Week 10 Meal

This week we went all out and had a Chinese food feast. We made pork egg rolls, wonton soup, bbq'd pork and fried rice. For dessert I also made a Chinese Sponge Cake. It was a huge hit at our house and even our neighbor said that it tasted better than anything you can get in town. This meal had a lot of prep work to it. I spent about two hours yesterday morning putting everything together and then it took me about an hour and a half last night to cook everything up. The recipes that we chose were pretty good on their own although for a little more flavor I did add some chicken broth to the wonton soup instead of just using stock.

Wonton Soup:
Ingredients
1/2 pound boneless pork loin, coarsely chopped
2 ounces peeled shrimp, finely chopped
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon finely chopped green onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger root
24 (3.5 inch square) wonton wrappers
3 cups chicken stock
1/8 cup finely chopped green onion
Directions
1.In a large bowl, combine pork, shrimp, sugar, wine, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon chopped green onion and ginger. Blend well, and let stand for 25 to 30 minutes.
2.Place about one teaspoon of the filling at the center of each wonton skin. Moisten all 4 edges of wonton wrapper with water, then pull the top corner down to the bottom, folding the wrapper over the filling to make a triangle. Press edges firmly to make a seal. Bring left and right corners together above the filling. Overlap the tips of these corners, moisten with water and press together. Continue until all wrappers are used.
3.FOR SOUP: Bring the chicken stock to a rolling boil. Drop wontons in, and cook for 5 minutes. Garnish with chopped green onion, and serve.

BBQ Pork (Char Siu):


Ingredients:

1 lb pork butt (cut into 4 pieces)
3 clove garlic (finely chopped)
1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil

Char Siu (Char Siew) Sauce:

1 1/2 tablespoons maltose
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rose wine (玫瑰露酒)
3 dashes white pepper powder
3 drops red coloring (optional)
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Method:

Add all ingredients in the char siu sauce in a sauce pan, heat it up and stir-well until all blended and become slightly thickened and sticky. (It will yield 1/2 cup char siu sauce.) Transfer out and let cool.

Marinate the pork butt pieces with 2/3 of the char siu sauce and the chopped garlic overnight. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil into the remaining char siu sauce. Keep in the fridge.

The next day, heat the oven to 375 degree F and roast the char siu for 15 minutes (shake off the excess char siu sauce before roasting). Transfer them out of the oven and thread the char siu pieces on metal skewers and grill them over fire (I used my stove top). Brush the remaining char siu sauce while grilling until the char siu are perfectly charred. Slice the char siu into bite-size pieces, drizzle the remaining char siu sauce over and serve immediately with steamed white rice.

Egg Rolls:
Ingredients:Yield:
12 12 12Servings Size
eggrolls
Update

eggrolls
12 egg roll wraps
1/2-1 lb ground pork (or chicken or beef)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 (16 ounce) bag shredded cabbage and carrot coleslaw mix (not quite the whole bag)
4 green onions, sliced
1 egg, beaten with
1 teaspoon water
oil (for frying)
Change Measurements: US Metric

Directions:
Prep Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 30 mins
1 Brown pork with ginger and garlic in pan; drain any grease.
2 Mix salt, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil. Add to pork and mix well.
3 In large bowl combine cabbage mix and green onions.
4 Pour hot meat over vegetables and stir well. Let cool slightly.
5 Lay wrap in front of you so that it looks like a diamond.
6 Place 3 tablespoons pork filling in center of egg roll wrapper.
7 Fold bottom point up over filling and roll once.
8 Fold in right and left points.
9 Brush beaten egg on top point.
10 Finish rolling.
11 Set aside and repeat with remaining filling.
12 Heat 2-3 inches oil in large frying pan to very hot (350ºF).
13 Fry a few egg rolls in pan at a time, 2-3 minutes per side.
14 Drain on paper towels.
15 Serve with sweet and sour sauce, plum sauce, hoisin sauce or jalapeño pepper jelly.


Fried Rice:
2 cups uncooked rice
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large eggs
1 cup sliced green onions
1 cup frozen peas and carrots thawed
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp bottled ginger
2 tbsp rice wine vinager
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Cook the rice seperately.

While the rice is cooking, scramble eggs into small pieces and remove from pan. Add oil to pan. Then add onions, peas and carrots, garlic, and ginger. Saute about 2 minutes.

