Are those onion rings, wrapped in bacon and then deep fried??? I have been low carbing forever and this is the first time I’ve seen anything quite so genius!!!
Me either! Go figure! I just came across the idea last week and I’m like uh how did I miss this? It’s just bacon wrapped onions and I baked them (275F 90 minutes) then broil to crisp. You can also grill for similar timing and I imagine the added smoke flavor would be outstanding.
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Joe saw those on Instagram and has been talking about them since! 
Yours turned out nice!
Needless to say, bacon is on the grocery list.
Sunday night we went to a “mexi-cali” restaurant woth everyone, (peppers in pacific grove, longtime local favorite) and i had the vegetarian tostada without the fried tortilla shell- it just gets soggy- and a fantastic margarita since i wasn’t driving. It was enormous! My clever dad put a fried egg ontop of the leftovers for his breakfast the next morning.
Yesterday we were in San Francisco for the day and went for korean food lunch which was very good, they do the banchan all on one plate- and i got lucky since my picky mom wasn’t interested (although she did try the one on the end that seemed to be fried mystery sausage)
After lunch i was distracted by the russian bakery practically across the street that we have visited before and we left with a loaf of their wonderful pumpernickel. I was worried borscht wouldn’t survive the long car ride back home.
Dinner was late and a bit random, a few garden tomatoes, a cob of white corn cut off raw mixed with some cucumbers and green onion, and a slice of that pumpernickel topped with dijon, thin sliced cucumber and tomato and black pepper/salt.
Tomatoes that look like tomorrow night’s appetizer, not quite ready yet.
I’m off to the farmers market soon and tonight i’ll be actually making a proper dinner for us.
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Your meal looks lovely.
Is it raining at lot in your place? Maybe you should chop the very sick leaves off, those with white powdery mildew. They will spread to the healthy leaves quickly.
Don’t know if spraying milk could help:
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Not letting DH see this!
Very hot today 33°C, I made some gazpacho today, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion and red pepper and mixed (roughly) Good for the heat. Main was pollock. We ate a lot of water melon to finish off.
Several of my last meals:
Duck! Inspired by many of you having duck lately.
Yes, I know tomatoes again.
But aren’t they lovely?! when they are home grown. The hard work paid.
Cod fish with goat cheese and cherry tomatoes (!) and greens
Finally a non tomato meal:
Mapo tofu with beef
Sugar snap peas pan fried with XO sauce
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Just received my Cuisinart replacement blade, so decided I will make a batch of spring rolls since I am a patron Thursday ( smoked pork pulled carolina pork butt) and Sunday (crabs and paella) with some of these spring rolls as appetizer.
I usually mass produce, freeze the ones that are not rolled, and the ones that are rolled, either pan fry it or my son bake them in the countertop convection oven till crisp when I am not available to pan fry. Both comes out very crispy but I prefer them pan fried.
I also freeze the rolled ones that we did not eat as I made 130 of them this time.
I tried to jot down my ingredients and the amount used as best I could as I do not usually follow the same recipe since that is not how I cook
Ingredients used this time
- 6 pounds of carrots
- 3 pounds of cabbage ( ? not sure but it came out to be the same amount as the carrots after I shredded them)
- red onions 13-15 which were caramelized. Same amount as snow peas after they were cooked.
- 5 pounds of snow peas
- 4 pounds of wild patagonia shrimp 21-25 count( can use smaller size as they are chopped up anyway but hard to find salad shrimps that are uncooked and wild)
- 4 pounds of ground pork
- 5 pounds of skinless boneless chicken thigh ( in retrospect after poaching and shredding, I should have gotten 6 pounds)
- 9 packages of 10 ounce extra firm bean curd called To Kwa
- Individually wrapped spring roll cover made by Simex ( # of sheets vary. I used 4 boxes, had 130 sheets in them )
PREPARATION:
Shredded the carrots and cabbage with Cuisinart fine shredder, Replacement cutting blade for snow peas, onions till fine but not mushy or watery, shrimp was also chopped till fine , chicken thighs poached and shredded by hand.
COOKING METHOD
1/ Saute the vegetables individually in my Al Clad Stock pot with peanut oil, lots of garlic, S/P, a splash of soy sauce, splash of Datu Puti Pinoy Spiced Coconut Vinegar, red pepper flakes . and small amount of sesame oil till I smell the fragrance of the sesame before I finished sautéing.
2. Cooked the pork same way but added 5 spice powder
3. Same way with the shrimp but added finely shredded ginger.
4. poached and shredded chicken legs.
After all these ingredients were prepared and cooked separately, I added all of them to my 15Q Calphalpon Saute Pan, simmer them on low heat for 4 hours for the flavor to meld and to be sure that they are evenly mixed. Cool them, then I wrap them with Spring rolls.
Tips:
- Please do not go overboard with salt as the dip will take care of it. Just enough salt to awaken your taste bud is fine.
- Cool before wrapping
- Do not use bean sprouts or mushrooms as some cooks do. It will make the spring rolls soggy . Do not use firm bean curd, just the extra firm called ToKwa.
- If not adept to rolling spring rolls, try and squeeze out the extra juice after cooking so the spring roll wrapper does not break. However, once you are familiar with rolling them, and if y ou use the individual separated wrapper rather than the ones that are not separated by the same company, the extra moisture seen in wrapping can be taken cared of by blotting with a paper towel. The individual wrappers are separated by very thin wax paper which I use to cover each spring roll after they are rolled to keep them separated as the dough sticks to one another. Prior to this new packaging, it was extremely difficult to separate the sheets and they do dry out quickly. If you cannot find the separated sheets, cover your wrapper with 2 sets of towels to keep them from drying out. The outer layer of towel should be slightly moist. The inner towel should be dry to prevent the sheets from getting too dry or moist. The extra cost for the individually separated wrapper is well worth it. The Simex wrapper are very thin , almost like phyllo dough and are really crunchy pan fried or baked in oven.
