Jenn Cuisine » Budget

Simple Snack – Beet Chips

Jenn — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:32:28 +0000

You either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Remember last Winter how it was the coolest (or uncoolest) thing ever to wear big furry suede boots of a certain unnamed brand and tuck your jeans in them? Chances are people either thought you were either rocking them like a cute little ski bunny or that you looked freaking ridiculous. But no matter if you actually wore them or not, you’ve no doubt seen someone with them and have a pretty solid idea if they were awesome or terrible.

That’s exactly how beets are – they are possibly one of the most polarizing foods I know, and everyone has an opinion about them, good or bad. We both happen to be part of the “beets are freaking awesome” camp, but are always looking for new ways to eat them besides in salads, our usual choice. I just love their earthy, almost “umami” type of taste – they add an extra dimension to the flavor profile of just about any dish. So when I came across this recipe for baked beet chips by Joelen of Joelen’s Culinary Adventures, I knew it had to be next on our list of yummy delights to try.

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The Gluten Free Husband Makes Breakfast Quesadillas

Jenn — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:21:29 +0000

Hello everyone! Well I am back for a second installment of “Holy crap my husband can cook” on Jenn’s blog!

Breakfast. It’s probably one the hardest times for a gluten-free person to find something really tasty to eat. I know it is for me. Every time I go to the store to get foods for breakfast I am faced with cereals, meuslis, oats, pastries, and several other extremely flavorful (but ultimately glutenicious) items that I know I can’t even think about eating. For this reason, I have been trying to come up with breakfast items that I could make that would inspire me to once again look forward to eating in the morning (a cup of yogurt gets old REAL quick).

The idea for these quesadillas came very quickly to both Jenn and I in one of those moments where you just look at each other and say, “Wow, we really have to make that.” We were talking about how much we liked the enchiladas that we had made, and I had recently come up with the bright idea of frying tortillas in a pan, salting them and devouring away (not the most sophisticated meal in the world but you would be surprised how satisfying it really is, especially accompanied with fried halloumi cheese). Then, I don’t know who started talking first, but we began asking things like, “What if we put cheese, cured meats, an egg and a few other breakfasty items between two tortillas and then fried them in butter?” If your mouth just started watering, then you just had the same reaction I had as well.

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Orange and Honey Rotisserie Chicken

Jenn — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:00:21 +0000

The act of roasting chicken can be good for many things. Some say it’s good for your love life. Others for sharing with friends. For me, roasting a chicken is simply dinner. It’s dinner that is low-stress, and it’s dinner that is sure to create leftovers with little extra effort. It can even be thought of as healthy; but most of all, it’s flavorful and satisfying in that “catch the flavors wafting around as you walk in the door and instantly be transported back in time to memories of family get-togethers” kind of way.

This roast chicken was also an experiment. My toaster oven supposedly came with a rotisserie setup, and I wanted to see if it actually worked. Well, I must have the world’s most awesome toaster oven, because we got the chicken onto the spit successfully, and it actually rotated in the oven! I say “we” because my husband helped – he was convinced the just-marinated chicken might slip out of my hands and slide across the floor of the kitchen like it was practicing ice skating for the next Olympics – no one wants that kind of champion title for their dinner! This bird was about at the limit for my little oven though, coming in at about 1.7 kg it just barely cleared the bottom.

Ah yes, the marinade….this is one I will definitely be making again. So simple and easy, completely effortless really. If I had found my juicer this would have been even easier – but I always seem to be losing things (ha don’t ask me how many times I’ve lost my keys!), and after about 4 minutes 37 seconds of searching decided at that point it would just be faster to squeeze the oranges by hand. Sweet Spanish oranges, I hope you never go out of season because you taste so much better than your 2 CHF/kg price tag would lead one to believe! Sweet oranges and honey, salty tamari, and zing from chives and garlic made for quite the marinade/glaze on this chicken. So much honey made the sauce gooey and helped it stick to the chicken while it was roasting, and we ended up with an aroma throughout our home that was just irresistible. Letting it rest after coming out of the oven was simply torture!

Speaking of honey, have you checked out the round up from the Blogger Secret Ingredient event that I hosted this past week? There were some awesomely diverse and scrumptious entries, all using honey – from condiments to desserts, there’s a dish for just about anything!