While veggi mix is cooking, mix together rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil.

Add cooked rice to pan and stir constantly for about 2 min breaking up the rice. Add soy mixture and eggs. Cook about a minute stirring constantly.

Chinese Sponge Cake:
Ingredients:
•1 cup sifted cake flour (note: not 1 cup cake flour, sifted)
•1 tsp baking powder
•1/4 tsp salt
•5 eggs
•1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
•3/4 cup sugar
•1 tsp almond extract
Preparation:
Line an 8 X 8 or 9 X 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper. Prepare a wok for steaming.

Place the flour in a medium bowl. Stir in the baking powder and salt and set aside.

Separate the egg yolks and the egg whites. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat briefly. Add 1/4 cup of sugar and beat for another minute (don't let the egg whites stiffen). Add the egg yolks and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat for about 2 more minutes. Stir in the almond extract. Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, stirring. Mix thoroughly, but do not beat.

Pour the batter into the cake pan. Bring the water in the wok to a high boil, then turn down to medium. Steam the cake, covered, for 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cake on a rack. Invert onto a plate and remove the parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so that the cake is right side up. Cut into squares.

Here are the websites with the recipes as some have good pictures to go along with each step:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/wonton-soup/Detail.aspx
http://rasamalaysia.com/bbq-pork-recipe-char-siu/
http://chinese.food.com/recipe/chinese-egg-rolls-134053
http://chinesefood.about.com/od/dessertscake/r/spongecake.htm

Have a great week and happy cooking!
~Rachelle~

Week's 8 and 9 Dinners

I also apologize for posting this a little late. I have had a very busy week with school and sick kitties so I will be posting for week 8 and week 9.

Week 8 - Crock Pot Philly Cheesesteak

For week 8 we made crock pot Philly cheese-steaks, the recipe can be found here.
This was actually a very simple meal to make. The only substitution I had to make was vegetarian Worcestershire sauce due to a fish allergy one of my guests has. We used mozzarella cheese which I also probably would use swiss next time. Everyone really enjoyed this meal though. We have decided that the crock pot would also be an amazing way to make french dip sandwiches.

Week 9 - An Asian Buffet

This week wasn't really just ONE dish. It was an Asian themed meal. We made egg rolls (recipe here.),
Chinese BBQ Pork (recipe), Wonton Soup (recipe), and my personal Fried Rice recipe.
This dinner actually turned out pretty delicious. My husband said it was the best chinese food he had ever had. This meal took the most preparation time out of all the meals so far. Because I was cooking for so many people I had to double the Wonton Soup recipe so wrapping 50 wontons and 24 egg rolls took some time. I made the mistake of stacking my wontons and egg rolls without anything in between them so the next day they stuck together a little too much and I lost a few of my egg rolls but thankfully I saved enough of them to feed my guests. Here are the pictures:

Enjoy!

Two weeks in One (Weeks 7 & 8)

I apologize up front for my part of the blog not being done last week. We had friends in town, and so life was a little busy for us.

Last week (February 13th) we made a Valentines meal of Spaghetti and Heart Meatballs and Heart Shaped Crescent Rolls. The spaghetti sauce was made from tomato soup and then my own spices added in (sorry for me it is a little bit of this and that, I am all about going for taste). While I don't think I would use the tomato soup again it was an all around good meal. And my boys loved all of the heart shaped food.

This week we made crockpot philly cheesesteak sandwiches. You can find the recipe here http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/02/crockpot-philly-cheesesteak-sandwiches.html.
It was a good meal with the peppers and onion, but it was not enough for our entire family and one extra adult even with adding another half a pound of meat and an extra pepper. We are thinking that next time we might add some beef broth or flavoring too just to give the meat a little extra flavor. Everyone ate every bit of it though and I think it was a great hit. The best part for me is that I was able to put it all together in the morning and able to eat around 5:30 with no extra prep work besides putting the sandwiches together and we also put the cheese on and placed them in the oven for a few minutes just to melt the cheese.

We are still in need of some more recipe ideas so if you have any you would like to submit please email us at twosisterscooking.rl@gmail.com.

Happy cooking and have a great week everyone!

