Baked Egg Rolls, Regular and Mini-Secret Recipe Club

Amy’s Cooking Adventures was my assignment for this month’s Secret Recipe Club post.  Amy has been blogging here since 2010 and has another blog, Amy's Confectionery Adventures which she started in 2012.  The are both filled with wonderful recipes.

Recently, Amy, had been bravely and eloquently sharing her thoughts and feelings concerning the stillbirth of her daughter, Sarah Catherine, last December.  I have been touched reading them and know that the posts will be of help to others who are experiencing similar heartache.

A bunch of recipes have been added to my ever expanding “to-make” list.  Since I like to make homemade seasoning mixes, the Homemade “Lawry’s” Seasoning Salt is right at the top.  The list is long, but just a few of the others are Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower with Bacon, Easy Thai Noodles; and since I am a cookie junkie, The Best Cookie Ever!

I have actually made two recipes.  The egg rolls I am posting today and the Sweet and Sticky Baked Chicken.  I made the chicken for dinner last Sunday.  (I used legs and wings.)  The chicken with potato salad and baked beans made a delicious summer meal.

I knew when I saw the Baked Egg Roll recipe that it was what I wanted to make and post for Secret Recipe Club.  I like to occasionally make a Chinese-inspired meal at home.  I have never made egg rolls because I am lazy and don’t like to do the deep frying.  I also think that the deep frying overshadows the flavor of the filling. When I read that the egg rolls could be frozen and baked later, I was sold.  I could make the egg rolls ahead and add them to any meal that I wanted.

Since I don’t like hand shredding and was too lazy to get out my large food processor, I cut the carrots into chunks and cut them up into tiny pieces in my Ninja chopper/blender.  This worked really well.

The day that I made the filling, I had used up all my green onion, so I added dried, minced onion to the soy sauce mixture and used that instead.  That was OK, but I would use the green onion if I had it.  Next time I make these I may add some finely chopped celery and red pepper.  The filling can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated.

In her post, Amy, links to Steamy Kitchen for the photos on how to roll an egg roll.  When I was there I noticed that Jaden uses a mixture of 1 T. cornstarch or flour mixed with 1/4 c. water to seal the egg rolls wrappers instead of the beaten egg.  I think that is a good tip to know if you are low on eggs or making egg rolls for someone who cannot have egg.

I apparently did not put as much filling in the egg roll wrappers as I should have, as I had an whole sour cream container of filling left over when I had used the entire package of egg roll wrappers.  Since I had a package of wonton wrappers on hand, I decide to make mini egg rolls.  I was able to get about 35 mini egg rolls with the filling that was left over, so one recipe of filling would easily do two packages of wonton wrappers.  I think they turned out cute and would be great of make and have on hand for a party.

I still had a bit of filling left over when I got tired of rolling mini egg rolls, so I zapped the filling in the microwave and wrapped it in a lettuce leaf to eat it.  I was very good that way, too

Make this filling (used ground chicken or turkey if you are not a pork person), then make egg rolls, mini egg rolls, or lettuce wraps.  You won’t be sorry.  Thanks, Amy, for sharing a great recipes that I will be trying to make and keep in my freezer at all times.

Baked Egg Rolls
from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
1/4 c. reduced sodium soy sauce
2 T. rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 T. brown sugar
1/2 T. ground ginger or 1 T. grated fresh ginger (don’t be afraid of this amount, I thought that it might be too spicy, but it was just right)
2 T. vegetable oil
1 small Nappa cabbage, shredded, about 4 cups (I used all the cabbage I bought which was about 6 cups)
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded (about 1 c.)
salt and pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced (about 1/2 T.)
1 lb. ground pork
5-6 green onions, thinly sliced
1 to 2 pkgs. egg roll wrappers or wonton wrappers
1 large egg, beaten