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Carrot and Avocado Salad

Jenn — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:20:57 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m freaking in love with avocados. Like, I could eat one every single day and never ever get tired of them. Despite living in the North East, I grew up on avocados. My mom is from California and loves avocados almost as much as I do, so we had them a lot as kids. One thing I love is how versatile their flavor is – if you thought they were only for making guacamole you are very mistaken! They work in so many different cuisines, let alone are awesome just cut up raw with some salt & pepper. Here are just a few ways that I’ve made dishes involving such a cool fruit:

Shrimp and Avocado Salad
Shrimp Salad with Ceviche Spirit
Endive Salad with Blood Orange, Avocado and Radish
Daring Cook’s Challenge #7 – Sushi
Salsa Chicken – a Family Original Recipe
Chicken Teriyaki Sushi
Chile and Cilantro Guacamole
Quinoa and Black Bean Bake with Mozz. and Avocado
Pan-Seared Marinated Tuna

Hmm, can we say I’m addicted much? haha.

Today, I’m sharing with you a recipe I found via twitter. One of the things I love about twitter is the instant communication with so many awesome people, especially in the gluten free and foodie community. Just last week Elana of Elana’s Pantry was asking for slaw recipes, and I suggested my Asian slaw which she made and posted about! That totally made my day because she is one of my gluten free “idols”. I have yet to make a recipe of hers that I didn’t like!

After realizing that I had inadvertently made my shrimp & avocado salad like 4 days in a row, I decided to ask the twitterverse what their favorite recipes were. I needed a new way to eat avocados. Noëlle of Simmer Down mentioned to me her recipe for carrot salad served in an avocado half, and I knew this was what I had to make. Not only do I love raw carrots and mustard, but there’s also avocado (obviously haha)- woohoo! Ah the wonders of twitter, because of twitter we can all learn about fun and tasty foods to make

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“Osso Buco” Stew, Sorta OK Not Really

Jenn — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:00:23 +0000

Yes, this is osso buco stew, not osso buco. Why? Mainly because sometimes I am lazy. I did not want to have to check it and baste it, especially since it was an amazing miracle that the pot I cooked it in even fit in my countertop oven. Yes, I slow cooked osso buco for nearly 4 hours in a fancy toaster oven. And know what? It worked The veal (queues de veau) was totally fall off the bone fork tender and flavorful. To be lazy, I added more liquid so that the entire thing really stewed. Another part of my lazyness is that I didn’t feel like carrying cans of stewed tomatoes the half mile back with me from the grocery store, so just used some tomatoes I already had in the kitchen instead. I also used leeks instead of onions, and then, I didn’t even serve it over the classic risotto milanese. I just dished it up in a bowl and we devoured it. At this point I probably shouldn’t even be allowed to call it osso buco anymore haha – so I call it osso buco stew.

But then I am one for breaking all the rules and being more concerned about cooking and eating what suits me than getting everything exactly right. I think the world does not need to be quite so worried about doing everything exactly the same. It’s one of the beauties of cooking, because like an art, you cannot help but add your own colors to the canvas that is the food we eat. What would the state of art be if impressionist artists had to see the world exactly as Monet did, or if we all had to listen to music by one composer? Well Monet is a bad example because I love his works and would never tire of seeing them. But you get the idea – creativity and diversity of thought are good things, and no one benefits from cooking everything the same way. That is not to say that people should not learn the proper skills to cook, because understanding how to use the tools you have to work with is important – but a recipe is not a technique, it is an idea, a personal and unique expression. Sometimes I think we should not be so fussy to get every detail just right, and be able to play.

I’m not saying that is an excuse for me being lazy and not wanting to carry cans of stewed tomatoes back with me – but my end creation was something a little different and yet still satisfying. In fact, it was perfect on a cool blustery Winter day that desperately tried to be Spring.(...)
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Simple Potato Bowl

Jenn — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:33:49 +0000

Simplicity can come in a bowl.

There are days when it takes all the energy I have to convince myself to drag my feet down the icy sidewalk, wind whipping at my face and chapped lips, hunching my shoulders up to try to keep my scarf in place as I walk home after a long day at work. By the time I make it through the two subway lines, over the hill and up the stairs, the last thing I want to do is stand on my feet for 2 hours to cook dinner, and I am craving something simple.

Shauna of Gluten Free Girl got me thinking about leeks after her post and ever since, leeks have been on my mind. I picked some up at the market and decided to cook them the other day. Nothing pretentious here, I wanted to make a meal that did not require much thought or care when cooking, because sometimes when I get home I just want to shut off the world and forget it exists. This dish is the perfect remedy for nights like that.

