Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Spring/Summer Rolls

Spring rolls are one of my favorite summer meals.  Maybe that makes them summer rolls?

While it pained me to turn on the oven to bake some tofu, the rest of the spring roll preparation was simple and perfect for a humid evening.  Because of the crazy quantity of garden cucumbers in my fridge, each roll included a couple of generous hunks of cucumber along with shredded local carrots, local lettuce, mint and basil from the garden and thin rice noodles.  That's it!  So simple, but so good.  This is one of the kids' favorite meals.

Dipping sauce is important for spring rolls and I usually do some sort of rice vinegar/ tamari concoction.  But tonight I mixed up peanut butter, Bragg's aminos, umeboshi plum vinegar, lemon juice and some hot water to make a smooth peanut sauce.  I was a big fan- It's going to be my salad dressing for the leftover rice noodles and veggies!

For the first time ever, we had leftover spring rolls.  This has literally never happened.  I made enough for us each to have 4.  But when I make enough for us to each have 3, it's never enough.  Oh, well!  More for my lunchbox!

4 comments:

Catherine Weber said...

I LOOOOOOOOOVE spring rolls, and haven't made them in ages. They are going on the plan for NEXT WEEK! :)

Thanks for the reminder!

Jessica said...

I love that you call them spring/summer rolls. I've always heard the ones like you show as summer rolls, but it appears that the previous commenter prefers the term spring roll. Is there a snobbery preferred term?

I have trouble rolling these, but even when the roll is not right, they taste wonderful! I also love almond butter sauce, just like you've described but almond butter instead of pb.

Anonymous said...

I love spring rolls! I need to make some in this awful summer humidity we are having...this is MN, Mother Nature--it shouldn't be this hot and sticky, lol!

Courtney

Liz said...

Jessica- I tend to just always call them spring rolls (even in the winter!). I'll have to make this with almond butter next time- fantastic idea!

Make them right now Courtney! Finally a cool night for baking tofu!