Pork Scallops Rolls

Ingredients: 2 pork scallops, salt, pepper, basil, mozzarella, 1 grilled red pepper, 4 slices bacon,

Number of persons: 2

Flatten 2 pork scallops. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and chopped basil to taste. Then put pieces of mozzarella and small pieces of 1 grilled red pepper. Roll or fold the pork scallops. Enfold each pork scallop roll with 2 slices bacon. Tie with kitchen string the pork scallops to fixed. Place the pork scallops rolls in an ovenproof dish. Turn the ovenproof dish about 25 minutes in the preheated oven. Serve with baked potatoes and a salad. Enjoy!

TOFU SUMMER ROLLS IN THE HAY

Summer rolling with the homies

Summertime calls for lighter fare so we can hone our buns, abs and groins of steel. Gone are the big coats that hide our blubbery bits. If you want to bang you gotta look bangable. So it’s time to put the dairy and beef products aside and get healthy. Vegan food can be boring if you let it. But how many obese vegans do you know? My advice is to embrace the Asian fusion hippie party time. Be sure your date notices how cultured and sensitive you are. Play it off like you’ve gone green, instead of just greedy for more banging. If you want to roll in the hay, you better start rolling.

Total time: approximately 45 minutes
Projected cost: $8
Drinking Buddy: Beer or a Singapore Sling

Ingredients (serves 2):
1. 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
2. 1 teaspoon of Kwong Hung Seng Sauce
3. 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
4. Sweet chili sauce for dipping
5. 1 handful of chopped mushrooms
6. 6-ounces of firm tofu
7. ¼ lime
8. 5-6 dry rice paper wraps
9. 1 small handful of peeled and mincedGİNGER
10. 1 handful of chopped onions
11. 1 small handful of shredded coconut
12. 10 fresh mint leaves

Step 1
Crosshatch cut the tofu into small strips.

Step 2
Sauté the ginger and onions on medium heat with the vegetable oil (approx 3 min). Add the mushrooms, Kwong Hung Seng Sauce and soy sauce (approx 2 min). Throw in the tofu and limejuice and allow the flavor to absorb (approx 2 min). Finally toss in the shredded coconut and cook it down (approx 1 min).

Step 3
Allow the tofu mixture to cool down in the fridge (approx 30 min).

Step 4
Create the spring rolls by bringing a shallow pan full of water to a boil. Kill the heat and dip the rice paper sheets one at a time in the water for 30 seconds before setting them down on a flat dry surface. Scoop a tablespoon of tofu in the middle, crown it with mint and roll it up tight. Serve it with sweet chili sauce and your sweet ass personality.

Vietnamese-Style Spring Rolls with Shrimp

These are a staple for us. Granted, they are a bit time consuming and the spring-roll sheets are tricky to work with (Taylor handles them like a master!), but it’s a healthy, refreshing dish perfect as an appetizer or as a stand alone meal. We like to serve them with rice noodles or other asian noodles.

Delicious, refreshing, and satisfying only begin to describe these. They are well worth the effort and will definitely impress! You can easily substitute tofu for the shrimp to make them vegetarian and just as yummy!

Vietnamese-Style Spring Rolls with Shrimp

INGREDIENTS
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
16 uncooked medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 cups hot water
8 6-inch-diameter Vietnamese spring-roll sheets (you can find these at Asian food markets)
4 small Bibb lettuce leaves, halved
1/2 cup thin strips green onions
1/2 cup thin strips seeded peeled cucumber
1/2 cup thin strips carrots
4 teaspoons minced fresh mint leaves

DIRECTIONS
Heat oil in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger; sauté until fragrant, about 10 seconds. Add shrimp and cilantro; sauté until shrimp are just cooked through, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour hot water into large bowl. Using tongs, dip 1 spring-roll sheet in water 5 seconds. Remove from water; place on wet towel. Let stand 30 seconds (spring-roll sheet should be soft and pliable; if still stiff, sprinkle with more water).

Place half of lettuce leaf across top third of spring-roll sheet. Arrange 4 shrimp halves on lettuce. Top with 1 tablespoon each of green onions, carrots, and cucumber. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon mint over filling. Fold sides of spring-roll sheet over ends of filling. Starting at filled side, roll into cylinder. Place on plate. Repeat with remaining spring-roll sheets, lettuce, shrimp, green onions, cucumber, carrots and mint. Serve with sauce.

