Do you remember the 21st night of september?

OK, so it wasn't the 21'st it was the 15th but I live in Canada man! If we waited until the 21'st to have this end of summer dinner, not only would it have technically been autumn but it woulda been hella freezing! This morning when I got up the news said it was 9°C /48 °F!

But we still played Earth Wind and Fire in homage ;-)

We had quite the meal last night and I'm still kinda stuffed. BBQ roast of beef, peppers stuffed with Spanish rice, tomato salad with Parmesan cheese, and sauteed mushrooms in white wine and butter.

The beef was done simply, some steak spice some rosemary and some lime and was so unbelievably good *drool*!

The mushrooms were excellent but there weren't nearly enough. I'm a mushroom nut. I'm also a garlic nut so next time garlic needs to be added to that mix fo' sho'.

Maggie, the dog from next door came by to visit. She's a border dog and it so cute to actually see her bound onto the patio and sniff in each corner ready to pounce on anything remiss.

She got a beef bone fresh from the market for her efforts.

We realized to late that we didn't have fresh Parmesan for the tomato salad but Tre Stelle did good in a pinch...and we really loaded it on.

I really dug the peppers but I like mine really well roasted - mind you I was the only one to eat my whole pepper so I guess it didn't really matter to me that much. LOL

We lasted till the wee hours slicing off piece of beef and gossiping until we finally had to go inside from the cold.

Summer's been nice though, can't really complain, but I LOVE the fall. Jeans! Boots! Chunky Sweaters! Boots! New Hair Color! Boots!

Egg rolls are for lovers

What’s better than getting’ high on chocolate cookies? Having Chinese food when the munchies hit! Well what I really wanted was a really good, meaty egg roll like I used to get down home. Far too many places (Mr. Pong and your jumbo egg roll I mean you!) put way too much cabbage and sprouts in their egg rolls and far far too many don’t make egg rolls at all preferring spring rolls. *blowing a raspberry*
What is a girl to do when she’s in the mood? Make her own of course! Bear in mind that with my altered state my photos are on the slightly blurry side for good reason ;-)

Egg rolls

Ingredients:

1 pkg. egg roll wrappers
¼ lb ground pork (I didn’t have any so I used hot Italian sausages that I removed from the casings and re ground using my Kitchen Aid mixer (with meat grinding attachment)
1 diced onion
1 diced red pepper
handful mushrooms
6 water chestnuts sliced
green onions diced
½ lb nappa cabbage
1 tbsp. hoisin sauce
soya sauce to taste
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ lb bean sprouts

I re-seasoned my Italian sausages because they are NEVER as hot as you want them to be. I added liberal doses of chili flakes, cayenne pepper, black pepper and seasoning salt.

In a wok, stir fry the pork, onion, red pepper, mushrooms, and water chestnuts together, stirring until golden. Add garlic, hoisin sauce, and soya sauce to taste. For last 5-6 minutes add cabbage. I like my cabbage to have a bit of a crunch to it.
Normally I hate bean sprouts but my boyfriend refused to participate in the cooking process (ok the cleaning up of my cooking process) if I didn’t add them. To blanched them for about 30 s to 1 min to take the edge off the taste. That way when he could see me put them in but the taste wasn’t as potent. If you do this recipe ignore this part – but to be accurate I’m telling you exactly what I did.

Using a tablespoon, put a spoonful of the mixture in the middle of an egg roll wrapper. Again, to maintain peace with the boy toy I wrapped them like old fashioned rolls (seam in the middle with both ends folded up and sealed) but I prefer to roll them similar to a spring roll (place wrapper diagonal fold top corner in first, then both ends, then finish rolling it tight to the end. *sigh*

Do not stack or let pre-rolled egg rolls touch each other before you fry. The wrappers get soft quickly and will tear quite easily (even tiny tears suck) letting all the oil in your roll once you start frying.

Deep fry in wok (I used canola oil because it was handy) but make sure your oil is HOT (375 degrees) before you start! You want the egg rolls to absorb a minimum of oil and that means HOT is of the essence.

Take out when golden, which should only be 2-3 minutes (if your oil is hot enough) because your filling is already cooked.

We only had VH sauce but we were so hungry by the end that we scarfed them down like they were golden fried pockets of pure love…and really they were!

We had about 2 egg rolls worth of sausage left over so I took some day-old rice and stir fried that with it along with some peas, carrots and more mushrooms. Oh happy day!

I've just discovered this link to a product called Soul Rolls, which I might have to experiment with the next time I break out the wok. I'm definitely intrigued. *eyebrow cocked*