Spring Rolls

I am Back!!! My life has changed so much in the last year. We've moved from our bustling Downtown dwelling to a suburban neighbourhood. We are still adjusting but it's been okay. I have been so spoiled living in downtown that the idea of having to drive almost anywhere here is annoying but I do love the neighbourhood. And now that we are settled in, I can start to get back to cooking and baking. Couple weeks back, we went to a Thai restaurant out in the burbs and the food was pretty good. We had spring rolls and when I was out grocery shopping, I bought a spring roll wrapper on impulse.


I've made man-du (Korean dumpling) before at home so I figure making spring rolls is along the same idea. I like meat in my spring roll so I seasoned some ground pork with salt and pepper, cut up some cabbage and bamboo shoots. I started to cook the meat and I made some gravy with corn starch and water and mixed that in . Now depending on the size of the spring roll wrapper, you can adjust the size. The original size was too big so I cut into quarters to they were more bite sized rolls.



Scoop some meat up, put it in the middle of the wrapper and roll up one side and tuck the sides in and keep rolling until it looks like a spring roll. This make take some time and practice before you perfect it but hey who cares if it isn't perfect. Pour vegetable oil into the pot and get it up to 350 degrees. Don't crowd the pot with too many rolls as it can bring down the temp of the oil. Fry it until they are golden brown and take them out. Dip them into a sweet chilli sauce or plum sauce and enjoy! These would make great party food as an appetizer or a potluck dish.

Chocolate coconut banana muffin

I don't crave chocolate all the time but there are times when I crave something sweet. And today I craved chocolate and coconut.
I LOVE coconut. And chocolate and coconut combo is a big hit with me.
And I had planned on baking banana loaf anyway I thought it would be awesome to have all three together. If you are reading this and salivating, you need to try this recipe.

I looked for chocolate coconut banana muffin and this is the best one I found. There were other recipes but lot of them called for self rising flour and I didn't have any at home. But apparently after looking up what the difference between self rising and all purpose flour is, I found out that I can easily making self rising flour from a regular flour by mixing in baking soda and salt to the flour.
 But this has to be done precisely for it to work. If I am ever in need of a self rising flour I know what to do next time.

Getting back to the muffin, I used frozen bananas instead of fresh ones. I always have a one or two bananas that are too ripe whenever I buy bananas and instead of chucking them out, I save them by tossing them into the freezer. I also put in 2 tablespoons of sour cream because I had little bit left in the fridge that i didn't want to waste and thought they might make the muffins more moist. I am not sure if it made any difference but they sure tasted good to me.

DRY:
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt

WET:

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
2 Tbsp. Sour cream
3 ripe bananas
1/2 cup medium sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes


Beat the butter and the sugar first until it is thoroughly mixed. Add egg and mash in the bananas. Add the chocolate chips and coconut.
Add the dry ingredient into the wet and mix. Don't over mix at this point.



Divide it into the muffin cups and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. This produced 13 muffins using this recipe.

They are not too sweet and so delicious. You can easily substitute coconut for other dry fruits if desired.

Apple Crisp

It's autumn when the leaves shed their green colour and take on hues of red and yellow. And of course it is also the season of apples. Did you know that there are over 7000 kinds of apples in the world? ( I just googled it and I knew it was a lot but didn't expect 7000). My favourite variety are the Fuji apples. They are uber sweet and juicy. My next favourite are the galas because they are not as expensive as the Fujis and they taste sweet like the Fujis.

The idea to make apple crisps stemmed when I bought a bag of gala apples at Costco. I usually don't like to buy produce there but their apples never failed me, not so far.

They are so simple and easy to make, however, depending on how much you are making, you may need to devote couple hours to the oven. I made a whole bag, 6 lbs., of apples. They can burn quite easily if not carefully monitored and since I like them little bit more crispy, I had to keep checking on them to make sure they weren't getting burnt.


THINGS NEEDED:

Apples
Mandolin slicer (I think this is a must tool for this because you want the apple slices to be even and not too thick so they bake evenly)
Cinnamon
Brown sugar
Cookie sheet
Parchment paper or silicon mat


I turned oven on at 325F. And I put the timer on for 30 minutes because I wanted them to be crispy and crunchy. You want them to be crispy, not burnt. If they take on a hint of brown, take them out immediately.

They were so good. I experimented with powdered ginger and nutmeg and I didn't like either of them. I am going to stick with brown sugar and cinnamon for now. I may experiment with different spices at another time if I feel like it.

The only problem with making them is that I kept eating them while I was making them. My plan to pack a bag for my hubby for tomorrow may be in jeopardy because of me. Uh oh. I better restrain myself.