Spicy Vietnamese Shrimp Lettuce Rolls

These were so so. Edible, definitely, but we don’t know if we’d make them again. Taylor says too much lime, I say too hard to eat. Taylor suggests using a traditional Vietnamese fish sauce instead of the lime sauce, which could be good. Also be sure to get real butter lettuce – we used some other kind, and the leaves were not big enough to roll or strong enough to scoop. In other words, it was messy.

Spicy Vietnamese Shrimp Lettuce Rolls

Splenda? Seriously? I’ve never seen a recipe actually call for it before. We omitted it completely, a whole cup of any type of sugar/sweetener is way too much in my opinion. I used less sugar as well, maybe 1/3 cup total. Maybe that was why the lime was too strong.
Recipe from Epicurious. Makes 4 servings.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tbsp minced ginger
1/3 cup rice wine or sake
1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
Juice from 6 limes (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Splenda Granulated
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp minced fresh garlic
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 heads Boston, or butterhead, lettuce
2 cups fresh basil leaves
3 medium carrots, peeled and finely grated (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/3 lb rice stick noodles, softened in boiling water and drained thoroughly
preparation
In a bowl, toss shrimp with ginger, wine, and oil. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 20 minutes.

DIRECTIONS
For dressing:
Mix lime juice, sugar, Splenda, soy sauce, garlic, and pepper flakes in a bowl; set aside. Core lettuce and separate leaves; rinse and dry them. Cook shrimp with its marinade in a medium pan or wok over medium-high heat, turning shrimp until opaque, 2 or 3 minutes.

To make wraps:
Place 3 shrimp inside each lettuce leaf along with 2 or 3 basil leaves, 1 tbsp carrots and a small handful of noodles and roll up. Divide dressing among 4 small dishes for dipping.

Mango & Avocado Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

These were yummy, refreshing, and oh-so-good. Taylor revised his kick-butt peanut sauce to be even more kick-butt (if you can believe it). It’s basically the same recipe, but sans garlic salt, and adding in a tablespoon (or so depending on your heat-tolerance) of Mongolian Fire Oil. Delicious.

Mango & Avocado Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Makes 2-3 servings.

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 seedless cucumber, cut into matchsticks
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
1 avocado, sliced and tossed with lime juice
1 cup lettuce, shredded
fresh basil, chopped
fresh cilantro, chopped
1 package cellophane noodles
Rice paper wrappers

DIRECTIONS
Cook cellophane noodles according to package directions. Rinse with cool water and let drain. Toss with rice vinegar and sugar, set aside.

Soften a rice wrapper in hot water. Arrange a small amount of noodles and other filling items on wrapper, and gently roll. Repeat with remaining wrappers until filling ingredients are gone. Slice carefully with serrated knife on a bias. Drizzle (or dip in) peanut sauce, and serve.

Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

So what if we skipped right from Hanukkah to Christmas? That’s allowed, right? (And yes, we recognize both in our household, and thus both deserve equal attention when it comes to food).

Contrary to what you might believe, we actually have been not only eating but actually cooking food in these past few weeks. And I’ve got a couple of recipes backlogged that we ate and loved and even photographed, but just haven’t gotten around to posting (whoops).

Maybe it’ll be my blogging resolution to post things immediately after we eat them, at the very least to show you that we’re eating something other than microwave dinners and take out (rare, yes, but it happens).

Anyways, aside from the fact that we barely made it to the grocery store before it closed last night, we managed to cook some pretty delicious stuff today.

It all started with fresh cinnamon rolls in the morning (or, early afternoon… it was nearly noon before they were done).

I saw this recipe on Never Bashful with Butter and just had to try them. We made them for the 2nd time this morning (the photo above is of the 1st batch a few weeks ago), this time trying a variation with plain vanilla extract instead of almond. Unfortunately we ran out of powdered sugar, so they didn’t get the oozing frosting glazed on top, but they almost don’t need it… a slight dusting of sugar is enough to make you fall over in bliss.

I made the dough last night, let it rise for a few hours, then punched it down and chilled it overnight. I rolled and filled them this morning, then let them proof for 30 minutes in a cold oven over a pan of boiling water (advice via Alton) before baking. Next time I’ll even try rolling them out the night before and proof and bake in the morning, so they might actually stay breakfast instead of a substitute lunch.

