dinner with a friend

A good friend decided to come out for a visit yesterday and she asked if she could bring Chinese. I said no, I would fix us Chinese if that was what she wanted. Come to find out she didn't know you could cook Chinese at home without a bunch of special equipment. My bunch was excited because I was going to fix each of them their favorite dish.

On the menu was:

Green Tea
Pork Egg Roll
Crab Rangoon
Wonton Soup
Pineapple Chicken
Steamed Rice

Wonton soup was a compromise because my Egg Drop Soup isn't pretty and I haven't found a Hot-n-Sour Soup recipe I like. The Wonton Soup Recipe came from here. I doubled the meat and seasonings and got 22 wontons. Next time I will cut the soy sauce in half as I thought the wontons were a little salty.

The pork egg rolls were some of the best I have made. The recipe was called Easy Egg Roll and was from here. I added fresh ginger because I have a plant and I got 11 egg rolls. I also ran three boneless pork sirloin chops through the food processor that were half frozen because the grocery store didn't have any ground pork. The meat came out like a coarse ground sausage which I liked a lot so unless I need a fine grind on my meat I may start grinding my own. (used a cup of the meat in the wontons for the soup.)

Crab Rangoon recipe came from here. Wasn't bad, but next time I think I will eliminate the Worcestershire and soy sauces. I think the addition of those sauces was a bit much and I might cut the garlic powder in half for kicks and grins too. I got three-dozen crab rangoons in wonton wrappers.

The Pineapple Chicken recipe is a copulation of several recipes to come up with my own.

Pineapple Chicken

1 LB chicken breast, sliced thin
1 tsp. Lawry's seasoning salt
½ tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. Italian blend herbs

Mix, then sauté in 1 Tbsp. of olive oil until the pink is gone

Add to skillet of cooked chicken

1 package dry onion soup mix
1 (15-ounce) can pineapple, tidbits, drained, save juice
saved pineapple juice add enough water to make 1 ½ cups
½ tsp. molasses
½ tsp. ginger powder
1 ½ Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
zest of one lemon (Sister Suzy doesn't like zest in her food so I have eliminated it.)

Simmer.

Stir-fry in separate skillet 3 sliced carrots until tender (I added 4 sliced mushrooms and 1/2 cup of sliced red and green bell pepper last night. Nice additions!)

Add carrots to chicken/pineapple skillet

Add 1 ½ Tbsp. cornstarch with 1-cup chicken broth mixed in

Cook until thick.

Taste may need more sweetener use honey or sugar or stevia

Serve over rice.


There were enough leftovers for us to have lunch today. So that was good!

We had a lovely time visiting while looking at quilts and finished knitting projects. Next time we get together I may get to teach her how to knit. That will be fun!

Have a good day!

Judy