Combine soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and ginger in a small bowl.  Mix well to dissolve brown sugar.  Set aside.  Heat the vegetable oil in a medium frying pan until hot.  Add cabbage and carrots.  Season lightly with the salt and pepper.  Cook for about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, pork and soy sauce mixture.  Cook, breaking up the pork, until the pork is cooked through and the liquid has reduced.  (I cooked mine until there was only about 2 T. of liquid remaining when I moved the pork mixture to one side of the frying pan.)  Stir in the green onions.  Spread mixture in a 10x15-inch baking pan or a cookie sheet.  Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.  Once cool, press the mixture with paper towels to eliminate any excess moisture.  Place 2 to 3 T. of pork mixture slightly off center and toward the corner  of an egg roll wrapper or a wonton.  Tuck the nearest corner over the filling and make half a turn.  Bring the two side corners toward the center.  Brush the remaining corner with the beaten egg, roll tight toward the corner and seal.  Repeat with remaining filling and wrappers.  To freeze, place on a foil-lined baking sheet and freeze.  When frozen, transfer to a freezer bag.  Cook from frozen state, no need to thaw.  To bake immediately, brush egg rolls with the beaten egg.  Bake in a preheated 400-degree oven 10 minutes for mini egg rolls and 15 for regular egg rolls.  Increase time to 15 and 20 minutes if egg rolls are frozen.  Serve with you choice of sauce and/or hot mustard.

You can find the details for joining in the fun of Secret Recipe Club here.

An InLinkz Link-up

Deviled Egg Pasta Salad

I like deviled eggs, and I like pasta salad.  The other day I was thinking about making a pasta salad to eat for lunch the rest of the week.  I also was thinking about deviled eggs.  I decided to see if I could make a pasta salad with the flavor of deviled eggs.  So Deviled Egg Pasta Salad was born.

I finally got brave and turned my camera so it would take a more vertical picture.  These are better for Pinterest so they say.  I also tried putting text on my  photos for the first time.  There is hope that this old grandma can get in the groove yet.  Now if I can just get brave enough to actually use my DSLR.

When I am making a salad just for me, I always use ingredients that I like.  Change or sub ingredients to fit your tastes.  I had green onions that needed to be used up, other wise I would have used another variety of finely chopped onion.

Since pasta seems to absorb dressing, it may be necessary to add a little more mayonnaise or some sour cream after the salad has set for awhile.

Deviled Egg Pasta Salad
2 c. small shell pasta or other small pasta
6 eggs, hard cooked
1/2 c. thinly sliced green onion or 1/3 c. finely diced yellow, white or red onion
1/3 c. finely diced red pepper
2 ribs celery, cut in half vertically and thinly sliced on the diagonal
10 black olives, cut into eighths
1 medium dill pickle, finely chopped
2/3 c. mayonnaise
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. white wine vinegar
1/4 t. coarse ground pepper

Cook pasta in boiling water according to package directions.  Drain.  Cool with cold water and thoroughly drain again.  Pour into large mixing bowl.  Peel eggs and cut in half.  Remove yolks and put in a small mixing bowl.  Chop the egg whites and add to the pasta.  Add onion, red pepper, celery, black olives and dill pickle.  Stir to combine ingredients.  Using a fork, mash the yolks until very smooth.  Add mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, vinegar and pepper to the egg yolks.  Beat until well combined.  Spoon dressing over the pasta and mix until pasta and vegetables are thoroughly coated.  Cover and chill until ready to serve.  Makes 4 generous servings.

Linking to these great parties:
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Oriental Fried Ramen-Starving Student’s Survival

My granddaughter calls Oriental Fried Ramen Starving Student’s Survival.  That is because this recipe can feed four people for less than $2.00, and she is a starving student in California.  It is a "go-to" recipe for her.

I like to have fried rice as a side dish when I make something Oriental.   Since hubby doesn’t really care for rice, I often make this dish instead.  Use your favorite ramen noodle flavor in this.

Like all recipes for fried rice, you can use whatever veggies that you want in this dish or whatever you happen to have in the fridge.  I rarely make this exactly the same way twice in a row.  I do almost always use onion and red pepper.  This particular time I used carrots and snow peas.  I also sometimes add chopped nuts.

Although I include eggs when I make this, they can be left out, and almost any kind of cooked meat (even bacon) can be used to make it more of a main dish.

The recipe is loosely based on a recipe I found at  - http://busycooks.About.com a number of years ago.

