Saturday, July 01, 2006

spring rolls and dumplings

I wish I had a camera so I could show you the spring rolls and dumplings I just made! Gah. Anyhow, here are the recipes and the verdict:

SPRING ROLLS (courtesy of VegCooking)
Ingredients:
rice paper
lettuce leaves (I used spinach)
Thai basil
bean sprouts
cilantro
cucumber
green onions
carrot
boiled rice noodles

I was going to write out the whole recipe for you (if you want it, you can follow the link above and search for "Spring Rolls,") but I discovered that the measurements in the recipe seemed WAY off to me. I didn't want my spring rolls to explode, so perhaps I skimped on the fillings . . . but they are still almost 2 inches fat! I also made a peanut dipping sauce for these (I didn't measure -- just sloshed and stirred until it tasted good,) out of peanut butter, tamari, mined shallot, sliced green onion, rice vinegar, and water. These are pretty and tasty, and could benefit from some added strips of red pepper next time for a little more color. :) Wrapping the spring rolls wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be! Awesome snack.


EDAMAME DUMPLINGS (courtesy of Cooking Light)
Ingredients:
Sauce: green onions, tamari, honey
Dumplings: edamame, lemon juice, toasted sesame oil, cumin, salt, and wonton wrappers.

I think the cumin in these tastes REALLY WEIRD -- I think I might try them next time with ginger. I fried/steamed up about 8 of them right away, and am freezing the others on a cookie sheet and will transfer them to a ziploc when they are solid for another day. I thought of cooking all of them all at once, and then I thought about how leftover dumplings might taste . . . chewy and ick. So I'll let you know if the freezing technique works!

Off to work on the second round of dishes for today, then I might sit down for awhile before cooking something else! (I'm waiting until the sun goes down and the temperature drops a little bit before I turn the oven on -- it's in the nineties today!) More updates later!

P.S. I really like my new recipe binder.

4 comments:

KleoPatra said...

I would love to see more recipes with edamame. Thanks for writing about the dumplings!

Eat Peace Please said...

I keep a recipe binder but it's not as filled as yours!!! Maybe it would be, as I keep all old magazines from even 5 years ago+ just for the recipes. A glue stick could help...

MeloMeals said...

Cumin does seem odd in that recipe, I'll bet ginger will be much better.. The spring rolls sound fabulous!

Catherine Weber said...

Kleopatra, I was so excited when I found the dumpling recipe -- so many veggie dumpling fillings are kind of boring (cabbage and maybe a little carrot for color or something.) I think if I sub ground ginger for the cumin, they will be AWESOME!

Leslie, I had to go out and buy two more binders today, and more paper, just so I have room to grow. (One binder was already completely full, and I have a huge stack of mags to go thru yet!) This project has definitely opened my eyes to a gazillion recipes that I haven't tried yet, because they were snuggled away inside a magazine!

Melody, the spring rolls are fantastic! I had two yesterday. :) I don't think they will make it through the day today! I did learn a spring roll lesson, though -- only cut them in half, rather than thirds, because the middle section of the one I cut in thirds exploded all over the place! :) I have plenty of ingredients left, so I might make more later this week.