Spicy Vegetable Egg Rolls

I had a package of egg roll wrappers, along with no idea what to really do with them. I made some sort of black bean egg roll a couple years ago and loved it, but I wanted to do something different.
I am not really a fan of frying, so I baked these, but you could easily fry them too.

2 oz mung bean threads
2 tbsp sesame seeds
sesame oil or cooking spray to saute
1 cup shredded baby spinach
1 1/2 cups chopped bell peppers of your choice
1 chopped carrot
2 minced cloves of garlic
1 can of black beans, rinsed
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili paste (more or less, depending on your taste. me…MORE, 2x that number!)
1 tsp ancho chile powder
1 tsp ground ginger
12 egg roll wrappers

Cook the mung bean threads by soaking in boiling water for 10 minutes, drain.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees, spray baking sheet with cooking spray. While you’re at it, spray the pan for sauteeing the veggies if you’re not using sesame oil.

Saute the sesame seeds for a minute, just until they’re a bit toasted. This is easier with just cooking spray since you can definitely smell it. Add the spinach, carrots, peppers, and garlic, and saute until spinach wilts.
Remove from heat and add the black beans. Add the soy sauce, chili paste, chile powder, and ginger, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Then add the mung bean threads, chopping them up a bit as you stir them in. Let cool.

For filling the wrappers, place one in front of you, with a corner closest to you.

Place 1/3 a cup of the veggie mixture in the middle, then fold it up like an envelope: fold up the bottom corner, then the two sides.


Then roll it up and place it on the baking sheet with the seam on the bottom. Repeat with remaining wrappers.

Spray the tops of all egg rolls with cooking spray and place in the oven. Cook for 8-10 minutes on each side, they are finished when they are golden brown.

I ate mine with some hoisin sauce, since I made them a bit spicier.

Tre Formaggi (Grilled Three Cheeses Sandwich!)

I don’t know how I came across this grilled cheese sandwich, but basically, I don’t know how I never thought of this before. I love Italian cheeses and I love grilled cheese.
I went to Publix last night and decided I needed some sliced Asiago, basically for no reason. I also had picked up a loaf of American sourdough bread made by a local bakery for $2 at another grocery store. I have no idea how I just perfectly ended up with nearly all the ingredients. If only I had fresh rather than prepackaged sliced Mozzarella…this would be even more incredible.
Since I didn’t have Fontina cheese, I needed to obviously replace that with some other Italian cheese, like the shredded Parmesan that just happens to also be present.

You know how to make grilled cheese, or so I hope. I currently have no desire to use the grill outside due to my mom seeing a squirrel come out of it yesterday morning. I’m guessing that steak grease was tasty, and I look forward to seeing an obese squirrel in the backyard. The normal method of cooking a grilled cheese sandwich is fine by me: Butter spread on one side of a piece of bread, put it in the pan, add cheese, and butter spread on one side of the other piece of bread. Flip it over eventually. Eat.

I bet this would be amazing with tomato basil soup, but I found Throwback Pepsi to be a perfect companion for a warm day.

Madly in Love with F1

Over the past couple years, ever since getting my Integra, I have become obsessed with cars. Actually, I like cars more than I like cupcakes. Lately though, my favorite form of cars is racing, because my car is boring, and that form of racing would be Formula 1.
I go crazy because basically my boyfriend is the only other person I personally know who watches F1, mainly because we watch together. Internet friends are great and all, but I find it so hard to keep myself from not talking about F1 at least once a day. My latest victim is my mom, and she has started to become more interested in it now. Of course it doesn’t help that the majority of races (read: all but one this season) are at weird times for the United States.
It’s no secret that I love cars, so obviously I would love racing. Well…No, not really. I cannot stand NASCAR. I never have liked it, and I never will. I will honestly admit that I didn’t know it existed before I moved to Tennessee nearly ten years ago. The same thing actually goes for country music, but I really had no idea NASCAR has been around so long. I think drag racing is rather dull. OOH YOU CAN GO IN A STRAIGHT LINE IN LESS THAN TEN SECONDS, AREN’T YOU SPECIAL. Basically the only other form of racing I can think of that I wouldn’t be a total bitch about is American Le Mans. But I’m also just a little bit partial to Acura.
Anyway, back to Formula 1. My latest foray into obsession has been when I decided that since I ate Malaysian food the Friday before the Malaysian Grand Prix, I should eat a certain country’s food before every Grand Prix! I can also see beautifully themed parties stemming out of this…if only the races weren’t at an average time of 8am, and as previously stated, would have more than one attendee. I am considering moving to Europe. But obviously food + F1 = great combination of two things I really love.
I haven’t done a very good job…Chinese Grand Prix, I’m eating Malaysian food again…Bahrain Grand Prix…I’m eating tapas, obviously getting a head start for the next race.
I took a sudden liking to Sebastian Vettel last year, before he even won a race. It was probably because he’s closest in age to me, but over time now he has just become my favorite. He’s precious, there’s really no other way to describe him.
I also took a liking to my boyfriend’s favorite driver, Jenson Button, who I also find nice to look at. And, because I actually am amazing, these two have been up there in races..well at least the last two races when Sebi isn’t being crashed into/spinning out.
I must admit there has been a high level of ridiculousness in Formula 1…thanks to like, say…Ferrari. But now everything this season is totally upside down and I love it and I can’t wait to see how everything works out.
I also hope for no medals in the future…this isn’t the Olympics.

