Chinese New Year, Year of the Monkey

Lettuce Wraps, Beef Broccoli Stir Fry, and Egg Rolls

It was one of those weekends were there are two obvious themes. Both of which my husband claims as his favorite. Chinese New Year and Super Bowl. I think it is because it is one of the few times I'll go into all of the work and make egg rolls.

This years menu included, the before mentioned egg rolls, lettuce wraps, and a Beef Broccoli Stir Fry with rice. For dessert, bought fortune cookies. Someday, I may try to make my own, but with egg rolls, I wasn't feeling it. I did make Banana Monkey Bread for dessert also. Yes, I know not very Chinese, but hey it's the Year of the Monkey. So, what the heck, I went with it.

The Egg Roll recipe comes from my Better Homes and Garden cookbook 1989 edition (held together with a rubber band) pages 18 and 19. I've replaced the pork and shrimp with chicken, (I'm allergic shrimp and had some left over chicken that needed to be used up).

8 egg roll skins
1 1/2 cup finely chopped chicken
1/2 cup finely chopped sprouts
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mushrooms
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp of ground ginger

Mix it together, place a 1/4 cup in each egg roll skin just below the center of the skin. fold the nearest corner over the filling and tuck corner under the filling. Fold in the side corners over the top just as you would making an envelope. Roll up toward the remaining corner. Add a little moister to the corner to seal.  Deep fry for 2 - 3 minutes until golden and drain on paper towels. You can keep them warm in a 300 degree oven. Enjoy warm dipping them in your favorite sauce.

Wrap Sauce

For the Lettuce Wraps, I purchased Lee Kum Kee Sauce for Lettuce Wraps, adding the 1 1b of ground chicken, 1/4 cup chopped peanuts, 1/2 cup chopped carrots, and 4 sliced scallions recommended on the back. I used regular iceberg lettuce leaves to wrap it in. I know it's cheating, but when I looked at the from scratch ingredients, it included items that I wasn't even sure where to find and probably wouldn't ever use otherwise. So, hey.

I tried new recipe for the Beef Broccoli Stir Fry. It was alright. I used Sherry instead of the water and marinated the beef for most of the day with the rest of the ingredients. I did this, because I have been having the hardest time with the beef in the stir fry being tough. I also, tenderized the beef before marinating it. It seemed to help.

Banana Monkey Bread

Now for the Banana Monkey Bread, this turned out really well. We pretty much finished it off between the three of us in three days. I chose banana for selfish reasons, I have too many of them in my freezer. I didn't do the Nutella, it's just not something I keep on hand. I used chocolate frosting on top instead and added chocolate chips in the layers of dough in the bunt pan. Also, added more butter and brown sugar to it also. I hate dry cinnamon rolls. I really didn't need to because in the end they were almost too moist. My daughter did ask me if I was going to make them again. It would have gone much easier, if I hadn't had to stop in the middle of doing the dough balls to clean up all of the sugar I dumped when the sugar contain slipped out of my fingers and went EVERYWHERE.

As for your family movie, these are easy, Mulan, or any of the Kung Fu Panda movies.