Hi every­one,

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I did some good cycling on my indoor trainer (too chily for me in the early morn­ing) and squeezed in a nice long run on Sun­day. My weekly vis­its to the chiro seem to really help to keep all my finicky injuries at bay. I’m hold­ing my breath for now!

Yes­ter­day, my daugh­ter requested Viet­namese salad rolls for din­ner so off I went to my local T&T gro­cery store where I knew I could find just about any Asian ingre­di­ent ever made. I love that store…from the huge selec­tion of Asian greens to the unbe­liev­able array of chili sauces, I could spend all day in there. Their hot and sour soup, sea­weed salad and kim­chi are delish!

Any­ways, here is my recipe for Viet­namese Salad Rolls. Feel free to add what­ever ingre­di­ents you pre­fer for the fill­ing. I often use shrimp, water chest­nuts, bam­boo shoots, napa cab­bage and/​or pep­pers but yes­ter­day we just went nice and sim­ple with a few tasty ingre­di­ents. I pur­chased a bot­tled salad roll dip­ping sauce to make my life eas­ier but you can cer­tainly make it on your own. I did how­ever, make a spicy peanut sauce to add some vari­ety and a bit of heat to the din­ner table.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Viet­namese Salad Rolls

Ingre­di­ents:

rice paper wrap­pers (16 inch) I like Rose brand the best

2 pkgs. Shi­rataki angel hair noo­dles (1 pkg = 40 calo­ries and 0 carbs)

2 car­rots, peeled and shredded

¹⁄₂ Eng­lish cucum­ber, halved and thinly sliced

3 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts, roasted, baked or poached and shredded

¹⁄₂ mango, finely diced

3 green onions, thinly sliced

¹⁄₄ cup each fresh cilantro, mint and Thai basil

sir­acha hot sauce

Soak 3 wrap­pers in warm water until soft and pliable.

Care­fully remove from water and place on dry, clean tea towel. Pat dry with another dry, clean tea towel.

Add a small amount of each ingre­di­ent onto bot­tom third of wrap­per, leav­ing about an inch of space on each side of the wrapper.

Care­fully roll bot­tom of wrap­per over ingre­di­ents, tuck­ing in both sides to form a tight cylinder.

Place on moist paper towel-​lined tray and cover with moist paper or tea towel. Cover tightly with plas­tic wrap.

Refrig­er­ate until ready to serve. I was able to get about 16 rolls.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

Ingre­di­ents:

• ¹⁄₃ cup nat­ural crunchy peanut but­ter
• ¹⁄₄ cup warm water
• 1 table­spoons hoisin sauce
• 2 table­spoons freshly squeezed lime juice (from about 1 ¹⁄₂ medium limes)
• 2 tea­spoons soy sauce
• 2 tea­spoons gran­u­lated sugar
• 1 – 2 tea­spoons chile-​garlic paste
• ¹⁄₂ tea­spoon toasted sesame oil

Place above ingre­di­ents in a blender and mix until smooth and creamy, adding more water if sauce appears too thick.

Taste and adjust seasonings.