Vegan Spring Rolls & Saying Yes to Change

Hey guys!

My boyfriend and I love spring rolls — we get them at Zephyr, The Loving Hut and anywhere else we can get our hands on ‘em. It’s been on our “summer fun list” to try making them ourselves and, since my summer officially ends tomorrow (back to the grad-school grind, oy!), we spent some time in the kitchen yesterday concocting these beauties…


Aren’t they beautiful?! I still need to get better at wrapping them up tightly, but I’m very proud of how good they came out! This is some of the filling we used:

Bella & Boy’s Spring Rolls

Ingredients

• 1 medium cucumber cut into strips and then quartered
• 2 medium carrots cut into little strips (or peeled, if that’s easier)
• A few cups chopped cabbage
• Plenty of green onion chopped
• Plenty of fresh cilantro
• Rice paper wrappers for spring rolls (They sell these at Whole Foods)
• One 14-oz pack of tofu, marinated, cooked & cut into bite-sized pieces (see recipe below)
• Smooth peanut butter &/or tahini paste, optional

Tofu Marinade

• 2 tbsp Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce
• 2 tbsp Hoison sauce (they sell this at Whole Foods)
• 2 tbsp brown rice vinegar (they sell this at Whole Foods)
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• black pepper to taste

Directions

• Have all of your veggies chopped and ready to go.
• Drain and pat tofu dry as you normally would. Marinate tofu in the mixture above. If you have time, let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes before cooking (I didn’t have time and the tofu still soaked up the yummy flavors).
• Spray a pan with non-stick cooking spray and set heat to medium-high. Cook tofu equally on all sides ’til it gets nice and crispy. Then, remove from heat and set on a plate.
• I’m not sure this is the safest way to do it, but I got a large and wide glass bowl (wider than the width of the rice wrappers) and filled it half-way with water, & microwaved for 3 minutes. I then dipped a rice wrapper into the water for 30 seconds or so until pliable, then removed to a plate, filled with sprinkles of veggies, cilantro and tofu, topped with a drizzle of smooth, unsalted peanut butter, and wrapped up. Be very careful to make sure the water isn’t too hot to dip your hands in — you don’t want it to be boiling, just warm enough to make the rice paper pliable and not burn your fingers when dipping in!
• Do the same with as many wrappers as you care to use.

The options are endless with these babies. You can add whatever veggies you want. I know many people fill them with bean sprouts, vermicelli, bell peppers, tempeh, seitan and more. I am envisioning that some sort of coconut curry tempeh would go amazing in a spring roll with mint leaves and veggies.

If you want to make your own dipping sauce, you can experiment, as I did, with hoison, peanut butter, tahini paste, vinegar, lemon juice and water.

What does a spring roll have to do with the “saying yes to change” I referenced in the title of this post? Not much. But as an English M.A. student I reserve the right to make loose connections like it’s my job. Plus, I just wanted to talk about my hair! See, another thing on my “summer fun” list (am I the only one who makes lists of things I want to do for fun when I have the time?) was to have one frivolous expense. I’m just not that into clothes (buy ‘em all used, anyway) or shoes (only spend on running shoes; otherwise, been wearing the same pairs for the past 5 years, no joke!). The only thing I’ll really invest in/experiment with to express myself aesthetically is my hair. I intended to get blonde highlights again (which I did for the first time, after a decade, about 9 months ago, and that was a big deal to me). But as I sat there in the chair, I knew I wanted something way outside of my comfort zone. I wanted red hair. I wanted to be a mix of Titanic-Kate-Winslet and Paramore’s Hayley — two chicks who’d grace my walls if I were 13 again and in my posters-from-floor-to-ceiling phase The hairstylist warned me about the upkeep, about how drastic the change would be, etc.. And these words just flew right out of my mouth, “I want it, I’m ready and there’s no turning back now!”
It’s still kinda burgundy in this pic, but just today it’s getting that red pop that makes me want to stand at the edge of a giant ship and say, “I’ll never let go, Jack!”

What’s your ideal filling for a spring roll? Ever made ‘em? Ever stepped outside of your comfort zone on your hair color or did some sort of change because you were tired of the norm?

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: recipe, spring rolls, vegan recipes