Can I just warn you that once you’ve made cinnamon rolls from scratch, you may never be able to buy the tubed ones again.

Moroccan-Style Chicken Phyllo Rolls

Poor Taylor is out of kitchen-commission for a while. With a painful lower back, standing on his feet and washing dishes is the last thing he should be doing. Needless to say, I was on my own as far as cooking. And I have to say, I picked the WRONG dish to cook on my own.

Three hours later…

I do have to say these were delicious. And worth the time. And mess (you should have seen the mess). My new favorite flavor just might be cinnamon used in a savory application. These rolls are just that – you’d think the chicken was candy. Delicious. The tomato sauce was a nice touch too, as it had some of the same spices as the rolls. It’d be great used as a substitute for traditional marinara sauce in other dishes.

As if this recipe wasn’t enough (and this might have contributed to the 3 hours I spent in the kitchen) but I figured since I had the phyllo dough out already, why not make Baklava? So I did. We have yet to try it though, it’s still on the counter (and looking might tasty, I hope). By the time dinner was done it was almost 8:00, and we stuffed ourselves. Before we knew it it was bedtime and our stomachs were still full. I’ll be sure to post later when we actually try the baklava, which has the potential to be, um, interesting… (funny story… I’ll explain later).

Needless to say, if you have an extra 3 hours and a package of chicken thighs, I urge you to give this little gem of a recipe a try. :) You won’t regret it!

Moroccan-Style Chicken Phyllo Rolls with Spiced Tomato Sauce

Makes 32 rolls (4-6 appetizer servings)
Recipe from Epicurious

INGREDIENTS
Rolls:
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
Scant teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 1/4 lb chicken thighs (with skin and bones)
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted
8 (17- by 12-inch) phyllo sheets, thawed if frozen
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds (didn’t have these – we used black sesame seeds instead. Didn’t taste the same I’m sure, but they looked pretty!)

DIRECTIONS
Make filling:
Cook onion in oil along with salt, cumin, ginger, turmeric, pepper, and coriander in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chicken, broth, water, and cinnamon stick and simmer, covered, turning chicken over once, until meat is very tender, about 45 minutes total. Transfer chicken with tongs to a bowl, reserving cooking liquid.

When cool enough to handle, shred chicken, discarding skin and bones, and transfer to a large bowl. Transfer cooking liquid to a 2-cup glass measure (do not clean saucepan) and let stand 1 minute, then skim off fat and discard cinnamon stick. Return liquid to saucepan and simmer over moderately high heat, uncovered, until reduced to about 1/4 cup (liquid will look like a glaze in bottom of pan), about 8 minutes, then stir into shredded chicken along with almonds.

Reserve 2 tablespoons beaten egg in a cup for egg wash. Lightly season remaining egg with salt and pepper, then cook in 1/2 tablespoon butter in an 8- to 10-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat, stirring, until just set but still slightly soft. Stir scrambled egg into filling.

Make rolls:
Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 450°F.

Put 1 phyllo sheet on a work surface, keeping remaining phyllo covered with overlapping sheets of plastic wrap and a damp kitchen towel, and brush generously with some melted butter. Evenly sift 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon over buttered phyllo using a fine-mesh sieve, then top with another phyllo sheet and generously brush with butter.

Halve buttered phyllo stack crosswise, then arrange 1 half with a long side nearest you. Spread 1/4 cup chicken filling in a narrow strip along edge nearest you, then roll up filling tightly in phyllo, leaving ends open. Transfer roll, seam side down, to a cutting board set inside a baking pan (to help contain mustard seeds when sprinkling). Make another roll with remaining half stack. Make 6 more rolls in same manner, transferring to cutting board.

Lightly brush top of rolls with egg wash and immediately sprinkle with mustard seeds, pressing lightly on seeds to help adhere. Cut each roll crosswise into 4 pieces and arrange pieces 1 inch apart on 2 baking sheets. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until phyllo is golden brown, about 12 minutes total.

Transfer rolls to a rack to cool slightly.

• Rolls can be assembled (but not coated or cut) 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.
• Rolls can be assembled and cut (but not coated or baked) 2 weeks ahead and frozen, wrapped well in plastic wrap. Coat frozen rolls, then bake (do not thaw) in a preheated 350°F oven about 20 minutes.