Oriental Fried Ramen
2 pkgs. Ramen noodles, flavor of choice
3 c. boiling water
1 T. vegetable oil
1 t. sesame oil (optional)
1/2 c. chopped onion (regular or green)
1/2 c. chopped red pepper
1/2 c. carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch matchsticks
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c. frozen peas (or chopped snow peas or sugar snap peas)
2 T. soy sauce
2 eggs, beaten
1 to 2 c. chopped cooked meat or poultry

Break ramen noodles into six or eight pieces and place in a medium mixing bowl.  Sprinkle with the contents of the seasoning packets.  Pour boiling water over noodles and let set while preparing rest of ingredients.  Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in a medium skillet.  Add onion, red pepper, carrots and garlic.  Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until tender-crisp, about 7 minutes.  Drain noodles well and add to skillet.  Add soy sauce and mix until well blended.  Cook and stir noodles 1 or 2 minutes.  Push noodles to the side of the skillet and pour eggs into the center.  Cook eggs, scrambling and cutting into small pieces as the eggs cook.  Mix eggs with noodles.  Add meat or poultry if using and heat through.  Serve as a side or main dish as desired.  Makes 4 servings.

Linking to these great parties:
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Time to Sparkle

Oriental Cherry Chicken Salad

Happy Monday to everyone.  Welcome to my new followers.  It is so nice to have you aboard.  I want to extend my weekly thanks to all who take time from their busy lives to read this blog.  It is greatly appreciated, and I hope that what you find here is useful to you.
 
It is almost the end of cherry season here, but hubby bought some free ones home a week or so ago.  I was when it was so hot here so I enjoyed some of the cherries in this Oriental Cherry Chicken Salad.

As with all salads, change the ingredients to suit your personal preference.  I like to put the mandarin orange can in the refrigerator to chill.  Although the components  and the dressing can be made ahead, this salad is best assembled shortly before serving.  The cherries will turn everything purple if the salad sits too long.  The salad is still very good, just not so pretty.

I have a wonderful cherry pitter made by Progressive that pits four cherries at a time so the cherry pitting goes really quickly.

The original recipe came from a recipe card that a local grocery store gave out many years ago.

Oriental Cherry Chicken Salad
1/2 c. mayonnaise
1 t. soy sauce
1 T. lemon juice
1/8 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. pepper, coarse ground if possible
2 c. fresh sweet cherries, pitted and halved
1 (11 oz.) can mandarin orange segments, well drained
1 to 1 1/2 c. diced cooked chicken
3/4  c. diced celery
1/2 c. sliced sugar snap peas
3 green onions, chopped
1/3 c. toasted, slivered almonds

Combine mayonnaise, soy sauce, lemon juice, ginger and pepper until well blended.  Chill several hours or overnight to blend flavors.  Combine cherries, orange segments, chicken, celery, pea, green onions and almonds in a medium bowl.  Spoon dressing over salad ingredients and mix well.  Serve immediately.  Makes 4 servings.

Linking to these great parties:
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Mix It Up Monday
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Monday Funday
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Tuesday Trivia
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Totally Tasteful Tuesday
Show Me What You Got
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Show Me What Ya Got
Tasty Tuesday

Peach Chicken Salad with Peach Basil Dressing-Improv Challenge

One of the main things I like about the Improv Challenge which Kristen from Frugal Antic of a Harried Homemaker  hosts is that it makes me think about ingredient combinations that I might not have thought of myself.

This month’s challenge is to use peaches and an herb.  Every time that I thought about what herb to use, a little voice in my head kept saying, “basil, basil, basil,” much like that duck in the Aflac commercial.

I decided that basil it was and went looking for recipe ideas.  I found a salad dressing recipe at food.com that used a peach and basil that I knew I could adapt to what I had in mind.  The poster there used fresh basil, and I would highly recommend that.  I had to use dried basil and felt that it did not quite give me the flavor I was looking for.

For the salad part, I chose to use peaches, chicken, green onions, celery and red pepper.  I sprinkled the peaches with lemon juice and the salad kept well for several days.  To make the salad a little more special, I added some Easy Glazed Walnut Halves for garnish.

This was a really fun Improv Challenge to do.  If you would like to join in next month, you can find all the details on Kristen’s Improv page.

