Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls

I love, love, LOVE the Southwestern Egg Rolls from Chili's. In fact, that's the main reason I go there - to get those egg rolls. I've tried making copycat Southwestern Egg Rolls before and they've never turned out just right. I didn't want to put a lot of money into getting all the weird ingredients that the recipes called for. But that all changed...because of Pinterest! :)

About a week before my Shutterfly party, I was looking through Pinterest for some party food ideas and came across these Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls from Annie's Eats. They're made with simple enough ingredients and looked fairly easy to make.

The verdict? SOOOOOOO good! Seriously, if these could be considered a Thanksgiving food, I would have made these for Thanksgiving. And I've considered making these for dinner almost every night since the party too. It's too bad that I don't keep egg roll wrappers on hand! :)

So, since these are so absolutely delish, I just had to share the recipe with you! Pretty much everyone at the party agreed with me. I think the few who didn't don't quite share my love and enthusiasm for the real things.

Here is Annie's recipe with my variations. Annie made her's vegetarian, but I added chicken to mine. I also put out sour cream and ranch instead of salsa.

Ingredients for the Mixture:2 cups corn, thawed I (I used 1 can of corn because I was out of the frozen kind)
1 (15 oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (10 oz.) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (I used about half of a 16oz package of frozen spinach. I was really tired of squeezing and chopping it, lol)
2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend (I just used colby jack - it's what I had on hand)
1 (4 oz.) can diced green chiles, drained
4 green onions, chopped
1 tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
2 cups chicken (I used some pre-cooked on clearance chicken breasts from the store)
Also Need:
1 package egg roll wrappers
1 slightly beaten egg - used to seal the wrappers

Mix everything together and start rolling your egg rolls! If you've never used egg roll wrappers, you want to place them so one of the points is pointed at you (so you see a diamond rather than a square). This is where my 3 years of rolling tacos at Taco Time came in handy! Add a couple spoonfulls (I used about 1/4 cup of the mixture in each rolls) of the mixture to the middle of the wrapper. Take the corner closest to you and fold it over the misture then pull back slightly around the mixture. Fold the side corners over and then start rolling towards the top corner. After rolling almost completely, dip your fingers or a brush into the egg and rub onto the corner of the wrapper to seal it. Bake for about 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees.

You could potentially fry these, but I wasn't about to attempt that right before the party. I don't have a deep fryer and baking was much simpler. And much healthier! :)

I didn't want the rolls getting soggy or sticking together, so made the mixture the night before and let it sit in the fridge. Then about an hour before the party I rolled them all and put them in the oven about 10 minutes before the party started so that they would be nice and warm when the party started.
There were a few leftover after the party, so I put them in the fridge and then reheated them the next day by putting them in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Crispy and tasty just like the day before.

Yummy Dinner Rolls

These rolls are perfect for your Thanksgiving dinner - or any other dinner, for that matter! They turn out soft, a little sweet, and just melt in your mouth. The dough is very easy to work with and the recipe is pretty simple!

I came across this recipe on a message board that I used to frequent over on iVillage. Around Thanksgiving, we would all post our favorite recipes and this one happened to be posted. I was looking for a yummy roll recipe one day and remembered this one, so I tried it. It's now my go-to roll recipe. I made these for a Relief Society Enrichment one time and they were such a hit that I was asked specifically to bring these to the next 3 activities!

Unfortunately I don't have a picture right now. I made them for our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday with my mom, but totally forgot to snap a picture. I'm making them again on Thursday for Thanksgiving at my Sister-in-Laws, so I'll try and remember to get a pic then. I'm also going to attempt making the dough ahead of time, freezing it, then driving an hour and half with them to dinner, then baking them. We'll see how that goes!

Ingredients:
1/2 c. warm water (for the yeast)
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 c. milk, scalded
1/4 c. shortening
1 tsp. salt
1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
4-5 c. flour

Directions:
1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let it proof for a few minutes (but it really doesn't need to double in size)

2. Scald your milk. You can do this by microwaving it for about 2 minutes. I saw a tip somewhere (sorry, I don't have the source) that said to save part of the milk - about 1/4 c of it - before scalding. Microwave the 3/4 cup and then after it comes out of the microwave, add the remaining 1/4 cup of cold milk. This will help it cool down faster so that it doesn't ruin the eggs, melt the shortening, or ruin the yeast.

3. While the milk is cooling down, add the rest of your ingredients to a mixing bowl. Add the milk and yeast to the rest of the ingredients and mix slightly. Then add the flour, 1 cup at a time. Do NOT add too much flour otherwise your rolls will be chewy and dense. 5 cups is the most I will ever add. I made the mistake of trying to make the dough resemble bread and added about 6 cups one time. Not a good thing. The dough will still be pretty sticky, but that's okay!

