt and Pepper (these can make ANY vegetable taste yummy!)
• Noodles (not just Ramen, but pastas like spaghetti, bow tie, rigatoni, etc. You CAN boil these in your microwave! Some don’t even have to be boiled, like rice noodles–you just soak them in warm or hot water!)
• Rice (for those quick meals that need a grain in them)
• Additional spices and flavorings

Those are just the staples that you should have in your pantry at all times. For the other foods in your meals and recipes, just write them down in a shopping list and hunt them down for cheap at the grocery store. Go for things that have semi-long shelf lives like canned vegetables, and for other things like meats and cheeses, use either plastic containers or freezer bags. (The meat would go in freezer; the cheese would go in fridge.) This leads me to the next section–Utensils!

Hands down, we all need to keep this list of supplies in our cooking areas:

• Plastic mixing bowls (You can use these to not only prepare your food, but also serve it as well!)
• Wooden spoons
• Heatproof rubber spatula (for you apartment dwellers who use your stove, but it can come in handy for a microwave, too)
• A colander (Also called a strainer. You can pick up some pretty cheap ones at dollar stores.)
• Knives for cutting meat (Or you can buy the meat pre-cut)
• Cutting board (if you are going to use a knife)
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Vegetable peeler and can opener
• A grater if you don’t want to use the knife
• A whisk

Of course, if you life in the apartments, you need pots and pans, but for those of use who dwell in the dorms and don’t have access to a stove top, ceramic bowls can be heated and reheated in the microwave. They are also pretty good for cooking individual servings of pasta. You can also have any utensils that I didn’t mention like a food processor or a blender–they have their purposes, but if you don’t have one already, don’t go out and buy one when a grater or a knife will serve you just as well.

I’m sure some of you are staring at these lists thinking, ‘That’s a LOT of stuff…’ The good news is that if you have a roommate (or apartment-mates), you can split the costs! Some of you are already going to college with some of these items! Some of you may be kind of skeptical about sharing a fridge with other people, but fear not! Just explain what items are yours and if you are willing to share, and your roommates will understand. You can even go a bit farther and write your name on all of your stuff (handy if you buy a certain type of something [i.e. almond milk because you are lactose intolerant]) and explain why you don’t wish to share.

I hope that this has been beneficial to you all, and I hope that this has inspired you! The next post in College Kid Blues will actually contain two recipes that you can make. One you can make in your microwave, and the other you can make on the stove. Both are affordable and healthy! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

 

Bacon Love

Bacon (Photo credit: cookbookman17)

I’m sure you’ve all heard that if you add a little bacon to your dish, it boosts flavor to unbelievable heights. It makes your house smell divine, it makes your taste buds rejoice, and men will be swarming to meet you–the only thing keeping many from actually using this wonder ingredient is the fact that it is high in fat. I’ll admit, I don’t really indulge in this delicious treat because of this little issue.

However, did you know that you can prepare bacon so that it isn’t dripping with grease? That’s right! You can bake it in the oven, you can nuke it in the microwave, you can use a George Foreman grill to cook it, you can even boil bacon! (Did you know that?)

The crispiest way to cook bacon in an alternative way is by baking it in the oven. What I like to do is use a fully metal cooling rack (you can get them pretty cheap, but be sure they are completely metal if you are going to use it in the oven) and a shallow baking dish or a cookie sheet. I set the cooling rack onto the other sheet/dish to catch all of the grease that I don’t want on my bacon. Then I just put strips of porky goodness along the top of the cooling rack and back it at 350 until it is nice and crispy.

The healthiest way to cook bacon is by using a George Foreman grill. The grill itself is on a slant so that when you close the top, all of the grease goes into a sitting tray to catch it. It makes the bacon pretty crispy and you don’t have to worry about the excess grease because the grill gets rid of it. The grill is also really easy to clean–the easiest of all of these methods besides the boiling method.

One cool way to cook bacon and to add flavor to a dish you cook on the stove is to boil (or cook) the bacon inside the dish. I like to cut away a lot of the fatty parts and cut them into bite size pieces and add them to a can of green beans while I’m heating them up. I also love to put a few pieces of bacon in my soups and stews.

The quickest way to cook bacon, even though it isn’t the healthiest way, is by cooking it in the microwave, however, I don’t really prefer to use this method because the bacon doesn’t crisp up and it is still pretty greasy.

If you’re still unsure about adding bacon to a meal, here are some healthy bacon recipes that I stumbled upon while I was browsing twitter. I flipped through the 17 recipes, and I can’t wait to try some! I’ll just bake my bacon (or another alternative) instead of frying it to add it to these delicious recipes! It’s official, I’m bringing bacon back into my kitchen with a vengeance!

I hope this was helpful to you all, and I hope that I haven’t offended any of you with the ‘porky goodness.’

Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

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• Food Diary: Oven Bacon (easypaleo.com)