Summer rollin’, had me a blast

I have a confession to make:  When I’m out running errands, I stop altogether too frequently to buy summer rolls for lunch.  They are among my favorite things to eat because they are cold, crunchy, portable, and most importantly, come with their own dipping sauce.

My love for for a good dipping sauce knows no end.

My favorite place to buy summer rolls is in the strip mall grocery close by my house where I am practically on a first name basis with the sweet little Asian man behind the sushi counter.  If he sees me coming and he doesn’t have them ready, he’ll just wave and tell me to walk around the store for a few minutes while he prepares them.

There are not a lot of ingredients in summer rolls and I’ve been thinking about saving myself $6.50 making them, so yesterday I gathered the necessary supplies and in less than 5 minutes, they were wrapped and on my lunch plate and I was dancing in the kitchen thinking about how to spend all that money I’ll save by never buying them in the grocery store again.

Don’t worry, little Asian man.   I’ll still come around because you also make good strip mall grocery store sushi and something tells me that will take more than 5 minutes to make on my own, so I’m all yours.

Meredith asked for the recipe, so here it is.  If you have decent knife skills, you’ll be finished making them in no time flat.

Summer Rolls

Rice paper

1 carrot, cut into matchsticks

1 cucumber, cut into matchsticks

cilantro sprigs

a lettuce leaf

scallions (green part only), sliced thinly lengthwise

Cooked shrimp (I used edamame for a vegetarian version)

Soak rice paper in hot water for a minute or two

Blot rice paper slightly to get rid of excess water, then lay flat on a board and place matchstick cut veggies and shrimp on the lower center half of the rice paper

Fold bottom edge of rice paper over veggies

Fold sides in, taking care not to notice my stained cutting board

Roll up

Finished product, next to the lettuce leaf I forgot to put in

You’ll want to dip your summer roll in peanut sauce and it’s super easy to make.

Peanut Sauce

Big spoonful of chunky nut butter (peanut or almond or cashew)

Medium spoonful of hoisin sauce

Smaller spoonful of garlic chili paste

Juice of a lime

Splash of soy sauce

Stir together and pop it in the microwave for about 20 second, thinning it with water and stirring until it’s the consistency you like.

In other words, mix assorted quantities of this together until you're happy with the taste

My tasty lunch, and please notice that my wrapping skills improved with the second one .

The summer rolls on my plate are a little bigger than the one pictured on the cutting board.  I was careful with that one since it was for the tutorial (trying not to roll my eyes at how Martha-ish that sounds as I type), but when I made the ones above, I used two slightly overlapping rice papers to make them, thinking it would help them not tear as much.

It didn’t.

But they were still good.

And significantly less than $6.50.

Have a nice day.