4. Let the dough raise for 1 hour. Be sure to cover the bowl with a warm towel.

5. Shape into balls and put into muffin pans. The dough will be sticky, but just use some flour (the extra here won't hurt) to keep them from getting too sticky. Instead of kneading, just work them a bit as you shape them. I also prefer to cook mine in muffin tins. I find they cook better and more evenly. When I tried placing them in pans, the outside rolls would get really crispy and the ones in the middle were still doughy. In muffin tins, they each cook perfectly! Also, these really get big both while they raise and when they start to cook. So don't feel like you have to make them big when you shape them.

6. Let them raise again. My notes say to let them raise again for 1 hour, but I never let them go that long. I've let them go for as little as 20 minutes and they still bake perfectly.

7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes or until they start to turn golden brown.

8. Remove from the oven and spread some butter across the tops (Either paint melted butter on the top or rub a stick of butter across the tops). Enjoy!

These are soooooo good! If you try them, let me know what you think!

Inspired by Pinterest - Using Canning Rings

Like most of you, I'm on Pinterest. I wouldn't quite call myself addicted, but that's probably because I just don't have time! Anyway, one of the things that I thought would be fun to do would be to try out some things that I've found on Pinterest and see how they work.

So, for our first week - Using Canning Rings to cook Eggs.

Pinching Your Pennies

I saw this idea and thought it was perfect! We love making our own homemade breakfast sandwiches. I've been making them for years - since about 2004 when I'd moved out on my own and couldn't afford McDonald's breakfasts anymore! Anyway, I can easily make the eggs in a square shape to fit on toast, but I have yet to find a way to make the eggs round to fit nicely on a biscuit or english muffin.

I coated the whole ring in cooking spray and let it preheat with the pan on medium heat. In went the egg and it immediately started oozing out under the rings. I had to hold down the rings as I poured the egg inorder to get it to not ooze. I let them cook for a couple of minutes and then the bottom was starting to get a little golden so I decided it was time to try and turn it. And maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I turned it too soon, but I could not get it to come out of the canning ring. I had to practically rip it out. The part of the egg that wasn't completely done spilled all over the pan. I was able to salvage it and it still tasted it the same, but it wasn't easy.

I haven't given up hope. I'll try again, I think. Has anyone else tried this? Any tips or tricks that I'm missing?

Freezer Cookie Dough

I actually did something I saw on Pinterest! Granted, I can't find the actual pin, but that's beside the point. Once I discovered that using shortening in my cookies makes them turn out better, I decided I needed to use my Pinterest inspiration and throw some in the freezer for later!

Mix up your dough, form into balls, put on a cookie sheet lined with foil (foil isn't necessary but it eliminates some clean up), and stick it in the freezer for at least an hour. They can go for longer, and it won't hurt them, but if you're pressed for freezer space an hour will do. They just need to be frozen enough to be firm - you don't want them to be sticking together in the bag! After they're flash frozen, just throw them into a ziploc and put them back into the freezer.

When you're ready to bake, you can either let them thaw for a bit and cook for the normal time, or cook them frozen and add a few minutes to the baking time. Either way, you'll have fresh, warm cookies whenever you want! Yum!

And, as an added bonus, they're cheaper and better for you than the store-bought doughs!

Cut Your Own Cheese Sticks

One of Andyroo's favorite snacks is cheese sticks. Not the cheesy bread stick things, but sticks of cheese. I tried buying string cheese instead, but he doesn't like them as much. Neither do I, so I can't blame the kid.

So I started buying these cheese sticks.

There's nothing wrong with them. They're yummy and satisfying...but they're expensive. The cheapest I found them was at Macey's for about $3.99 (with a $1.00 off coupon) for a 10oz package. Wal-Mart had them at an okay price (better per ounce) at $5.49 (without any coupons, though I did use them there too) for a 13.3oz package.

Quite frankly, I was tired of shelling out $4-$5 for less than a pound of cheese! It didn't make any sense to me anymore. And I don't know why I did it for so long. Convenience, apparently!

And then a couple weeks ago I decided to just do it myself. Smith's (a local Kroger-owned grocery store) had their 2lb blocks of cheese on sale for $5.99. Here in Utah (and also in Idaho, I believe), we get a coupon for $1.00 off 2lbs of cheese on Coupons.com, so I printed that baby off and bought me some cheese for cheese sticks!

That's half of the 2lb block. I cut off chunks that were a little less than 1/2 wide.

Then cut those up into sticks, put them in a Ziploc, then back in the fridge. I got about 4 sticks out of each of those chunks for a total of about 52 cheese sticks. They were a little smaller than the Precious cheese sticks, but that's okay.

Andyroo couldn't tell a difference, but my wallet sure did! The 2lbs of cheese sticks lasted us about 2 1/2 weeks. That was with all 3 of us eating them though. And even still, I can handle that price tag much better!