Potatoes – chopped quickly and tossed into boiling water. Done. Bacon – sizzling quietly in the skillet. Done. Now I sit down and lean back, and closing my eyes I clear my mind to conjure up the most calming image I can conceive – nothing. Yes, pure black and shapeless nothing, accented only by the constant sizzling and bubbling from the stove of the bacon and potatoes happily cooking away, which is just enough distraction to invoke a trance-like state of calm. I focus on the sound of the kitchen, slow my breathing, and think about nothing for 15 minutes. In 15 minutes I can change my entire state of being. This can be a good thing. But 15 minutes of nothing – really nothing, not even that little voice in your head that loves to nag you about your upcoming responsibilities, is harder than you think. It means not checking your email. Not logging into twitter, and not turning on the TV. It takes some practice to do nothing. But once you figure it out, clearing the mind of literally everything can be one of the most refreshing events of a busy day.

The smell of the bacon wafting up my nose reminds me I am cooking dinner. I, now a bit more recharged, get up and walk over to my quaint oven-less (for the moment, this will be corrected shortly) two-burner kitchen. I lift out the bacon, strain the potatoes, and throw everything together into the skillet with some leeks, garlic, and a little spinach tossed in at the end. A quick sauté in the bacon fat, and only a few short minutes later I have the perfect effortless dinner. A simple bowl of delicious food, for those days when sophisticated just seems a little too much effort, and what I really want is simply, food.

Potato bowls are very flexible recipes. Check out Lauren’s of Celiac Teen for a totally different but also tasty looking bowl.

This dish is greatly aided when your husband gets home before you and remembers to chill the wine. At David Lebovitz’s suggestion, we sought out a bottle of Sancerre wine. 15 CHF later, I was convinced this was the perfect marriage to my potato bowl. If you find it, I highly recommend it. Just perfect.

Ingredients:
2 potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
2 slices bacon
3 leeks, white and light green part chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
a few handfuls fresh spinach

Directions:
1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil and cook the potatoes until tender enough to easily pass a fork through them.
2. On med-low heat, fry the bacon in a large skillet until crispy. Set bacon on a paper towel or napkin to soak up the excess grease. This will make the bacon a bit crispier. Leave the bacon fat in the skillet. Once the strips are cooled, crumble up the bacon.
3. Once the potatoes are done, sauté them in the bacon fat with garlic and leeks until the potatoes start to brown. At this point add in the spinach and continue to fry it all together until the spinach is just wilted. Add salt and pepper as necessary. Serve in a bowl, crumble the bacon on top, and enjoy.

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Ten Tips for Saving Money on your Groceries

Jenn — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:00:28 +0000

This seemed an appropriate post for the recent passing of the New Year, given that many people have resolved to be a bit firmer with their budgeting under the current economic conditions. Just remember, eating good natural food does not have to break your bank. And neither does eating cheaply mean being stuck with instant noodles. My husband and I were grad students together for quite some time and learned very quickly how to live and eat (gluten free even) on a rather strict budget. We’ve learned a few things over the years about how to best get a great value for quality food and I wanted to pass these tips on, in case they may help:

1. Shop at the right places. Not everything at your local large chain supermarket is necessarily the best value, despite the weekly specials and your member card. For us, we buy at farmer’s markets as much as we can in the summer. Buying fresh local organic produce is often cheaper than our local supermarket, or at the very least a comparable price to the non-organic equivalent in the supermarket. Using the same logic, if you can, participate in a CSA. You don’t get as much say over the produce you get, but you get tons of it for what you paid, and it directly supports your local economy. Another alternative market if one is available is your area is a community run market, or co-op. When we were in grad school, we used to be members of a market to whom local farmers sold their produce directly. It was great because they were open every day (unlike a farmer’s market) and though one had to pay for the membership up front, one more than made up for it in the savings on purchasing food.

2. We cut back on both dairy and meat. Ha I know it doesn’t look like it by the looks of this blog, but we really did only eat meat a couple times a week. Cheese, yogurt, and meat are the most expensive things we regularly buy, so cutting back on those saved a lot of money.

3. So did eating smaller portions. There was a time when we were both strictly calorie counting and limiting our calorie intake and it was amazing how much less $$$ we ended up spending at the store because we were simply eating less food. We chopped off a good 25% of our grocery spending that way.

