Beef & Vegetable Rollups : a late night snack.

This recipe came from a book of my mom's called Japanese Cooking for Health & Fitness.

Beef and Vegetable Rollups
.30 lbs of thinly sliced beef (I used Rib Eye for shabu shabu)
2 carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips
handful of green beans
2 green onions, cut into thin strips
cornstarch

Broth to cook carrots
1/4C water
1 T sugar
1T soy sauce

Blanch green beans in salted, boiling water for about 3 min. Set aside.
Prepare broth for carrots, heat until sugar is melted.

Cook carrots for about 5 min. Set aside.


Lay out the strips of meat and dust one end with cornstarch.
place a few green beans, carrots and strips of green onion.

Roll them up tightly. Then dust the outsides with cornstarch.

Broth for rolls
1/4C water
1 T sugar
1 T sake
1 T mirin
3 T soy sauce

Heat about 1 T of oil in pan, on high heat. Sear beef on all sides. Add broth, bring to a boil, and lower heat to a simmer for 5 min.



Cool. Cut each roll into 3 pieces. The sauce isn't too sweet or salty - next time, I might add Sriracha for a little added heat. The vegetables are crisp, which is a nice contrast in texture with the tender beef.

It's quite nice. ENJOY!

Copycat Girl Scout Samoas Cookies

Keith was reminiscing about these cookies and it stuck in my head. The recipe I came across called for a bag of store bought caramels, but I didn't have any on hand, so I tried making homemade caramel. I've never tried either recipe - they came out pretty well.

CopyCat Girl Scout Samoas Cookies
Preaheat oven to 300F

Prep coconut.
3 C unsweetend shredded coconut

Toast coconut on a rimmed baking sheet until golden brown.
Stir every 3 min. (about 9 min. total)
Set aside.

Raise heat to 350F

Butter Cookie
1 C unsalted butter
1/2 C sugar
2 C all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 T milk


Sift together dry ingredients and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together until light an fluffy - about 2 min.

Slowly add dry ingredients.
Add vanilla and milk.

Mix until combined.


Tear off 2 sheets of waxed paper. Divide dough into 3 balls.
Flour dough and sandwhich between wax paper and roll to 1/4" thick.

I rolled mine way too thin...


Cut with a cookie cutter and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.


I cut out holes in the center using a plastic straw (as the recipe suggested), but I don't think it is necessary, because once you put the topping on, you won't even notice the hole.


Bake for 10 min. until lightly golden and brown on the edges.
Cool.

Caramel
1 C sugar
1 C heavy cream
1/2 C unsalted butter
1 C light corn syrup
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped
1 tsp vanilla


In a nonstick saucepan over medium heat, cook sugar (without stirring) until sugar starts melting and the edges are bubbling.


Stir until liquefied and light caramel in color.



Remove from the heat and stir in the heavy cream. The mixture will bubble up and harden. It will look like a COMPLETE MISTAKE.
Add the butter, corn syrup, and vanilla bean seeds.


Return to the stovetop and cook over low heat until caramel dissolves.

(about a half an hour.)


Increase heat to med-high and cook until the syrup reaches firm ball stage
(243°F on a candy thermometer). Add the vanilla extract.


Stir together toasted coconut and caramel.


I found it difficult to work with, but using a small melon scooper and pushing down with a spatula worked fairly well.


The chocolate chips were melted in the microwave as the recipe noted (checking every 40 seconds.) But, I would advise melting the chocolate slowly on top of a double boiler instead. The chocolate didn't heat or temper properly, so when it cooled, little white flecks appeared.

Place metled chocolate in a heavy ziplock bag (snipping the tip) and drizzle over cookies. Let cool to set up.


The recipe said to dip the bottoms of the cookies in chocolate as well... but I forgot!!!

Still, they were very tasty.