Peach Chicken Salad with Peach Basil Dressing
3 ripe peaches
2 T. lemon juice
1T. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 T. chopped fresh basil or 1 1/2 t. dried
2 1/2 T. vinegar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. celery seed
2 t. sugar or to taste
1/8 t. coarse ground pepper
1/3 c. mayonnaise
3 ribs celery, chopped
1/2 c. thinly sliced green onion
1/2 c. diced red pepper
2 c. chopped cooked chicken breast
1 recipe Easy Glazed Walnut Halves (you won’t need them all for this recipe, eat the leftovers for a snack)
Iceberg lettuce leaves for serving

Peel peaches and chop two of them into a medium mixing bowl.  Pour lemon juice over peaches, mix well and set aside.  Peel and slice remaining peach into a blender or food chopper.  Add olive oil, basil, vinegar, salt, celery seed and sugar and blend until smooth.  Add mayonnaise and blend until well mixed.  Add celery, green onion, red pepper and chicken to the peaches in the medium bowl and mix well.  Add prepared dressing and mix until salad ingredients are very well coated.  Chill at least several hours to blend flavors.  Serve in iceberg lettuce leaves and garnish with Easy Glazed Walnut Halves.  Makes 4 servings.

To see what other Improv bloggers chose to do with peaches and herbs, check out the links below.

Linking to these great parties:

Catch a Glimpse Thursday

Full Plate Thursday

Thursday's Treasures

Showcase Your Talent Thursday

Tasty Thursday

Fantastic Thursday

Loaded Baked Potato Cubes

Welcome to my new followers and thanks to all who take the time from their busy lives to read this blog.  I hope that you find what you read here useful.  Hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and that you found the time to remember family, friends and service people who have gone before us.

About a year ago, I ran across a recipe over at Mennonite Girls Can Cook for Buttermilk Dressed Potatoes.  That was the inspiration for this dish.  Although I love the flavors in ranch dressing, hubby is not particularly fond them. He does love loaded baked potatoes so I decided to make something along that line and came up with Loaded Baked Potato Cubes.

The Mennonite recipe had the potatoes cooked separately and then cooked in the oven.  Since I am inherently lazy, I decided to see if I could just cook the potato cubes in the oven and then add the “loaded” ingredients.  This worked really well, and I have made this dish often over the last few months.

Red potatoes, russets, Yukon gold potatoes, both unpeeled and peeled have been used for this dish, and they all have worked just fine.  Although I prefer a 3-cheddar cheese blend made by Kraft, I usually use whatever cheese I happen to have on hand.

The temperature at which the potatoes bake is very forgiving so this is a great side dish for a main dish that is being cooked in the oven.  Anywhere from 350 to 400 degrees will work.

If there are people who don’t like bacon (they don’t live at my house) or green onions, reserve them and serve them on the side for people who like them to use.

Loaded Baked Potato Cubes
6 to 8 medium potatoes, peeled or not
1 T. olive oil
1 t. salt
1/2 t. coarse ground pepper
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/3 to 1/2 c. water.
1/2 to 3/4 c. sour cream (low fat is fine)
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/3 c. crisp cooked bacon bits
1/4 c. thinly sliced green onion

Peel potatoes if desired.  (If peeling, I usually peel six and see if that amount covers the bottom of my jelly roll pan.  If not I peel one or two more or whatever it take to make a single layer.)  Place potatoes in a large mixing bowl.  Drizzle the olive oil over the potatoes and mix until the cubes are well coated.  Combine salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a small bowl and mix well.  Sprinkle evenly over the potatoes and stir until well mixed.   Spread potatoes out in an even layer on a non-stick sprayed 10x13-inch pan.  Pour enough water into the pan to just cover the bottom.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil and place in a 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are just tender and water has evaporated.  (If potatoes are tender, but there is still some water, just pour it off.)  Remove from oven and  gently mix the sour cream into the potatoes until they are evenly coated.  Sprinkle the cheese over the top and then the bacon bits.  Return to the oven and cook, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with the green onion.  My hubby uses additional sour cream on his, I don’t on mine.  Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Linking to these great parties:
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Get Your Craft On

Cheesy Green Bean Wontons-Eating the Alphabet

The idea for this recipe came from a post for Asparagus Pockets by Sheryl over at Lady Behind the Curtain.  She used asparagus and crescent rolls.