4. Also avoid prepackaged/prepared foods. For example, buying a 2 lb. bag of black beans that you need to soak yourself overnight costs about 5x less than buying beans already in a can (and by not buying canned food, you can reduce your bisphenol A exposure as well). This is generally true with other staples too – like buying actual rice that you have to cook for a while rather than minute rice, buying actual potatoes rather than from a box, making your own bread rather than buying it, buying a head of lettuce instead of a bag of precut rinsed salad, etc. are all generally lower in price per unit food. It’s generally healthier to avoid all the crap that is put in prepared foods anyways, and one really does pay quite a bit for “convenience”.

5. Don’t let food go bad. This was probably the single hardest thing to do and the thing that saved the most money. Wasting food is like directly throwing your good hard-earned money in the trash. Sometimes it’s hard when you just don’t feel like finishing those leftovers or the rest of the broccoli or whatever that is in the fridge that needs to be eaten, but just remind yourself that once it goes bad and you end up tossing that food, you just also threw that money away. Half of my daily cooking is from playing the game “This needs to be eaten now what I can I make with it before it goes bad”. We’ve gotten a bit creative with some of our meals, but that’s ok – experimenting can sometimes be fun!

6. Buy your pantry staples in bulk for cheaper. There is nothing wrong with having a big pantry full of staples. Things like grains and pasta, beans, nuts, etc. don’t go bad easily so buy them in bulk and save $$$. It’s also useful when you don’t feel like going to the store and need to find food around the house to throw together into a meal.

7. Keep your freezer well-stocked and full. A full freezer means easy meals for you to reheat when you don’t feel like cooking (like we always have tons of homemade marinara sauce, frozen fish/shrimp, and we are constantly freezing leftovers), and a full freezer uses less energy to stay cold so helps save on your electric bill. When you’re stuck in a situation where you can’t control the appliances you own or buy new ones at the moment, things like this really actually help.

8. Grow your own herb garden. There is no need to spend $2 every time you want to use fresh herbs for a meal. Herbs like basil and rosemary and thyme are pretty hardy (as in easy to keep them alive) and add lots of delicious flavor to a meal.

9. Cruise the ethnic markets, as they often have much better prices for many of your favorite foods. Asian and Indian food markets are our best place for a number of naturally gluten free products (like rice noodles, yum)!

10. The other tip that was hard for us to do and still often is hard is to only buy what you need. Impulse food buying almost always leads to extra food laying around causing you to have to deal with tip #5 in really hard ways. The best advice that I have for this is don’t go to the store hungry. I’ve walked into a grocery store with a craving for fruit and come out having bought 10 lbs of fruit that I know we couldn’t possibly finish before it goes bad. Also, if you make a list and plan ahead, it is a lot easier to purchase only what you originally intended. Grocery stores and food markets can be a great place for culinary inspiration, but don’t let that inspiration run away from your budget.

Do you have other tips for saving money on food? I am very curious how much (if any) of these tips will change for us as we adjust to the financial freedom of no longer being grad students and also adjust to living life in Europe…

Hope you all had a great New Year!

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Butternut and Sweet Potato Hash with Turkey Sausage

Jenn — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:35:28 +0000

And a giveaway that’s perfect for the holidays!!

I love having a hot breakfast. It’s not too often that I have the time in the mornings to spend cooking a great hot breakfast, but when I do it’s often the highlight of my day. There is just something about fried eggs and a steaming hot plate of delicious food sitting in front of me that is so satisfying. Especially when I can couple that with the chance to sleep in a little bit and enjoy it as my brunch.

I know you probably looked at the title and thought “Uggh I’m so sick of turkey right now,” right? But this isn’t something to make with roast turkey leftovers, and while it has some great Autumn ingredients like butternut squash and sweet potatoes, this doesn’t taste like it would belong on your Thanksgiving table either. No, this dish has an entirely different flair to it and uses some awesome flavors that give it a bit more of a Southwest type of appeal to it, using poblanos, black beans, dried cilantro, and of course, some ground dried hot chiles. Mmmm I love chiles!

I hardly ever by pre-packaged sausage anymore, and find that I love the versatility and freedom of adding my own flavors to ground meats instead, which is exactly what I did here with ground turkey. This dish is easy to make, if a little bit time consuming (because of having to roast the root veggies), but it’s quite cost effective, which is important when one is trying to budget for all of the various expenses that come along with enjoying the holidays. We definitely have a lot going on as this year draws to a close, and so sometimes it’s nice to have something easy and cheap to cook. I made this and got tons of wonderful leftovers, which are easily re-heatable as long as you can spend a quick couple of minutes frying an egg for each person right before serving.

