My friend Sarah is visiting from Seattle- yay!! We’ve been having a blast- riding bikes to the beach, treating ourselves with tasty cocktails, and making lots of yummy food. She drove down Saturday morning, so naturally I had a large fresh quiche and carafe of mimosas waiting for her arrival. We pretty much sat all day on my patio, getting sunburnt and catching up over mimosas (orange-guava w/fresh watermelon- yumm) all afternoon… that is, until we got hungry again. Since we wanted to end the day with something light and healthy, we decided Thai was just the fix. We made Tom Kha soup, which as usual was delish, and fresh spring rolls alongside rice and a little cucumber/avo/tomato salad. It was all very fresh and light- just what we wanted! I’ve been itching to make fresh spring rolls- they’re my go-to appetizer whenever I go to Thai or Vietnamese. My favorite place to get them puts apples in ’em, so we did too. They were aahhhhmazing. We were all set to make peanut sauce, but turned out I had some already… so this craving was satisfied in a quick minute. It’s simple, easy, extremely refreshing, healthy, and so tasty (wow that’s a lot of adjectives.. but they’re all needed to describe these scrumptious little morsels).
Scrump!!
INGREDIENTS
Vietnamese spring roll wrappers (these are different
than egg roll wraps- are typically with the Asian foods, unrefrigerated)
1/2 cucumber
1 carrot
a few green onions
1/2 apple
fresh greens/spring mix, about 1 cup
firm tofu, about 6 oz
cilantro, large handful
fresh Thai basil, few leaves (or whatever basil you have)
peanut dipping sauce (homemade or store-bought)
DIRECTIONS
Prep veggies and filling…
Finely slice bell pepper, carrot apple, and cucumber, julienne-style (like match sticks)
Chop basil and cut leaves off cilantro stems
Cut tofu into long think strips, about 1/2 inch
Wrappers will be hard and dry out of package
Fill up a large bowl with water
Dunk wrappers, one at a time, into water until softened (only a few seconds)
Lay wrapper on wax paper or other easy working surface
Place tofu and cukes in center (you can do this in any order- I did larger things first)
Continue filling and stacking…
Top with greens and herbs
Tightly fold in ends and roll up, like a burrito
Be careful- the wrappers are fragile!
Cut in half and serve with your fave peanut sauce (or make your own- yumm!)