This month’s letters for Eating the Alphabet Recipe Challenge, hosted by Brenda over at Meal Planning Magic, are G and H.  I knew that I wanted to make something new with green beans.  When I saw Sheryl’s post, I thought “Why not green beans and why not wontons?”  Thus, this recipe for Cheesy Green Bean Wontons was born.  Thanks, Sheryl, for the inspiration.

You could, of course, use cooked asparagus here instead of green beans.  Chopped broccoli and shredded carrots are another option.  Adding some cooked, finely chopped chicken, turkey or ham could turn the wontons into a main dish.  I am adding some chopped ripe olives next time I make these.

I used well-drained, canned green beans because that is all hubby will eat, but I think that crisply cooked frozen or fresh green beans would be even better.

I think dill goes well with green beans so I used that.  If you are not a dill person use something else.  Italian herbs would be good also.

The wontons can be served as an appetizer or a side dish, with or without a dip.  I made about 36 wontons and have been eating the remaining filling on toasted Sandwich Thins.

Cheesy Green Bean Wontons
1 (12 oz.) pkg. wontons
1/2 T. olive oil
1/3 c. minced red pepper
1/3 c. finely sliced green onion
1 lg. clove garlic, minced
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, well softened (can be regular or low fat, and I used whipped cream cheese)
1 t. dried dill weed
1/2 t. garlic powder
1 (16 oz.) can cut green beans, well drained and cut into 1/4-inch pieces or 1 1/2 c. crisply cooked frozen or fresh green beans, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
olive oil

Heat olive oil in a small skillet.  Add red pepper, green onion and garlic and cook gently for about 5 minutes.  Set aside.  combine cream cheese, dill week and garlic powder.  Mix well.  Stir in pepper/onion mixture and green beans.  Mix well.  Place wontons on a foil-lines baking pan.  Place a heaping teaspoon of green bean mixture in the center of each wonton.  Moisten edges of wontons with water and bring them together to form a triangle.  When the baking pan is full, brush wontons lightly with olive oil.  Bake at 375 degrees 10-15 minutes or until the edges of the wonton’s are lightly browned, turning the wontons over at about 7 minutes.  Makes about 36 to 48 wontons.

Sharing at these great parties:

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Wednesday Whatsits

Work It Wednesday

Wow Me Wednesday

Show and Share Wednesday

Check out the links below to see what creations other bloggers have shared today.

Perpetual Green Onions and a Dip Recipe

Back in November, one of my Friday Finds was a tip about keeping green onions in water from Homemade Serenity.  She indicated that the onions would last indefinitely.  I was anxious to try this out.   As I said then, I never seem to have green onions when I need them.  We live a long way from town so I don’t just jump in the car and go buy some.  Most of the  time I would just sub regular onions, but the taste is not quite the same.

Around Christmas, I finally remembered to buy a bunch of onions.  I put them in a little jar with water to see what would happen.  Well, the onions just keep growing and growing.  I have cut some off and used them many times.  They grow fast as I will show here:

This photo was taken on Sunday, January 22, 2012.  I had just cut some onions off to use in a recipe.

This photo was taken on Friday, January 27, 2012.  You can see how much growth there has been with some of the onions.

I do not have a particularly sunny place to leave these and just set them on my kitchen window sill during the day.  You can almost see them grow.  I pour the water out of the jar and put in fresh every three or four days.

Here is a picture of one of the onions.  You can see the new growth growing out between the old growth that was cut off.  I have no idea how long this bunch will last; but, at this point, it has been a month.  A pretty good return on a .44 investment, I think.  Green onions are on sale this week so I am going to purchase one more bunch and add them to my jar.

Of course, now my challenge is that I have lots of green onions so they go in almost anything I can think of.  We don’t eat green peppers so I use the onions in recipes that call for green pepper so I at least get the color.  If I want some of the white part, I just take a whole onion out of the jar and use it.  There is an outside layer that forms on the white that needs to be stripped off as well as the root removed.

