Health Homemade Baked Egg Rolls

I made this delicious baked egg rolls today, and would like to share with you.

The materials you will need:

1 package egg roll wraps

1 lb hot Italy sausage filling 

1 tsp minced ginger

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup sweat corn
2 tbsp oyster sauce
Non-stick cooking spray
Sauce for dipping

Instructions:
Stir fry meat and ginger in pan over high heat until lightly browned, about 2-3 minutes. Then added carrot and corn, cook 2 minutes. Stir in oyster sauce and let mixture cool. Use 1-2 tablespoons filling for each egg roll. Fold bottom corner over filling, then fold in side corners, brush top corner with water and roll up wrap tightly to enclose filling, sealing roll with top flap.

Heat oven to 400F. Place rolls on a baking sheet coated with non-stick cooking spray, lightly spray the tops with cooking spray and bake until golden brown, about 18-20 minutes.

Serve with your favorite sauce dipping and enjoy.

Panda - Finished Cross Stitch

Panda is a kind of ancient and wonderful animal. It lives in bamboo forests and caves. It is regarded as a wonderful species, the embodiment of courage, justice, peace and reunion. Its beauty, charm, tenderness, amicability and innocence make it Peace Envoy of friendly exchanges among Chinese people and people of the world.

If you like the movie Kung Fu Panda, you will like this lovely handmade completed Chinese Panda stitch artwork. All crossed stitches are done on the same direction and of even tension to give it a more refined and smooth look. It's perfect for decoration your home when framed or gift for your friends.
http://shoushizhang.ecrater.com/p/11443714/finished-handmade-cross-stitch-of-panda# 

Great completed handmade cross stitch artworks

http://shoushizhang.ecrater.com/p/11384494/chinese-plum-blossomfinished-handmade-cross

Homemade sloppy joes

This is my favorite sloppy joes recipe, and I made it many times.

Serving size: 4
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup minced carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 cup ketchup
2 cups tomato sauce
1 Tbsp red wine
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
pinch ground cloves
pinch cayenne pepper
2 turns of freshly ground black pepper
4 hamburger buns

Instruction:
1. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large saute pan on medium high hear. Add carrots and stirring for 5 minutes. Add the chopped onion and celery, stirring occasionally until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Remove from heat, and remove vegetables from the pan to a medium sized bowl, set aside.
2. Using the same pan, generously salt the bottom of the pan with 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt. Heat the pan on high, brown the ground beef, and strain off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat.
3. Return the cooked vegetables to the pan, add the ketchup, tomato sauce, red wine, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar to the pan. Stir to mix well. Add ground cloves, thyme and cayenne pepper. Lower the heat to medium low and let simmer for 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Serve with toasted hamburger buns.

Longtaitou Festival

 Longtaitou Festival is a traditional Chinese festival held on the second day of the second month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is also called "2 month 2" (Er Yue Er in Chinese). In the tradition of Chinese culture, the dragon was regarded as the deity in charge of rain, an important factor in ancient agriculture. Long Tai Tou means dragon rising its head. It is am important worship ritual of wishing for good harvest in the coming month.

 

Today, Longtaitou Festival is celebrated in various ways, most of which are still identical to those practiced in the ancient times, including eating Chinese pancakes and noodles. Perfume bags filled with the powder of ground fragrant herbs are made to be carried by women and children for good fortune, though they are no longer used as insect repellent as in ancient times. Another practice is to have your hair cut this day, which means get rid of old stuff, and bring good luck for the coming year.

But there were ancient traditions of celebrating Longtaitou Festival that are no longer practiced,such as women should not practice sewing because needles could puncture the eyes of dragon

Read about more traditional Chinese festivals from these books: 

Dragonfly knots

This dragonfly was made from knot consists of a double button knot, a virtue knot and a series of flat knots. 

http://shoushizhang.ecrater.com/p/8293071/dragonfly-apple-green 

Chinese Eight Great Reginal Cuisines 2

After introduced about Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, and Hunan cuisines, I will introduce the other four famous cuisines in Chinese traditional cook. They are Jiangsu, Shangdong, Szechuan, and Zhejiang cuisines.

1. Jiangsu cuisine

Jiangsu cuisine is characterized as soft texture, but not to the point of mushy or falling apart. For example, the meat tastes quite soft but would not separate from the bone when picked up. Other characters includes the strict selection of ingredients according to the seasons, emphasis on the matching colour and shape of each dish and emphasis on using soup to improve the flavour. One example is the steamed meatball.

2. Shangdong (Lu) cuisine

Shangdong cuisine is well-known to use local seafood ingredients, such as scallops, prawns, clams, sea cucumbers, and squid. It is somewhat unique for its wide use of corn, peanut crops,  wide variety of small grains such as millet, wheat, oat and barley.Also Shandong cuisine's greatest contribution to Chinese cuisine has been in the area of brewing vinegars. Left picture is sugar and vinegar fish, a very popular dish in restaurants.


3. Szechuan (Chuan) cuisine

Szechuan cuisine is well-known for using garlic and chili peppers, as well as the unique flavor of the Sichuan peppercorn. Peanuts, sesame paste and ginger are also prominent ingredients in Szechuan cooking. The Sichuan peppercorn is is an indigenous plant producing peppercorns which has an intensively fragrant, citrus-like flavor and produces a "tingly-numbing" sensation in the mouth. Common preparation techniques in Szechuan cuisine include stir frying, steaming and braising. One famous dish is double cooked pork, shown in the right picture here.

4. Zhejiang cuisine

Zhejiang cuisine is not greasy, having instead a fresh and soft flavor with a mellow fragrance. It is  characterized by rich variations and the utilization of bamboo shoots. Dongpo Pork is a notable dish in Zhejiang cuisine.  Other representative dishes are beggar's chicken and West Lake fish in vinegar. The picture on the left shows the West Lake fish in vinegar, it is a very classic dish dating back to the Ming Dynasty.