I am probably going to go crazy as races spread apart in time…like there are 4 week periods between races at some point and I am going to lose my mind.

Now, I’m going back to studying and in the next couple of weeks there will be much more food, and not just chocolate and cupcakes! I also need to be watching more movies!

Chocolate Truffles

Sorry for the lack of updates, I’m trying to finish up the semester rather than bake and I really haven’t thought of anything else to write about. So, since I was all alone tonight I decided to make some truffles.
The thing about truffles is that you NEVER get how many the recipe claims…which is quite annoying. Like supposedly I should have ended up with 120, and I have maybe half that. Whatever. Maybe it has to do with size, I don’t know.

approx. 22 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
16 oz heavy whipping cream

I got two pound plus bars from Trader Joe’s for chocolate, and then I got a bar of Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate for the tempered chocolate outside…but the ganache I was gonna dip got way too hard so I’m saving that chocolate for something even better.
I decided I was going to make four kinds: plain old chocolate (which got messed up, I didn’t heat the cream enough and the chocolate wouldn’t entirely melt…and then it got way too hard, I couldn’t save it :[), Nutella, champagne, and mocha.


For each different kind I used 14 squares of the pound plus chocolate bar and then a 1/2 cup of cream. Heat the cream until it starts to boil. Add half to the chocolate, let it sit about 30 sec to 1 minute, then stir until it starts to get smooth. Add the rest of the cream slowly, stirring to keep the mixture smooth. If it starts to separate, add a little cold cream. Once it’s nice and smooth, add in the flavoring.
For Nutella: add 3 tablespoons, one at a time, to the mixture, stirring until it’s smooth before adding the next.
For champagne: add 3 tablespoons of champagne to the mixture, stirring until smooth
For mocha: add 1 tablespoon instant espresso and 2 tablespoons Kahlua, sitrring until smooth.
Leave sitting at room temperature for about 4 hours, or put in the refrigerator for about 2. Be sure to watch it if you keep it in the refrigerator, you don’t want it to get too hard.
Next, place rounded spoonfuls (whatever size you want..I used a teaspoon, I’ve seen instructions to use a melon baller) on parchment paper. Let sit at least 15 minutes. They shouldn’t be perfect spheres yet.

Once they’ve set for some time, you can roll them into balls in your hand and then dip them in chocolate or in another topping.
For the Nutella truffles, I toasted some hazelnuts then chopped them up for the outside coating. The champagne and mocha truffles got a mixture of unsweetened cocoa and powdered sugar. Shake them off and place them back on the parchment paper.
Store the truffles in an airtight container, preferrably in the refrigerator. I’m not sure of the life span outside the refrigerator, but they should last 2 weeks chilled…as if they won’t all be eaten by then.

Caribbean Sunshine Cupcakes

On a cruise a couple years ago, my parents took a liking to this passionfruit liqueur called Passoa. And then we brought it back here, and nobody drank any of it.
Around Christmas I decided to try it and I liked it. It’s like Hpnotiq but not as awesome, still nice and sugary and tasting of some fruit you can’t quite pinpoint. I had also come across this recipe, so I tried them out but the flavor reminded me more of a muffin, probably because of the cranberries and orange.
I bought a bottle of 7-Up to try to come up with another soda cupcake, but I couldn’t think of any drink involving a lemon-lime soda other than like just to fill the glass, so I decided to experiment.
And I have created Caribbean Sunshine.

