Vietnamese Vegetable Rice Rolls with Peanut Sauce

 This is a great picnic dish, obviously it is a special one, but just a great way to eat vegetables and the sauce is really fantastic and original. This recipe is from Steamy Kitchen, and seriously I had been wanting to do this recipe since 2013! 

INGREDIENTS 

For the rolls:
-Rice paper wrappers, like 16 or 20.
-About 10 lettuce leaves, soft ones.

-1 cup of sliced carrots.

-2 cucumbers julienned.

-1 avocado in slices.

-1 red pepper in slices.

-1 cup of cilantro leaves.

-1 cup of mint leaves.

-1 cup of basil leaves.

-3 sunny side up fried eggs.

For the peanut sauce:

-1/4 cup of water.

-4 tablespoons of lime juice.

- 5 tablespoons of orange juice.

-1/2 cup of peanut butter.

-1/2 teaspoon of minced ginger.

-1 teaspoon of honey.

-1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic.

-1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce.

-1 teaspoon of sesame seeds.

-3 drops of almond extract.

STEPS:

1. Julianne the vegetables and have them all ready in bowls. Obviously all ingredients are optional, you just want crunchy vegetables.

2. Prepare the rice paper wrappers, basically you need to dip them in hot water. Dip them and they soften enough, do not dip them in boiling water, it ruins them and you can't work with them.

3. Simply wrap up the vegetables putting a little bit of everything.

4. Create the sauce. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and use hand mixer to blend, it is real good this sauce, peanuty, garlicky, gingery and almondy. It goes amazing.

And just enjoy! This recipe is laborious but worth it. 

Veggie tray

Yay to Americans and all of the great ideas they bring to our world. Especially when it comes to food and aesthetics, Americans can surely nail it and we can all learn from them. Yes and amen. 

So here is my recipe. 

Actually I wouldn't call it a recipe, more an idea of what to bring to a party when you are clueless and in a rush. Perhaps only clueless but you do need time to run to the supermarket, cut the veggies and line them up nicely. Ah! you also need some kind of cheese as a dip. 

My veggie collection for this Halloween party of my german friend consisted on: carrots, yellow peppers, celery, broccoli and red peppers. 

And I decorated the whole thing with castañas, or chestnuts around it, raw ones, because I love to eat them raw.

TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Magic. At least easy. And it looked very colourful and pretty for my party. Anyway, an idea for you all out there. I know this one is a no-brainer-one, but hey at least I have come back to the blog! I want to thank my sister Rut for encouraging me.  (Gracias poli)

And this is pic of the bag I took to transport the veggie tray  thats my elevator. I brought a tupperware and did the artistic part when I got to the party. 

I also brought some little pumpkins to friend's party to give her table some colour....I think she liked it.  :)  I have them at home too...

awesome mushroom soup

In the winter months I have been making this soup that I have really enjoyed. Very simple too. Josefi you are going to enjoy it for cold months in Germany.


Ingredients: 

• 500 grms of mushrooms.
• 2 onions.
• 1 chicken stock
• 1 glass of milk
• 1 glass of water
• Salt and pepper (quite a lot of pepper)

1. Cut up the onion and brown it a little. 

2. Then slice the mushrooms and add them to the onion and sautee it all until it is all well done and cooked. 

3. Then add the salt and pepper (be generous with the ppeper!) water, milk and the chicken stock cube and let it simmer in low heat for about 20 min. Cover with a lid.

SPECIAL TRICK: If you can add a little bit of cream, nata liquida para cocinar, to the soup, even 15mm,it will taste MUCH BETTER and will really bring all the particles of the soup together...it really does make a big difference..

4. Then blend with a hand blender, I forgot the photo here (in other words, pasalo con la batidora :)

so good! then I did my nails as you can see...

5. Done! it is a great soup, perhaps the colour is not the greatest... I can see that...but hey, talk to nature about that! 

calabaza con azucar moreno

Esta receta es muy simple y muy rica. Aunque la foto de aqui son de calabazas más estilo americanas, las que utilizo yo son más con forma de bombilla...son las que se venden aquí en España.

Labri, Holanda

• Azucar moreno.
• Calabaza.
• Mantequilla.
• Sal y pimienta.

1. Pues es muy facil, solo hay que cortar la calabaza en dos y ponerla en una fuente en el horno. Quitar todas las semillas. Para que se haga más rapido a veces la pongo en el microondas unos minutos para que se ponga un poco más blanda.  
2. Poner en el agujero donde estan las semillas que ahora está vacio una cucharada de mantequilla y azucar moreno. La mantequilla se derrite y se mezcla con el azucar y hace una mezcla muy bueno.
3. Extender mantequilla con un cuchillo por encima de la parte cortada de la calabaza y echar azucar moreno para que tueste.



Labri, Holanda

4. Poner pimienta y un poco de sal. Meterla al horno a 200 grados o 190 por un par de horas. Tambien pongo un poco de agua en la bandeja del horno para que la calabza se cocine bien y no se seque. 

Esta receta está muy bien para acompañar platos de arroz o de pollo como acompañamiento. Es original y muy facil de hacer.