Spring Rolls

Spring Rolls are my favorite vegetable delivery device.  The best part is you can make them as you go, so each one can taste different, or the same, depending on what you put in.  You can make Spring Rolls with any vegetable or fruit you like that tastes good raw.


These are my favorite ingredients:
*Carrots
*Cucumber
*Red Bell Pepper
*Mango


Slice up the vegetables into matchsticks about 3 inches long and place in neat piles on a plate for easy picking.


Heat olive oil and soy sauce in a pan and toss in tofu cut into strips.  Add more soy sauce over the top so each piece receives some flavor.  Simmer the tofu for about 15 minutes or until it has soaked up the soy sauce and browned at least a little bit.


Meanwhile, fill a teapot with water and boil.  Place some thin rice noodles in a large bowl and cover with the boiled water.  Let them soak for about 5 minutes or until soft.  Remove from the water and place in another bowl (again for easy picking).  Save the bowl of water to soften the spring roll wrappers.


If you've never worked with spring roll wrappers before, they're a little tricky, they're like plastic wrap, they like to stick together and make your life difficult.


Quickly dip a wrapper into the water making sure the entire thing gets wet then lay flat on a plate.  In the middle, lay down a small amount of the rice noodles, then a couple pieces of tofu and the veggies, and a dash of peanut sauce.  You can make your own peanut sauce very easily, but the store bought stuff is great too.  Then roll it up like a burrito!  For those of you who haven't been professional burrito rollers at one point in your life, you fold over the short sides first then fold the side closest to you over the top of all the stuff and roll, making sure the rice paper sticks to itself and seals in all the goodness.


Eat!


Other delicious things to add are cooked shrimp, bean sprouts, fresh mint leaves, hell, you can add anything you want.  Shrimp sauteed in salt, pepper and curry powder are delicious.