One place that I use the onions is in this dip recipe.  You can play around with the basic recipe and add cheese, bacon, seasonings, etc.   I often use Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream.

Green Onion Dip
from Best Foods Mayonnaise

1 c. mayonnaise, low fat or fat free is OK
1 c. sour cream, low fat or fat free is OK or use Green yogurt
1/2 c. sliced green onions
1/2 c. parsley sprigs
1 t. Dijon mustard
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

Blend all ingredients together in a blender or food processor until almost smooth.  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Makes 2 cups.

Laura over at Real Mom Kitchen recently posted a recipe for Bacon and Green Onion Cheese Ball that I am going to try very soon.

This idea seems to really work.  If you like green onions, you might want to give it a try.

Linking to:  Strut Your Stuff
Weekend Potluck
Weekend Bloggy Reading
I'm Lovin' It

Chinese Filled Buns

Last weekend my daughter said to me she was craving Chinese Filled Buns.  So I made some.  This was something I used to make all the time when the kids were at home. I don’t make these as often now because I love them, but I hate them.  If these are in my fridge, there is a constant battle between my mouth and my hand.  Every time I walk by the fridge, mouth wants my hand to reach in and get a bun.  Hand resists, mouth insists.   For me, these are like eating popcorn. I can easily eat a whole loaf of bread’s worth in an afternoon

Although somewhat time-consuming, these are very easy to make; and there is a lot for the effort put in.  They are good hot or at room temperature.  They make great picnic food, appetizers, and snacks.  The basic idea can be used with fillings other than what I am posting here.  Some ideas:  ham or bacon  and eggs, Italian sausage and cheese, taco meat, barbecued meat or chicken, ham and cheese just to name a few.  Also, the two fillings can be served in flour tortillas if one doesn't want to go to the effort of making the buns.  Kids like to help make these by stretching out the dough balls. I found this recipe in Sunset magazine sometime in the 80's. 

My photos aren’t great, but I am going to try a little bit of a tutorial.

You will need 3 loaves of frozen bread dough,  thawed until just pliable, about 1-2 hours.  (I forgot to take a photo of the bread.)

To make the pork filling, which is what I made, you need the ingredients  below.

You cut the pork butt into 1/2-inch cubes, pour a garlic, ginger, soy marinade over them, brown the cubes, add a cornstarch, soy sauce, sherry, water mixture to thicken them up.

The thickened mixture will look like this. Set aside to cook.

You cut each loaf of bread into 16 pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball and stretch the dough ball out to about 4 inches, just as if you were making mini pizzas.

 

Place 1-2 T. of filling into the center of the dough circle.  I use about 1 1/2 T.

Pinch the edges of the dough ball together, and place on greased baking sheet.  Repeat with all the pieces of dough.  Let rise in warm place 20-30 minutes.  Bake at 350 degrees about 20 minutes.

.

Chinese Filled Buns (Bow)
3  loaves  (3 lb.) frozen bread dough

Choice of Filling below. Other fillings may be used, try taco meat, ham and cheese, Italian sausage, etc.

Remove bread dough from freezer and thaw as package directs, covering it with a moist cloth or brushing surface with salad oil; thaw just until the dough is pliable, 1-2 hours at room temperature.  Meanwhile prepare filling.

With a lightly floured knife, cut a thawed loaf in half lengthwise and then cut each half into 8 equal-sized pieces, making 16 total pieces.  Roll each piece of dough into a ball.  Pull and stretch the dough as if making a mini pizza until it is about 4 -inches in diameter.  Place 1-2 tablespoons of the filling in the center of each round; pull edges of dough up around filling and tightly pinch together to seal.  Place buns, pinched side down, about 2-inches apart, on a greased cookie sheet.  Cover and let rise in warm place until puffy and light, about 20-30 minutes.

Brush each bun with melted butter.  Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  I also like to brush with butter when they come out of the oven.  Serve warm, reheated or at room temperature.  Repeat with remaining two loaves.  Makes 48 filled buns.  Store buns in refrigerator or freeze.

