Egg Rolls and Fried Rice

Saturday's dinner was SO good. Tim commented repeatedly about how good it was! I was so proud! Tim LOVES going to Chinese buffets, so I was hesitant to try to cook it at home.

I bought egg roll wraps to make my own. You'll probably find these in the produce section at the grocery store! I cooked a pork roast in the crock pot all day... I coated it in salt, pepper, Lawry's seasoning salt, and onion powder and cooked it in 3 cups of water plus 1 chicken bouillon cube. After cooking it all day, I shredded it into small pieces, then set it aside. I chopped up a head of cabbage, grated about 1 cup carrots, diced 1 onion ... boiled all of this for about 2 minutes- just to take the crunch off, without overcooking. I drained and rinsed the veggies in cool water. After fully drained, mix the meat into the veggies and season according to taste. I again used my salt, pepper, Lawry's and onion powder. Put about 1-2 Tbsp of this mixture in the corner of the egg roll wrap; roll the corner over the mixture, fold in the two side corners, then roll up to the top corner. Use egg whites to seal (I used a pastry brush to apply the egg whites). The package made 20 egg rolls. After forming all of them, deep fry for about 5 minutes at 375degrees.
OMG...YUM!
We had several leftovers- so reheating for about 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven made them perfect all over again!!

I only used about 1/2 of the stuffing mixture in the egg rolls, so I added it to my fried rice. Here's how I did the rice.... boil 1 1/2 C white rice until cooked, then drain and rinse in COLD water. Let sit in cold water til cooled completely, drain and set aside. I let it sit at room temperature about 30-45 minutes because the recipe I found said to use day-old cooked rice... I didn't have my magic time machine to fast forward and let the rice sit overnight... so I improvised :) ANYWAY, back to cooking! Scramble 2 eggs in a bowl and pour into a buttered skillet to cook. When eggs are cooked, remove from skillet. Then, in same pan, heat 1 Tbsp oil. Add veggies and whatever you want IN the rice and cook through. Again, my mixture included cabbage, onions, carrots and pork, but I also added about 1/2 C frozen corn. When that was heated through, I added the rice and soy sauce (amount of soy is dependent upon personal taste... I don't like a lot!) ... cook rice and veggie/meat for about 10 minutes, stirring often. Mix in eggs and let cook another 5 minutes! The rice dulled the flavor a little bit, so I added some more salt and pepper, but it wasn't necessary...again depending on personal taste.

Here is the finished product! Even my pickiest eater (Xander) ate an egg roll and LOVED every bite! This was a definite cooking success! We loved every single minute of this dinner experience :)