5 Spice Beef and Baked Crab Rangoon

Robbie and I were just talking the other day about how much we love, yet hate chinese food (well, the American version). So I was inspired to attempt some asian cuisine in this week's meal plan. The goal was delicious, a little more healthy, and not feeling hungry again an hour later. :)

Chinese 5 Spice Beef Kabobs

Okay, so the funny thing is that my beef was neither Chinese 5 spiced nor kabobbed. Robbie went grocery shopping and couldn't find the spice, even with the store's help. So I just grabbed 5 spices I thought would taste good together, ha! Onion powder, cumin, chili powder, ground ginger, and curry powder. I mixed a dash of all those together, then dry rubbed it on the beef sirloin strips. Next came a bath of low sodium soy sauce; and I let it sit until I was ready to pan sear it. Kabobs would've been cool except I forgot to write skewers on the grocery list.

After that I started my brown rice. I have never been able to cook brown rice properly...until tonight! Miraculously it turned out so fluffy and sweet. I guess the difference was I was so busy making the rangoons that I forgot about it. When I remembered, I just opened the lid and it was perfect. 1 1/2 cups of brown rice in 3 cups of water, for 45 min on the stovetop.

Baked Crab Rangoon

I put 8 oz of crab claw meat in a bowl with 2 1/2 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp ground ginger, and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper. Mix well. Next was about 3 sprigs of green onions, chopped. (fact: green onions are my favorite ingredient ever! I try to fit them in wherever I can) Then fold in one 8 oz bar of cream cheese.

Spoon mixture into a wonton wrapper and fold it up. I tried the fancy star shape you get at the restaurant, but it was taking forever. So I just sort of squished all the sides together. :) Place them on a baking sheet and throw them in the oven for about 10-15 min at 375 degrees.

While those were baking, I cooked up the beef strips over medium heat on the stove.

I couldn't have timed everything better. The rice, rangoons, and beef all finished cooking within minutes of each other. Another miracle! :)

The beef cooked up nice and tender, and as I said the rice was a divine intervention. My only reservation was the rangoon. I guess I'm just used to the sweet rangoons from our favorite place.

Don't get me wrong, they were tasty. But they were VERY savory instead of sweet.

Next time I think I'll try cream cheese and crab only. Oh and green onions.

Hey, it's still healthier than the fried ones!