Speaking of chiles, you know where you can purchase some awesome ones? At Marx Foods, which sells all sorts of stuff. Back in April I got to try out some dried morel mushrooms to use in a recipe contest which I (and the rest of my family) just loved, even though I didn’t win. The folks at Marx Foods gave me an awesome gift to use as a giveaway for one of you lucky readers! Since the year 2009 is coming to a close, this giveaway is the chance to win 20.09% off of anything on their site, which is a pretty awesome deal. Yep, ANYTHING! I personally drool over truffles (the mushroom kind, not the chocolate kind), maple sugar, and dried chiles, though I have not gotten the courage yet to buy the Ghost chiles – the hottest pepper in the world. There are lots of great spices and meats as well that you can order. Use it to get a gift for your favorite foodie friend, or just treat yourself!

So to enter, simply leave a comment saying what you’d be most excited to buy using this great discount, and next Tues. on December 15th one winner will be randomly selected (via random.org) to win! I’ll email the winner the coupon code (so make sure to leave your email in the comment form – don’t worry it won’t be published), and then all you have to do is make your purchase before the year 2009 runs out, and you can enjoy this awesome discount!

Mandatory disclaimer & yada yada stuff – I was not compensated in any way to host this giveaway, I really just think this is an awesome opportunity to purchase some really cool foods with a cool discount

Printer Friendly Recipe

Ingredients (for about 8 servings):
1 lb. sweet potato, chopped into bite size pieces
1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
salt
canola oil
1 lb. ground turkey
1 tbs. salt
ground pepper
1 tbs. dried cilantro
1 tsp. dried sage
2 tbs. brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
amt. to taste of your favorite dried chiles, ground (chipotles are some of my favorite)
1/2 large onion, diced
1 poblano chile, diced
2 c. black beans, cooked
1/2 c. your favorite salsa
1 egg per person and canola oil to cook it in
chopped parsley for garnish

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375F. Place sweet potato and squash on a large sheet, salt generously and drizzle canola oil on top. Bake for about 30 min or until tender throughout.
2. Mix together with your hands turkey, salt, pepper, sage, cilantro and sugar to form the sausage, set aside.
3. One squash and sweet potato is done, take out of the oven. ”Sweat” garlic, onion, and poblano, and ground dried chiles (amount is variable depending on your taste, start with about 1/2 tsp. and add from there if you aren’t totally sure how much you want to use – it also depends on how much heat your dried chiles pack) in a large (think 12″ or bigger) cast iron skillet on med. high heat in a little bit of canola oil. Once the onions start to soften, add in the turkey sausage, and cook, breaking it up in the pan.
4. Once sausage is fully cooked, do a taste test – if you like a bit more heat, add some more of your favorite ground chiles, or leave it as is. Add the squash and sweet potato, and beans and salsa to the mixture, and cook a few more minutes so all the flavor comes together, stirring every so often so all ingredients are evenly mixed.
5. In a small cast iron skillet, fry your eggs with a little bit of oil, however you like them.
6. Place some of the hash on the plate, top with a fried egg, and garnish with parsley. Enjoy!

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Egg Nog Latte

Jenn — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:20:19 +0000

Did I ever mention that I love espresso? If you know me at all you will know that is a gross understatement. Coffee (in some form or another) is an absolute necessity in my daily life. And because of that, I have a lot of fun trying new coffee based beverages. Ever since I saw this listed as a drink on a certain very large national coffee shop chain, I wanted to make it at home. For one, this homemade latte did not cost me $4! My version doesn’t really have fewer calories or carbs so I’m not going to many any dramatic health claims, but it is quite tasty, and you can make it in less monstrous serving sizes. I actually prefer a smaller sized drink than is typically served in such places, but with the same amount of espresso in it, so that the espresso has a bit stronger flavor.

How does espresso and egg nog blend together? Absolutely wonderfully. The espresso adds a bitterness and acidity that really helps to cut the egg nog and balance out the drink a bit. While I love egg nog, it’s often a bit much for me to drink on its own. I love how egg nog and nutmeg instantly conjures the holiday cheer in everyone and really helps to create that festive atmosphere to a gathering, and this drink is no exception. I think egg nog is just as justified at Thanksgiving as it is in the December holidays too And besides, what better way is there to enjoy the holidays than with a great yummy latte that you can sit and relax with?

I’ll give a little confession though. I cheated a bit. I didn’t make the egg nog from scratch this time. But I definitely will (Elise of Simply Recipes has a good eggnog recipe, though I’d omit the alcohol when making it for these lattes) when I serve this for holiday get togethers!

