Since it's Lent and I can't eat meat on Fridays, nor can I have my beloved sweets, Fat Kid Friday has become a little trickier. No s'mores can be had, no cakes can be baked, no juicy lamb burgers can be grilled. What to do...what to do...
Inspired by the phyllo dough in my freezer and my newfound love and appreciation for fake crab (I'm allergic, remember, I would do the real thing if I could), I decided to fashion makeshift oven-baked egg rolls. Very Rachael Ray of me.
In my head, it seemed like it would be an easy task. In actuality, I don't appear to have a future in Asian fusion cuisine.
I took out the phyllo dough. I unrolled it. I brushed a layer with butter. Added another layer, then more butter. I repeated this about six times until I had a phyllo base that seemed sturdy. For the filling, I mixed imitation crab with shredded cabbage and carrots, low sodium soy sauce, oriental 5 spice and a little red wine vinegar. I placed a hearty spoon-full in the middle of my phyllo and rolled it up into a cigar shape. I repeated this process several more times, placing the rolls on a baking dish and brushing them one last time with even more butter. After preheating the oven to 350 degrees, I put 'em in and baked the suckers for about 35 minutes, until golden brown. When they went in, they looked like a reasonable facsimile of an egg roll...
...when they came out, they looked like hot pockets. Served with a little sweet & sour sauce, they did manage to taste somewhat like egg rolls.
To round out the meal (and make amends to my arteries), I also made this Stir-fried Tofu with Red Cabbage and Winter Squash from the NY Times. It behaved and turned out the way I wanted it to.
Some changes to the recipe - no corn starch for the sauce; no peanut or canola oil, only sesame; red wine vinegar instead of rice wine and more ginger, a lot more. I also cut down the proportions to feed about two...or just me. This former fat kid always ate her veggies :)
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