Asian Egg Roll Night

This week's Noisy Rabbit basket was an Asian inspired basket. I'll be honest, I haven't been very thrilled about the contents. I like Asian food, but I don't normally cook it. There was some pretty uniquely Asian food and, to be honest, most of it I didn't know what to do with. Just so you know what I'm talking about, this is a list of "What's in the Basket".

A friend of mine mentioned taking most of the contents and making Egg Rolls. I've never made them before, but I was pretty interested in giving them a try. I mean, what else was I going to do with all that stuff!

Of course, when looking for good recipes, I hit up Pinterest. I found two recipes that seemed fairly easy. Both baked their egg rolls instead of frying that. Since David and I have been somewhat watching what we eat, I thought that would be a better option.

The first recipe was from Prevention Rd and the other was over at For the Love of Cooking. I kind of did a combo of the two recipes and then added in what I had from my basket.

This is a break down of how it went...

First I cut up all the veggies that were going to go in the egg rolls.

 Mushrooms

 Carrots

 Thai Basil and Green Onion

 Bok Choy

 Bean Sprouts

Next, I threw all of the veggies in a pan with some Olive Oil and Sesame Oil. (The Sesame Oil wasn't in either of the recipes, but I had some in the cabinet and it just felt right to add it.) I cooked the veggies for a few minutes making sure they were "softened, but not soggy" like the recipe from Prevention Rd said. 

 Look how pretty all the colors are!!

 This is what they looked like when they were done.

I had to let the veggies cool for a few minutes, so I put together our watercress salad during that time. I don't recall ever having watercress before, but when searching recipe ideas, a salad seemed to be the easiest and tastiest way to eat it. I added a few carrot slices and some goat cheese (not to David's, only mine). I'm not sure if goat cheese is Asian at all, but it is one of my new favs was on sale BOGO at BiLo this week. I had it and wanted it, so who cares about anything else, right?!

Next up was wrapping up the egg rolls. I won't lie, I was pretty intimidated by this step, but was quickly surprised by how easy it was to do. I added a few tablespoons of the veggies and wrapped it up like the recipes said. Easy, Peasy!

 Egg Roll Wrappers

 The Veggies

When they were all wrapped up and ready to go, I put them on a baking sheet (with my handy dandy silicone mat), sprayed them with oil, and popped them in the oven. 

About half way through, I flipped them.

When they were about finished, I turned on the Broiler and browned them a little more on each side. This was probably the most stressful part for me, because I HATE the Broiler. I mean, I like how it works, but I hate how you can turn your back to literally two seconds and burn the tar out of something!! Please, don't turn your back! It would be TERRIBLE to do all that work and then burn them at the last moment!!

I also made some Pork Chops to go with our meal. I know Prevention Rd made these on Meatless Monday, but I knew David would want some meat. Pork - Asian ...  it goes.

I also threw together some homemade lemonade that I  also found on Pinterest. This one came from Simply So Good. It is a syrup that is super easy to make. You can keep in the fridge and make by the cup or pitcher.

Oh yeah, War Eagle!!

All in all, Asian Egg Roll Night was a success. David wasn't 100% on the baked instead of fried, but that's ok. Eating better takes adjusting. I'm not exactly sure what else I'll do with the other stuff in the basket, but at least this took care of some of it!

I've also seen some recipes for Southwestern Egg Rolls. I may see about attempting those with some of my leftover egg roll wrappers. Who knows!!