- Use scrambled egg to seal the wrapper and place the sealed side down in your container or plate.
Serving Suggestions
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In my ancestral hometown of Fukien, these spring rolls are consumed with the same wrapper but eaten fresh while warm. That is why it is really important to have good ingredients and when we eat it fresh, I add crab meat to it. Typically, after the ingredients are added to the wrapper, we add ground peanuts with small amount of sugar , sometimes very thin rice vermicelli that is deep fried till crispy, chopped, and a dried vegetable called Ho Ti. I am not sure where to find Ho Ti in the US.
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You can also eat left overs with rice or wrap with romaine or iceberg lettuce
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For dips, I like soy sauce, cider vinegar , crash garlic , red pepper flakes and a small am out of Datu Puti spiced coconut vinegar or La Choy Sweet Sour sauce.
I rolled 130 spring rolls after it cooled down, picture shows some of them on platter, ready to cook, forgot to take pictures after they were pan fried only after my son and I started to eat. Sorry, about that. The picture doesn’t show it justice as I used the worst wrapped ones to fry immediately . With the ingredients I used, after 130 spring rolls, I have 4 tupperware full of cooked spring roll filling which I froze. I run out of wrapper.
Here are pictures which shows onions for proportion. Typically, I use 1.5 times carrots and cabbage to the amount of pork.
If y ou like the recipe here which I inherited from my mom, you may want to make a big batch like me. I freeze and use it whenever I do not feel like cooking, thawed for 20-30 minutes, or give a lot of them as gift. If so, you may want to invest in the same Calphalon pan that I have. I purchased this saute pan from Bloomingdales in 1979. It is a Calphalon 15Q pan. Stamped on the lid is commercial, hard anodized, 316 C ((the high-end grade, with surgical steel also have some titanium or molybdenum in their alloy, which increases their resistance to salt water erosion.) Made in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The pan is no stick to this day, the handle is brushed SS with 15 engraved on it. It stays cool to touch. I has been discontinued by Calphalon but I found it when I was googling on Ebay last year for $150 which is a steal. After simmering for 4 hours, nothing sticks to it, very easy to clean up.
Bona Petit!
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Vietnamese beef stew with lemongrass and carrots. You eat it with baguette for breakfast, with medium rice noodles at other times. We like it the most the bread.
I used goat legs with some meat still on the bone because I have them. The lovely colour comes from annatto powder.
Enough for another meal.
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Thanks for the tip, i’ll pass it along to my dad - he does the gardening. Seems it’s the end of the tomatoes for this year, a few weeks ago there were tons!
Oh your tomatoes are so impressive! And that tart…!
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I always use watered down milk- it works!
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If they have produced and now the end of their life, it is normal. Mine will be like this in October.
Lamb and Apricot Tagine is WFD…sort of.
Used a hunk of defrosted leftover lamb from Easter that I chopped up. Sauteed onions, grated ginger, a small cinnamon stick, a pinch of turmeric, salt and pepper then tossed in the rare lamb cubes and some minced garlic, along with some halved dried apricots. Into the oven for about 30 minutes, then added some honey and lemon juice to finish cooking (maybe another 15 minutes - the originally recipe using uncooked lamb calls for 1-1/2 hours of cooking - but no need for that with pre-cooked rare lamb. Sprinkled with pistachios and loosely chopped parsley. Original recipe called for cilantro, but…yeah. No.
Completely non-traditional sides, but I used what I had - using basmati rice and peas & corn. There was wine.
And a gratuitous pic of Finnegan and one of his favorite cat stick toys. He’ll chase this thing until he’s out of breath!
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It was a charcuterie and Chardonnay night here. We’re off on Friday but it still feels like the longest week ever!
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Yes yes yes to your dinner and
toy sticks rule! What a face!
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simple dinner tonight as I had been snacking on guayabana paste thruout the day.
Shanghai Lion’s head meatball with vermicelli was the menu for dinner. Simple, fast.
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Took out the wrong noodle but had already soaked them before I realized I had the very thin rice noodle rather than cellophane noodles. So, just had a small amount of noodles in the soup
I used Jicama instead of water chestnut to give it the crunch needed.
Instead of cornstarch as binder, I used fine version of sweet potato starch.
The broth was chicken stock from poaching my chicken legs for spring rolls as well as some broth from cooking spring rolls during last year’s cooking session when a group of friend came to my home for spring roll session. Since they were novice in rolling, I suggested that we squeeze the stuffing prior to rolling to avoid tearing the spring roll wrapper with less moisture. The combined broth turned out to be very tasty. No other spice was added to the broth.
For vegetables in the soup, I stir fried Chay sem( Yu Chay) with some garlic in EVOO, then added the broth and the noodles pre softened in warm water, and the brown meat balls. Picture showed very little noodles and Chay Sem but there was quite a few Chay sem , just not ladled into the bowl. I had 2 bowls of soup, the first had mostly the meatballs, the second bowl mostly chay sem.
Often, just before serving soup, I was taught to use sesame oil to brown shallots till crisp, then add a splash of soy sauce. The aroma from the steam is very fragrant , a step that adds a lot of pizzazz to the soup but I omitted that today because I just felt lazy and tired.
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