~Rachelle

Laura's Week 7 Meal

This week, in honor of Valentines Day, we made spaghetti with heart shaped meatballs. The recipe that I used can be found here. For the sauce, I actually blended it in a food processor because I do not like chunks in my sauce and I think it helps to make the onion and garlic more flavorful in the sauce. I also added some garlic powder and onion powder to taste and also a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar. For the noodles I used whole wheat noodles because they are better for you and I think that they taste better. We also made some heart shaped rolls using a cookie cutter and some crescent rolls from the refrigerated section. Everyone really loved the food. For the meatballs I also used crushed up saltines in place of the bread crumbs which I think added an amazing taste to it. They smelled delicious while they were cooking.
The meal only took about an hour to make from start to finish. I really enjoyed this sauce recipe though, I have not fount a sauce recipe before that I really cared for before now. Here are the pictures I took:

Unfortunately I do not have my receipt for the groceries so I don't have an amount for you this week.
I would highly recommend making this if you ever feel so inclined to make hearts everywhere. You could make it as a regular spaghetti and meatballs too.

Have a great week everyone!

Laura

Laura's Week 6 Meal

Sorry for the late posting. Homework has had me very busy. This weeks meal was delicious. We made pizza using the same crust as Rachelle's. The only thing that didn't work so well was that the pizza stuck to one of the trays that we used. I did however use an airbake tray for the other pizza and it worked well since the holes in the bottom of it prevented the pizza from sticking.
I also made the garlic chicken pizza for one of mine. For the second pizza I made a Hawaiian pizza with homemade sauce.
I failed yet again at putting the SD card in my camera so unfortunately I do not have any pictures but I can tell you that they actually looked pretty tasty. I used Hidden Valley Ranch to make the sauce for the garlic chicken pizza which I would not suggest. It is a very sour ranch and didn't work well with the pizza. Overall the pizza was very good though. I would definitely make this again with a few tweaks.

Here are my numbers:

From Safeway:
Canadian Bacon: $3.49

From Albertsons:
Tomato Sauce: $2.89 for 28 oz (in retrospect, I should have just used small cans because I didn't use barely any of it)
Wheat Germ: $5.29
Yellow Cornmeal: $2.69
Pineapple Chopped: $1.49
Flaxseed Meal: $4.79
Tomato Puree: $1.00 (28 oz)
Mozzarella Cheese: $7.99
Cooked Chicken: $3.50

Here is the recipe for my sauce from Allrecipes.com:

Ingredients

• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 1 (29 ounce) can tomato puree
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, saute garlic in oil until tender. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until sauce reaches desired thickness. Use in Deep-Dish Sausage Pizza, Tomato Artichoke Chicken or any recipe that calls for pizza sauce. Sauce may be refrigerated for up to 1 week. 

Have a great week,

Laura

Whole Wheat Pizza

For this weeks meal we did whole wheat pizza. The recipe we used was submitted by my friend Lindsey. For one of our pizzas we just did canned sauce with mozzarella cheese, sausage and pepporoni and for the other we made a mock Papa Murphy's garlic chicken pizza, we both have been wanting it for awhile and do not have Papa Murphy's where we live, we were surprised on how close this sauce was. Although we had a minor setback with our pizzas sticking, it was still very flavorful and we thought a great pizza crust. Next time we make it we will put corn meal on the bottom so that it does not stick.

The only thing that I did not have at our house for the crust was the Flaxseed so my bill was not very expensive this week. I also had the ranch, garlic, green peppers and pizza sauce for both pizzas at home.
Total purchases for this weeks meal:
Flaxseed - $2.08
Roma Tomatoes - $1.34
Mozzarella Cheese - $7.88 (only used half of the bag so $3.94)
Pepperoni - $2.00
Sausage - $2.00
Total - $11.36

Here are the recipes:
Whole Wheat Pizza Crust - Makes two 12" crusts
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine 1 cup bread flour, whole wheat flour, cornmeal, flaxseed, yeast and salt. Add 1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees) stir until combined. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surfaced. Knead in the remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (3-5 min total).

Shape in to a dough ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (2 1/2 - 3 hours).

Punch down dough. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 2 portions. Cover and lest rest 10 minutes. Use as directed in indvidual pizza recipes.

Mock Papa Murphy's Garlic Chicken Pizza:
Sauce:
1 Cup Ranch
1 Tablespoon minced garlic

Grill Chicken, (we put garlic in with the chicken) Mix together and put on pizza. Top pizza with Mozzarella Cheese, Chicken, Roma Tomatoes and Green Peppers.