Food Glorious Vote: Holiday Celebration.

The art of creating a family meal.

I love to cook. When I talk about playing with my food, I am NOT talking about being rude, I'm talking mixing flavors, exploring new venues, and more. Food isn't just for living, it's a celebration, a cause worth sharing with others.

I also like to cook from various ethnic backgrounds. The trick is variety. Whether or not you cook a variety of different foods for different meals, or different foods included in one meal whether from one ethnicity or many, it's up to you. Certain different ethnic dishes mesh well with others. Try your hand.

Anyway, one favorite is eggrolls.

Ingredients for Egg Rolls

• 1 pound pork (or chicken), ground
• 1 large head cabbage (Napa works well), chopped finely
• 7 large dried shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted (reserve water)
• 1 bunch green onion, minced
• 2 stalks carrots (optional), chopped finely
• 2 TBS Soy sauce
• 2.5 TBS Sake
• 1 tsp Mrs. Dash
• 2 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

1. Mix all ingredients except wraps in a large bowl. Allow to rest and blend 30-60 minutes.
2. Place eggroll wrap as a diamond in front of you. In the front third, place a heaping spoon full of the meat mix into your wrap, going across.
3. Dip your finger into water, and wet the outside edged from the top of the diamond to the center corners. Dot the corner closest to you.
4. Take the corner, roll it over the mix, and press it to the bottom of the wrap. Take the corners in, like a round gift, and roll the whole thing until wrapped. Press to seal press the dough.

Cook 'em up!

When done, lay the eggrolls on a cookie sheet. Warm up the oil to medium high, and deep fat fry the eggrolls.
Serve with rice and soup. Dip into soy sauce or sweet and sour.

Holidays and Elections

Now that I've gotten you hungry with some good food, with more food to follow, just remember, that these are great party foods, and it's good to serve at family holidays.

This year, there are the presidential election, as well as many congressional seats. Stop in at your local office, and see how you can chipper up those who are working so hard on the campaigns and let them eat some of these specialties. I'm sure they will love them.

While it's not good to tell others what to do, of course everyone should vote, and like minded people like to get together, but, the main thing is everyone should vote. Have an election party where all of your neighbors can vote and come have a pot luck or something at your house. Don't just stay with your own party. Invite everyone.

After all, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated between the Native Americans and the new settlers here. So, go have fun, and don't forget to vote! More recipes for your election party or holiday coming right up...

Variations on an eggroll theme...

If Asian isn't your style, what is neat, is you can take it a whole new way. Make up some meatballs, as you would for spaghetti and meatballs. Put that into the center of your wrap, deep fat fry until done, and serve it with your favorite marinara sauce. Sprinkle mozzerella on top.

Not Italian? That's okay too. Fix up some taco flavored mix of meat and cheese. Roll it up. Serve it up with salsa, tomatoes, lettuce, and more. It's okay.

Or how about Greek? Grind up some of that gyro meat, and putt in minced onion along with feta cheese. Fry it up, and serve it with fresh tomatoes, cucumber dip, and enjoy. It should be all good. Just remember, the combinations can be endless.

Serbian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

More yummies with fusion food.

Pickle a head of cabbage in water and vinegar. Make sure you get it nice and tender, so that you can work with it.

Mind you, the water that you reserve from the mushrooms for the eggrolls and the juices left over from this, can be used as the water in your rice to cook it, to enhance the rice from plain to flavor.

You will need 2 pounds of ground pork (again, you can substitute chicken or turkey), 2 packets of the Sarmu & Paprika mix, about 1.5 cups of raw rice, and mix. Bake until done, @ 350 for an hour.

Ibanizta is a cool dish. Take fillo dough - and in a greased 9x13 baking pan, grease up and lay about 2 or 3 sheets of fillo dough into the bottom.

In a bowl, combine a package of softened cream cheese or two, a container of sour cream, container of cottage cheese, and about 4-6 eggs. beat until lightly lumpy. Drizzle some over the dough. Add another 2-3 sheets as a layer of dough.

Continue, and alternate using oil and butter to moisten the fillo dough, though not too much. End with fillo dough and oil. Bake until the top is a nice golden brown. What is crazy, is that the Cabbage rolls go well with the miso soup and the green tea. Left over eggroll meat goes great in ibanizta. Keep at it, you can find cool combos by trying things out.

Oom pah pah, Everything goes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkk2-2u3ciE