These can be made ahead, and, in fact, we like them better after a day or so in the refrigerator.  To heat individual buns from refrigerator, place in microwave and heat 30 seconds.  If doing more, increase the time by 15 seconds or so for each additional bun.

Buns may be frozen.  Flash freeze on a baking sheet, then seal tightly in a freezer bag.  To reheat, place the frozen buns, uncovered, in a 350-degree oven for about 25 minutes or until heated through.

You may use chicken breasts or thighs in either of the recipes below.

Chinese Pork Filling
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. grated fresh ginger root (or 1/4 t. ground ginger)
2 t. sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1 1/2 lbs. boneless pork (such as butt), cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 t. sugar
1 T. cornstarch
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. sherry
1/4 c. water
1 T. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped

Combine garlic, ginger, sugar and soy sauce.  Add pork cubes to this mixture and stir to coat.  In a small dish combine sugar, cornstarch, soy sauce, sherry and water.  Mix well and set aside.  Heat oil in a large frying pan or wok over high heat.  When the oil is hot, add pork, cook, stirring frequently, until browned, about 5 min.  Add onion and continue stir-frying for about 2 minutes more or until onion is limp.  Stir cornstarch mixture into pork; cook, stirring, until sauce boils and thickens, about 30 seconds.  Skim off and discard any fat.  Cool.

Curry Beef Filling

1 t. curry powder
1/8 t. cayenne
1/2 t. sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1 t. grated fresh ginger root (or 1/2 t. ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 lb. boneless beef (such as top round), cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 more t. curry powder
1 T. cornstarch
3 T. water
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. vegetable oil
1 med. onion, finely chopped

Combine curry powder, cayenne, sugar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic.  Add beef and stir to coat.  Combine second curry powder, cornstarch, water, and soy sauce.  Set Aside.  Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan or wok over high heat.  When the oil is hot, add beef and cook, stirring, until meat is lightly browned, about 2 min.  Add onion and continue stirring until it is limp, about 2 min.  Add cornstarch mixture to pan and cook, stirring, until sauce boils and thickens, about 30 seconds.  Cool.

Monday-DIY Groceries:  Biscuit and All-Purpose Mixes

Linking to This Chick Cooks,  What I Made Wednesday, Ingredient Spotlight

Ingredient Spotlight-Curried Rice and Vegetables

hen I began to choose what recipes I wanted to post for this week's Ingredient Spotlight-half and half/cream, I ended up with three recipes and couldn't decide among them. So there will be two posts today.  One for this recipe and one for two easy dessert sauces, Chocolate and Butterscotch.

This recipe combines rice and vegetables into one side dish.  Although I use peas and carrots, any vegetable of your choice could be used; and it is a good way to use up leftover veggies.  The curry/nutmeg flavor is very subtle and just makes one wonder, "What is that?" I sometimes use chopped, toasted walnuts or crisp bacon bits as a garnish for this. This is my adaptation of a recipe that came from the internet several years ago. You can also add chopped, cooked chicken to make this into a main dish.

2 T. butter
1 bunch green onions (you can use regular onions, about 3/4 c.)
1/3 c. chopped red pepper (omit if you don't like)
1 large clove garlic minced (the garlic was shy and wouldn't get in the photo)
1 c. frozen peas and carrots
T. butter
1 c. rice (I use Calrose)
1/2 t. curry powder
1/8 t. ground nutmeg
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. half-and-half

Slice the green onions including a couple of inches of the green part. In a saucepan, melt the first tablespoon of butter. Add green onions, red pepper, and minced garlic. Saute' until just tender. Remove from saucepan and set aside. In same saucepan, melt the second tablespoon of butter. Add the rice and cook, stirring often, until rice begins to turn golden. Add required amount of water for the rice you use.  Bring to a boil, turn heat very low and cook rice for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook peas and carrots in microwave, drain.  Stir together the green onion mixture, rice, peas and carrots, curry powder, nutmeg, and salt. Mix well. Add half-and-half. Return to heat just to heat mixture through. Makes 4-6 servings.

A tip: If your rice is too firm and all the liquid has been absorbed, add about 1/4 c. hot liquid, cover, and cook until liquid is absorbed.  Repeat if necessary.

I am linking to Eat at Home Ingredient Spotlight