Japanese-Style Egg Rolls

Menu: Japanese-Style Egg Rolls; Sushi Rice; Guacamole; Fruit Salad

Lessons learned:

1. Lots of fruit = happy family.
2. Not even my husband will eat two cups of rice.

After a fabulous visit from one of my best girlfriends, it was back to normal for dinner tonight at our house.  I knew I was going to make the egg rolls, probably with rice.  But I realized there were NO GREEN VEGETABLES in the house!  I must have convinced myself long ago that a meal has to include a green vegetable... maybe so that we wouldn't just eat a couple of carrot sticks at dinner and call it "balanced."  I still have some greens in the garden, but I couldn't think of a way to make them such that they would complement the egg rolls and anyone other than me would eat them.

What we did have was plenty of nearly overripe fruit!  So rather than drag my, um, self out to the grocery store, I figured that maybe two green fruits are as good as one green veggie.  I made some quick guacamole  -- 1 avocado, juice from 1/2 lime, salt, and pepper -- and chopped up these lovelies:

Rice was in the rice cooker, so the only thing left was the egg rolls.  They're basically rolled-up egg crepes, but they're a lot more flavorful and filling than you might think.  Here are mine:

So yes, I took a couple of pictures.  John smirked at me and asked if I would be "hamming it up" for the blog now.  At least he realized that would probably only be good news for him.

But I'm happy to say it was the first few minutes in a while that all four of us were sitting at the table together, just eating happily.  Usually there's somebody who's still at work, still cooking, jumping up to get a wet cloth or refill a drink, asking for more food, playing in their food, or playing somewhere else.  Tonight, though, we made it happen: we had a full table.  Sophie didn't eat any rice or guacamole, but she asked for fifths on eggs.  Ben wasn't into the eggs tonight, but he couldn't get enough mango ("uh-oh") or strawberries ("buzzies").  After we were finished, John played with the kids while I put the food away and did the dishes.  That's right... I said the dishes are done.

Japanese-Style Egg Rolls
Adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman

9 eggs
1/4 cup kombu dashi or whatever other broth you have on hand
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon sugar
Dash of salt
Safflower oil, or another oil with relatively neutral flavor

Whisk together the eggs, broth, soy sauce, sugar, and salt.

Put your smallest saucepan over medium heat and add about 1/2 teaspoon of oil.  Pour in just enough of the egg mixture to cover the bottom of the pan and make a crepe.  When it has cooked through, roll it up from one side to the other so that the rolled crepe ends up on the perimeter of the pan.  Once again, pour in just enough of the egg mixture to cover the bottom of the pan; once it has cooked, roll the first crepe over the second, in the opposite direction as before.  You'll end up with a roll of two crepes on the other side of the pan.  Repeat this process once more so that you have a roll of three crepes.

Move the egg roll to a serving dish, and then start on the next one, adding just a little more oil before each new roll.  I serve them either whole or sliced crosswise.

Thanks again, MB!