1. If you’d like for the cherries on top to be nice and spiked, throw them in a container half rum (I used a dark rum, as the only white rum in this house is apparently raspberry) and half Passoa, so it just covers the cherries. Place the container in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours if you do use rum, otherwise the cherries may become bitter and a little too potent.

For the cake: (I got 12 cupcakes)
1 1/4 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 oz milk
6 oz 7-Up or other lemon lime soda
2 oz passoa
1 tbsp grenadine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan or grease cups.
In bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamed. Add in flour and baking powder, mix until combined. Add egg and milk, mix until combined. Add the other 3 liquid ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour into cupcake pan and bake for 15-17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Brush the top of each with a mixture of half Passoa, half lemon lime soda.


Sunshine Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp powdered sugar
10 maraschino cherries, cut into pieces + 2 tsp of juice from jar
1 tbsp lemon lime soda
1 tbsp Passoa

Begin whipping cream and sugar, add cherries and liquid until stiff peaks form. Add more liquid as needed for flavoring. Top cupcakes with whipped cream followed by a cherry.

I will warn you that if you’re gonna try to get the whipped cream through a decorating tip to make sure they’re small…I’m not really happy with how these turned out on top because not only did I not realize this, but also the sky turned green. So, first it’s flurries and then it’s nearby tornadoes. Maybe I should stop making cupcakes.

Coke Blak Cupcakes

(Before anything I want to say my use of snowmen liners was on purpose…because it snowed today. In southeast Tennessee. Snow. April.)

I joined up Iron Cupcake Earth and was totally excited to see soda was winning for this month’s theme. I miss Coke Blak which is an odd thing to say, because I HATE regular Coke. Yes, I live 120 miles north of Atlanta and I would rather go thirsty if I was offered a can of regular coke.
But back to Coke Blak. Coke discontinued it last year, but I swear I never saw it for even longer than that. I live right near a bottling plant and I’m constantly in Atlanta, yet I swear I hadn’t seen the stuff since 2007! However I miss it. You may think coffee + coke is weird, but always remember, nothing could possibly taste as strange as coke + red wine.
Sadly I learned the hard way that Coke Zero was not going to work. Rather than Coke, they tasted like …Coco Wheats. So, I gave in and researched a bit more Coke cake recipes before take 2, this worked! There is not much espresso taste in the cake itself, but the whipped cream on top makes up for it!
I ended up with 20 cupcakes.

“Coke Blak” Cupcakes with Espresso Whipped Cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup coke
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons instant espresso

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease cupcake pan or put in liners.
1. Combine coke and buttermilk, set aside.
2. Cream together butter and sugar in a bowl. Add eggs and vanilla.
3. Mix in flour, baking soda, and espresso, then the liquid ingredients. Mix until ingredients are just combined.
4. The batter doesn’t rise very much so go ahead and fill the pan up almost to the top. Bake for 18-20 minutes and let cool on a wire rack.
(4.5 Try out the iced coffee recipe on the container of instant espresso.)
5. Top with espresso whipped cream.

Espresso Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 teaspoons instant espresso
3-4 tablespoons powdered sugar

Beforehand I put my beaters and the bowl in the freezer for at least 10 minutes along with the cream.
Place all ingredients in the bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Top cupcakes with whipped cream.


And just so you know, I am out to win! But what, you ask?
Our April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
* A creation by FRUITFLYPIE, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=16748
* a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
* a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
* PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice – sweet!

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .

So be sure to head over to Iron Cupcake when voting starts on April 29 and vote for me! ;D

Pandas and…Parakeets!

Today I went to Zoo Atlanta with Joe to see Xi Lan, the baby panda born back in August. I guess he’s not really that much of a baby anymore, but all he ever does is sleep. I was hoping he’d be outside, but because it had rained last night he was being kept inside again. And he wasn’t even awake except to nurse.


Mei Lan has gotten pretty big, though so has he since I was there in December.

After about half an hour with the pandas, we headed over to Boundless Budgies, the new parakeet aviary. They were having a ribbon cutting at 10am and we got there like five minutes before 10, and ended up being first in line to get in. Awesome.
There are about 500 parakeets in the aviary and you can buy a stick with some millet spray on it, which my mom calls dessert. My two parakeets act like they’re starved to death once they see some millet spray..these birds, not so much. They were much more fascinated by the bamboo. Though of course, this was the first time with a bunch of people in there, so they really weren’t interested. Hopefully in a couple of months that changes.

For more pictures, including some of meerkats, zebras, and lions, here is my flickr set.