spring rolls

Wednesday's become my bachlorette dinner party. It's the only night Idle Husband and I don't get to sit down together and eat supper. So with that in mind, it's kind of like a free-for-all for me. Excitement!  Adventure! I can have anything my little heart desires! Please note how excited I am at the idea of being able to pick out any exotic meal I want without having to worry about whether IH will or won't like it. I was so excited, in fact, that last week, I got overwhelmed and came up with the lamest dinner possible. Barley and peas. Yum? Well, it was yum, but I didn't make enough and I was still hungry. So then I took two hot dogs out of the freezer and microwaved them. Bad? I was still hungry so I ate some granola while standing in the pantry. Worse? Then I had a cookie with some peanut butter slathered on, looked at myself with disgust and shame and vowed to do better this week. (I will avenge you, terrible dinner!)

Since Idle Husband isn't a fan of asian cuisine, I got really excited about the prospect of some healthy spring rolls. I've made them before and they're so light and fresh and summery, that I've been wanting to make them again. So to make them extra special, I remembered to buy some imitation crab meat (sorry; I love the imitation stuff much more than the real deal) to wrap inside to make them a nice complete meal, and I even remembered to take the crab out of the freezer the day before! Look at me winning! I already had the rice paper wraps and vermicelli rice noodles, so basically all I had to do was assemble.

Or so I thought. I left myself entirely too little time to do everything. The noodles took a lot longer to cook than I thought they would (the first time I made them, I under cooked them slightly, so trying to chew through the soft rolls was a nightmare), I had to get something prepped for Idle Husband's dinner when he got home (he cooked it himself, though), and I wanted to make a peanut sauce for dipping. By the time I had the wraps rolled, I had barely enough time to eat plus I still had to get dressed and get my stuff ready for the night. Terrible. My grown-up alone dinner:

Inhaled quickly in front of the computer:

*tsk* Awesome.

If you've assembled a soft taco or burrito, you can totally do this. Just get yourself some rice paper. Here's what I used:

there's about a billion sheets in this package and I think I bought it for a dollar.

Soak it in a little water (I use a pie plate which fits the round paper nicely and holds just enough water) until it's soft and a little translucent. Add whatever fillings your little heart desires -- I used cucumber, lettuce, carrot, green onion, imitation crab meat, and vermicelli noodles. I find it's helpful if everything's cut in stick shape -- and wrap it up.

I found the peanut sauce here. I tried this type of sauce the first time I attempted making spring rolls, and I discovered I have a love/hate relationship with hoisin sauce. I start out really loving it -- so much so, I kinda want to eat it with a spoon -- but by the third small wrap, I've had enough and I can barely stomach it to look at it. Strange. I did like this version of sauce, though, I changed it a bit by adding honey instead of the natural cane sugar and I reduced the amount by half (which was still too much sauce just for me).

Just so you know, these were so yummy, I had some for breakfast today.