This post is also going to be submitted as part of the Holiday Food Fest, for the “Holiday Cocktails, Mocktails and Appetizers” theme coming up in a few weeks hosted by Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. Be sure to check out all of the great Holiday Food Fest submissions each week!

Printer Friendly Recipe

Ingredients (for 2 lattes):
your favorite espresso, ground
water for the espresso
pinch cinnamon
1 1/2 c. (12 oz.) light egg nog
freshly ground nutmeg

Directions:
1. Prepare espresso as you normally would (I use a stovetop espresso maker).
2. Add pinch of cinnamon to the egg nog, and steam the egg nog. This can be done by heating it up in a small pan on the stove (on med.) stirring often until steaming, or using more convenient devices like a frother on a cappuccino machine or our automatic milk frother. Even a hot chocolate maker would steam the egg nog well.
3. Fill at least a third of the mug with espresso, and then the rest with egg nog. Garnish with some freshly grated nutmeg. Enjoy!

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Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Jenn — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:17:53 +0000

These were totally a spur of the moment dish that I made this afternoon – ever since purchasing rice paper spring roll wrappers for last month’s Daring Cook’s Challenge (my Fried Apple Cheesecake Pillows), I’ve been trying to come up with what to do with the rest of these wrappers. Then, it hit me – well of course, why not use them for what they were originally intended? And so today, I decided to have a go at making spring rolls. Besides, it’s cold and wintery outside, and anything with the word “spring” in it would brighten me up and make me feel a bit warmer, even though this dish is served cold, haha. My husband and I really enjoyed this lunch – err….early supper? It was about 3 pm before we even figured out we were hungry…

Being that I didn’t really plan for this, I didn’t get a chance to go to my natural foods store to get things like mung beans, and so had to do with what I had on hand for ingredients. This means that the recipe is not authentic at all, but it may mean that it’s easier to throw together because the ingredients are easy to store. A couple of things that I do that worked well here – when I buy fresh herbs, if I’m not going to use them all, I throw them into the freezer. If they are going to go in something where they are going inside the dish (i.e. are not a garnish), frozen herbs seem to work really well. And then you don’t waste money by throwing out herbs you spent good $$ on. I had fresh cilantro on hand (because we ALWAYS have cilantro around, it gets used almost every day), but I used mint and chives from my freezer. The chives I did use as a garnish, but because they had been frozen, they were really soft green ribbons that made it quite manageable to wrap around these rolls.

So, in summary – Money Saving Tip – Don’t toss your leftover fresh herbs – if you aren’t going to use them up in time, freeze them!

As far as rolling these spring rolls, I really had no idea. So I just kinda folded them like a burrito. However, it seemed to work. If anyone can point me in the direction of a site with good directions on how to roll spring rolls, I’d really like to know!

Printer Friendly Recipe

Ingredients (for about 24 spring rolls):
For Cooking the Shrimp -
2 tbs. canola oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1 lb. of small shrimp, completely peeled and deveined.
1 lime
red pepper flakes, to taste
salt/pepper to taste
For the Spring Rolls –
rice paper spring roll wrappers (about 4″ diameter)
medium bowl full of water
2 c. carrots, grated
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 bunch fresh mint
1/2 c. or so cilantro, chopped
1 bunch chives
For the Spicy Peanut Sauce –
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tbs. rice vinegar
1/2 c. tamari
1-2 tbs. sirachia chili sauce (really however much or little you want)
1/2 c. peanut butter
juice of one lime
2 tbs. sesame oil

Directions:
1. Heat up a medium pan with the canola oil, and add in garlic and cilantro. Once hot, add in the shrimp and squeeze lime juice over the shrimp. Add red pepper flakes, salt & pepper to taste. Cook for a couple of minutes until shrimp are cooked. Remove shrimp from pan, set aside.

2. To assemble the spring rolls, dip spring roll wrapper in a bowl of water, and lay down on your work surface. Place 4 shrimp (or however many fit depending on their size) down in a row, and the line up the grated carrots next to them. Add one mint leaf on top of the shrimp, a pinch of the chopped cilantro, and then lastly rip off a piece of red lettuce and place on top.
3. To fold, I folded them “burrito style” – i.e.fold in the top and bottom of the roll, and then fold over one side, and roll tightly towards the other. The wrapper will stick to itself well and hold everything together.
4. In a small sauce bowl, mix together the ingredients for the peanut sauce. These measurements do not have to be exact, feel free to “tweak” to get to exactly how you like. The sauce should not end up too runny.
5. Serve spring rolls on a plate with dipping sauce, enjoy!

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