Mongolian Beef and Veggie Egg Rolls

Friday nights at our house are usually our go out to eat nights. The one day off I allow myself from the kitchen. Since Thanksgiving is Thursday and because peanut oil for the deep fryer is $30 a jug, we decided to stay at home to save a few bucks this past Friday.

Daniel loves Chinese food!! I am one of those people who can take it or leave it and most times I choose to leave it. Since it's all about making my hubby happy though I am trying to incorporate more Chinese friendly dishes into our rotation at home. I stumbled upon this recipe and tweaked it a time or two and I must say it turned out really well. It went really well with the egg rolls we made to go along with it. They weren't the prettiest things...I have to work on my rolling skills...but they were actually pretty delicious...more so than what I can say about the egg rolls that get delivered from the professionals.

Katie's Mongolian Beef~
Ingredients:

1/2 lb. beef (Not sure what cut we used, but it was flat and very, very thin which I then cut into strips)

1/4 C. soy sauce

1 tbsp. hoison sauce

2 tsp. sugar

1 tbsp. garlic, finely diced

1 tbsp. red pepper flakes

1 tbsp. teriyaki sauce

Extra virgin olive oil

2 green onions, diced on the diagonal

1 C. cooked white rice*

Directions:

1.) In a medium mixing bowl whisk together your soy sauce, hoison sauce, sugar, garlic, red pepper flakes, teriyaki sauce, and a few drizzles of extra virgin olive oil. Add your strips of beef and marinate for two to four hours.

2.) In a large skillet heat over medium high heat. Add strips of beef along with any extra sauce left in the bowl. Cook until brown on both sides and then throw in green onions, toss around and then lower heat to low for five minutes ensuring that beef is cooked through. Serve over white rice.

*Whenever I cook white rice for dishes such as this one, I always add a teaspoon of red paper flakes to the water to boil. This addition gives the rice a nice little kick.

Veggie Egg Rolls~

Ingredients:
1 C. cabbage, thinly sliced

1/2 shredded carrots

2 green onions, thinly sliced
teriyaki sauce
6 egg roll wrappers

Directions:

1.) Begin warming your oil. (We use our fry daddy, but you could easily do yours in a pan on the stove, use enough oil to cover half of the egg roll.)

2.) Take one egg roll wrapper and add cabbage, carrots, and green onion. Enough to fill your wrapper but leaving you with enough to fill each additional wrapper. Drizzle your filling with a little bit of teriyaki sauce. Proceed to roll*. You may need to dab a little bit of water where the wrapper ends to form a seal. Repeat this step for each egg roll.

3.) Gently place each egg roll in your oil. Lightly brown each side...you may have to flip the egg roll to brown the opposite side. If your oil is warm enough this should take two to three minutes or so. Place on a paper towel to drain.

4.) Serve with either duck sauce or soy sauce!

*Most packages containing the wrappers give you a set of instructions on how to fill and roll them. If not, place one corner near you and horizontally add your filling, roll upward once and then tuck in each side, continue to roll until you get a perfect shaped egg roll.

Results

Peanut...good news, we passed our glucose test with flying colors. I am a little concerned though, when I asked the nurse whether she thought the 45 minute delay that took place Friday could affect my results her comment was..."you're the one".

Why do I get the feeling my ordeal was the topic of conversation for a day or so afterwards...LOL. I did ask if I should redo it just to make sure we were all right but she said that I was fine. YAY, now we just have to get through the big shot in the rear on the 7th.

Broccoli Salad

We get this particular salad all of the time from a local grocery store around our neck of the woods. The store itself is pretty expensive and not meant to do your everyday shopping unless you have more money than you know what to do with. Daniel and I like going there for specialty items and stuff like this when we feel like pampering ourselves. You know you're a foodie when going to a high end grocery store is your way of pampering yourself...lol.

Anyway, we both really enjoy it and it's a good way to get broccoli into your system. This time, instead of spending way to much money on it I spent less but got more by making it myself.


Broccoli Salad~
allrecipes.com

• 10 slices bacon
• 1 head fresh broccoli, cut into bite size pieces
• 1/4 cup red onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 cup sunflower seeds (I omitted)
  

Directions:

1. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the broccoli, onion and raisins. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, sugar and mayonnaise. Pour over broccoli mixture, and toss until well mixed. Refrigerate for at least two hours.
3. Before serving, toss with crumbled bacon and sunflower seeds.

As you can see from the picture this salad goes great at lunch paired with a sandwich and a handful of potato chips.