Thursday, October 22, 2009

Duck Sauce and Duckee Day

I do not like egg rolls at Chinese restaurants, they are too greasy. I make my own variety at home. Almost guilt free. Here is a step by step of how I make them. My one problem was that I wanted a duck sauce that tasted good and I could make it myself. I searched the internet many times but could not find what I wanted. I tried several recipes and they just didnt have the taste I was looking for.

About a month ago I saw some yellow plums at the market. I bought them. They were horrible, almost no taste and watery. Very bland- what a disappointment. I decided to cook them down. A good choice because the flavor of the plums transformed instantaneously. They were a sweet tart taste. I cooked them down and added some of my apricot preserves, a pinch of garlic and a pinch of ginger and my duck sauce was born. Wahoo! You can see chunks in my photograph. I left them in because I was in a hurry to get dinner on. The sauce was good as is. I froze the rest for the next time I make my eggrolls and I will puree it then.

A warning: If you make this and eat this the stuff at the Chinese restaurants will never be the same again. Bleck! Pittoo!

DUCK SAUCE
Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness

7 plums peeled and cooked down
2 heaping tablespoons apricot jam
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 piece of ginger, grated

Place peeled and pitted plums in a heavy bottomed sauce pan and cook until they break down and "melt". Add remainder of ingredients and heat until jam has melted. Puree and use for dipping.


Recently my friend, her son, my girls and I went to a place called Stokoe Farms. We had a blast. It is a virtual Autumn Wonderland filled with activities for kids and grown ups alike. I can't say enough about it. You see this slide. Whoa. It was a blast! The kids went down this about ten times. Let me tell you they slept good that night after hiking up that hill so much.
I don't have a picture of it but they had these huge wheels to walk in with the kids. Kind of like a big gerbil wheel for humans.
Of course, they had a pumpkin patch to buy pumpkins too. And a corn maze.
They also had some visitors of the four legged variety there for the day. I snapped a few pictures of them before I realized that they charge a dollar a picture. Whoops.
Ain't he cute? I happily can admire him from afar but I sure would not like him roaming around my house- it would just eek me out too much.

A swell family kind of day! Where was my husband? Home installing insulation. Poor guy, we must go again so he can partake in all the fun. I know he would just love the "fly swing" ( a contraption where you stand on this disk and slide down a hill on a wire- kind of like Tarzan in the jungle).

9 comments:

Ingrid_3Bs said...

Okay, so if I think the Chinese duck sauce is good than yours must be phenomenal.

That side does look cool. Sounds like a great time was had. Love when the kids go to bed without any problems.
~ingrid

Ingrid_3Bs said...

Oh, yeah....How about them Yanks! We need to do this tonight!
~ingrid

Lucy..♥ said...

Great thinking on cooking down those plums, sauce sounds wonderful & your egg rolls look so tempting. I too don't care for those greasy egg rolls ;-)

Murasaki Shikibu said...

I guess it depends on the restaurant and the quality of oil they use for deep frying those things - among other things. I'm not fussy about deep frying food as I do it myself. I use sunflower oil once and throw it out though - and I don't do it very often either.

Your sauce is very interesting. You're really good at making things with fruit!

grace said...

i've never really known what typically composes duck sauce, but if the ingredients are anything like what you've used, i'd love it! i think that as i child i believed it was made of duck, seriously. :)

kat said...

Homemade sauce is always better!

Mary Bergfeld said...

They really do look good and the sauce sounds fantastic.

Donna-FFW said...

The egg rolls look so very good and not greasy at all. Homemade duck sauce, how impressive. Bet its twenty times better that take out!

Katy ~ said...

What a hoot. I don't care for the duck sauce in the restaurant; way too sweet or something. Yours sounds almost celestial!