Veggie Spring Rolls

I haven't had a lot of creative juices lately, so I don't have a big story for you, just some pictures to show how easy it is to make your own summer rolls, just like a friend showed me, she also has a special dipping sauce for it, I think it is peanut ginger, we just used an all-purpose Korean sauce.

You'll need some rice paper, I got some at the vietnamese store, the are probably easy to find at regular stores too, here's what to look for:

You can use whatever you want for filling, I used:

Carrots
Cucumbers
Daikon radish

I used about 4 carrots to 1 cucumber to 1/2 daikon radish, and that made a lot of rolls.

Shred the carrots and radish, and cut the cucumbers into strips. Put some warm water in a bowl, dip rice paper one at a time in the warm water for about 5 seconds, remove, then arrange the fillings on the rice paper, and roll it up like a burrito.

Easy peasy!

Deliciousness

On my flight to the Frankfurt airport, I heard the flight attendants talking about this spread that is like peanut butter but tastes like speculatius cookies, which we love. Listening to them, I thought, they don't know what they are talking about, they probably think Nutella is this special spread. But today at the grocery store, while looking at the different hazelnut spreads, I found.... speculatius spread! As well as some other flavors, like coconut and pistachio. We think this will be killer on crepes, we're planning a crepe brunch party next Sunday. I'm also trying to calculate exactly how much of this stuff I can fit in my bag, and I'm glad I packed light. Oh, for your reading pleasure, a very short article about the market for this stuff in Belgium.

speculatius (speculoos, speculaas) spread

Here's another bit of deliciousness from Germany. Quark is a soft, fresh cheese, kind of in between yogurt and cream cheese. I only heard of quark last summer, so I've been looking for it here and so far been unsuccesful in finding plain quark, but I have found several flavors, like these two savory ones, and the plum/cinnamon holiday flavor as well as other fruity flavors.

red pepper and herbed quark spreads

Plum and cinnamon quark

Oh, and here's a little quark brotchen, it's kind of like a cream cheese danish, and I've eaten at least three of them already. We've gotten them from cheap self-serve bakeries for about 1 euro. I'm so impressed that even the cheap places like those bakeries have really good stuff. I wish there were more places like that in the States.

quark filled sweet bread

three of us with our quark breads

 This was quite possibly the best apple strudel I've ever had. Of course, most of the strudel I've had has been super cheap frozen grocery store variety when we were living in Vienna. So, yesterday morning we went out to a Viennese cafe for warm drinks and cakes, and some of use ordered strudel. It was obviously the best choice since there was a fight over the last few crumbs. The cakes and marzipan stollen look pretty good, but they didn't come with warm with warm vanilla sauce and whipped cream and currents. Yeah, I know, you wish you were here, right?

Viennese apfel strudel

chocolate/vanilla cake for the monkey, gluhwein cake with cherries, and stollen with marzipan for Lovemuffin

 

"Pigs in a Blanket"

Does anyone know a clever name for vegetarian pigs in a blanket? I can't think of one, and from my quick internet search, it seems that no one else has either. These were my Lovemuffin's idea, but somehow I ended up making them. The "pigs"are the Tofurky Italian Sausages, the ones with the tomato and basil. I cut them in half and the bread is Trader Joe's herbed pizza dough. I rolled them in semolina flour to make it easy to take them off the baking pan.

no pig in these blankets

Crepe Party

I made some crepes the other night, my crepe pan is well seasoned now and I have the technique down, so it was kind of a party. The savory crepes for dinner were delightful and surprisingly filling. I used the recipe for blintzes from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" and they were very sturdy and hefty, as you can see in this picture. You can use any tried and true crepe or blintz recipe.

Savory Crepes For Dinner

1 onion, finely chopped

about 10 mushrooms, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 10 oz. package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

3-4 oz. mozzerella cheese, shredded or diced

2.5 oz. parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

10-12 crepes or blintzes, already cooked

Saute onion, mushrooms and garlic till soft, let cool somewhat. Mix with well drained spinach, cheese and spices. Place about 1/4 cup of filling on the crepe and roll it up burrito style. Place all of the rolled crepes in a casserole pan in a 350 F oven for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melty, then serve. Or you can just keep the filling very hot when you prepare it and everyone can roll up their own.

And I made sweet crepes for dessert/breakfast the next day with cottage cheese and berries and a dash of sugar. You don't really need a recipe for this one.

Something Like Guacamole

This is a fun dip that I made on Christmas Eve. It's good with crackers or chips or on a sandwich of some sort. I'm sorry my pictures aren't very good, I haven't had very good light for photographing lately.

Take 1 avocado, scoop out the innards into a small bowl, mash roughly-the dip doesn't have to be perfectly smooth. Add some plain yogurt. Use fat-free yogurt if desired. Mince one clove of garlic in as well. Stir well. Add salt to taste. Mmmmmmm.....

This stuff doesn't store very well because avocado turns brown after a while. So if you want to have this at a party or something, make it right before you are going to be eating it.

Goat Cheese!

I tried this new cheese that we started getting in at work, called Humbolt Fog. There's a specialty cheese company, Cypress Grove Chevre in northern California, check out the website: Cypress Grove Chevre. They have several cheeses and we started carrying the Humbolt Fog kind. It's ripened, strong, soft and delightful. It looks like cake, fluffy white cake with chocolate filling, it's so cute! And you can taste the goatiness of it, which I love. Lovemuffin doesn't like goat milk or goat cheese because of the goatiness, but I think it's great. Besides, what's so great about cow's milk? Here's a picture that I took before I demolished the wedge. Mmmm.....  Even if you think you don't like goat milk cheese, if you see this stuff, you should try it. But I should warn you that it starts melting after about 4 minutes at room temperature, which is why the edges are weirdly gooey in this picture, so if you are going to serve it at a party or something, you'll have to figure out how to keep it very cold.