Basil Pepperoni Cheese Sticks

One of the joys of having children is trying to find new snacks for your child's school lunch.  This is a story about how a snack gone wrong was corrected.  

My darling son insisted that he was the only child in the whole wide world that didn't get string cheese in his lunch, so I bought some.  Upon tasting it he refused to actually eat it, and my daughter insisted that it was gross to look at and she didn't even want to touch it.  Now I of course hadn't just bought 'some',  I had bought this huge bag of mozzarella that no one wanted to eat.  Great.

Then I found a picture on Pinterest of mozzarella cheese sticks wrapped in a wonton wrapper with some pepperoni, and thought, 'Aha!'.  Unfortunately it was just the picture, there was no link to the directions or to the original blogger, so I don't even know who to credit for this fabulous idea.  I did take it a step further though, and added some fresh basil, because I was just lamenting earlier today that I have this big healthy basil plant in my flowerbed and no idea what to do with it (be prepared to see new basil recipes as I figure it out.)

What you'll need it:

Egg Roll Wrappers

Pepperoni 

Mozzarella Cheese Sticks

Fresh basil leaves.

A cup with water in it (just a little)

A pan of oil 325 -350 degrees.    

Fresh basil has a really strong flavor, so if you 'like' the taste, but don't 'love' the taste, you may want to halve even those little strips.  A little goes a long way.

Slap two more pieces of pepperoni on this side, and fold the ends in first.  You can just do three pieces if you want to pretend you're making healthier, but really....

 Flip one end over, so that it looks like an envelope and then dip your finger into your cup of water and run it along the edges of the bigger flap, so the wrapper will seal tight.

When you first start to roll it it's going to be loose and weird because you've got a lot stuffed in there, but it will tighten up as you roll.  Get a couple of them rolled up before you start dropping them into the oil so you don't get distracted and burn them.  If the oil is between 325 and 350 degrees it should be hot enough to cook but not so hot that the outside crisps up before your cheese gets gooey.  They really need to cook for about a minute and a half to get the cheese warm (cold cheese inside is...not good).  Two sticks are plenty to fill you up, and if you have some leftover marinara, by all means, dip away!