Spiced Tomato Sauce

Makes 1 1/2 cups.
Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
Tomato Sauce:
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne
Pinch of ground cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 (14 1/2- to 15-oz) can whole tomatoes in juice, coarsely chopped (reserving juice)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar

DIRECTIONS
Cook onion, garlic, ginger, and spices in oil in a 1- to 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring, until onion is softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in vinegar and simmer over moderately low heat 1 minute. Add tomatoes (with juice) and brown sugar, then increase heat to moderate and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Cool slightly, about 5 minutes.

Purée sauce in a blender until smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids). Serve at room temperature.

Sauce can be made 3 days ahead and cooled completely, then chilled, covered.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, or Hanukkah, or whatever it is you celebrate. :)

Our supposed-to-be-relaxing morning began at the crack of dawn (6am) with an earsplitting fire alarm. Not exactly the way you want to wake up on Christmas morning.

The alarms in our building have gone ‘rogue’ (so says Taylor), and it’s beginning to wear on us. Something about the humidity, getting into the alarm boxes in the parking garage, and short circuiting the alarms in the entire building.

And it is LOUD.

We have to stuff kitty into her carrier box (after dragging her out from under wherever she attempted to seek refuge from the noise), make sure we remember the key so we don’t lock ourselves out, run down 3 flights of stairs with our hands over our ears, and stand, shivering, outside with our equally happy neighbors until the fire department comes and turns it off (obviously we’ve done this before).

Then, since we know it was a humid day, we go back inside and wait for it to happen again.

And it did. Twice. At 9:10 and 9:45.

You think they would have factored in humidity before installing the alarms.

As a result, Taylor and I have both become paranoid. We ‘imagine’ we hear the alarm starting, and our hearts jump. We had a tough time going to sleep last night, for that very reason. Every noise we heard could have been the dreaded alarm.

I hope you all had a better day off. :)

One thing that redeemed the bad start to the morning was these:

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls with caramel glaze. They might just be the most delicious thing we’ve eaten for breakfast in a long time. Mmmm. Which reminds me, that half of them are wrapped up in the fridge just waiting for me. With that in mind, on to the recipe!

Amish Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel Icing

Makes 12 rolls. Recipe from RecipeGirl.

INGREDIENTS
For Dough:
1/3 cup milk or soymilk
2 Tbs butter
½ cup canned pumpkin or mashed cooked pumpkin
2 Tbs granulated sugar
½ tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour

For Filling:
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbs melted butter

For Icing:
¼ cup (4 Tbsp.) butter
½ cup brown sugar, packed
2 Tbs milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
dash of salt
½ to ¾ cup sifted powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS
Prepare rolls: In a small saucepan, heat milk and 2 Tbsp. butter just until warm (120 – 130°) and butter is almost melted, stirring constantly.

In large mixer bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar and salt. Add milk mixture and beat with an electric mixer until well mixed. Beat in egg and yeast. In a separate mixing bowl, combine flours. Add half of flour mixture to pumpkin mixture. Beat mixture on low speed for 5 minutes, scraping sides of bowl frequently. Add remaining flour and mix thoroughly (dough will be very soft). Turn into lightly greased bowl, then grease surface of dough lightly. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto floured surface. Knead a few turns to form a smooth dough, sprinkling with enough additional flour to make dough easy to handle. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 12×10-inch rectangle.

In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Brush surface of dough with melted butter. Sprinkle with brown sugar mixture. Beginning with long side of dough, roll up jelly-roll style. Pinch seam to seal. With a sharp serrated knife, gently cut roll into twelve 1-inch slices. Place rolls cut-side-up in greased 9-inch-square baking pan. (At this point the rolls can be covered and refrigerated overnight if necessary).

Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, 30 to 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake rolls about 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from pan to waxed paper-lined wire rack. Cool 10 to 15 minutes.

While rolls are cooling, prepare icing: In small saucepan, heat butter until melted. Stir in brown sugar and milk. Stir in brown sugar and milk. Cool over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Transfer to a small mixing bowl and cool mixture slightly. Stir in vanilla, salt and powdered sugar. Beat with an electric mixer until well blended. If necessary, add more powdered sugar for desired consistency.

Drizzle icing over warm rolls.