Spring Rolls

A cool idea for lunch- no heat required. Great for a summer day when it's too hot to cook.

Spring Rolls
Rice paper (available at any grocery store, in the international foods section)
Shredded iceberg lettuce
Bean sprouts
Grated carrots
Small Shrimp
Peanuts, chopped
Rice vermicelli (noodles- available, probably beside the rice paper in the groc. store)

Depending on how many you want to make, the amount of the above ingredients will change. It's all in how you want to make them.

Dipping Sauce (for approx. 6-8 rolls)
2Tbsp tahini
1Tbsp peanut butter
1tsp rice wine vinegar
1tsp soy sauce
ground ginger, salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients together. Serve with rolls.

Assembling the rolls: See here for a nice tutorial on rolling rice paper.
Fill a pie plate or large dinner plate with water. Put one rice paper in. Dry a surface of your counter-top or cutting board. Make sure all ingredients are ready before soaking rice paper. Rice paper should soften in approximately 1 min. Remove paper from water carefully, let excess water drip off, place on counter-top. Arrange vermicelli, shrimp, lettuce, carrots, sprouts on the rice paper, closer to one side than the middle which helps when rolling. Sprinkle peanuts on top of ingredients.
Begin rolling, folding top and bottom towards the ingredients and then rolling from the side closest to the ingredients, over. The edges should seal themselves (rice paper is great for that). Repeat until you have enough rolls to fill a hungry stomach.

Low-carb variation -not pictured-(I love these! My husband has the above recipe, and I use this one): Use Nori (sea-weed wrap) instead of rice paper and omit the rice vermicelli from your rolls. Use more lettuce in place of noodles.

10-minute Challenge

Sitting in a computer lab for staff training for the last 3 days has not been very conducive to bronzing my skin for the summer. The sun is out, the party atmosphere has begun for Stampede and I encourage you to enjoy it. Take your break outside today, even if it's just walking up and down the street in front of your workplace, or finding a grassy plot to sit upon. Soak up the sun, feel the warmth and breath. You'll feel like a new person- I know it. I'll go out at 1030am and 230pm- anyone else?

Day off from 1/2m (1/2 marathon shorthand from now on) training this morning. I did get up and consider doing a 'junk' run, just because it feels so good in the mornings to get out. But my body screamed at me to get some rest- my muscles are so sore and feet hurt. Since getting back from the indulgent weekend for my Sister's wedding reception (where I think I ate 2lbs of chocolate-chili cake- delicious!) and waterskiing, I've been hitting the training really hard. My tempo run is steady at 5:50 pace (although I have to slow myself down- thanks to my new Garmin GPS it's easy to keep pace). My fartlek training was fun- sprinting around my neighborhood towards random landmarks (ie. lightpost 100m away). Weights were great on Wed, another session today after classroom training. Yesterday I had to cut my elliptical short, only getting a sum of 55min of cardio in the entire day, but I suppose it's ok. Today I will do my weights then 30min incline treadmill walking.
Tomorrow I'm stuck in classroom training again, but that's ok because I'm closer to the gym at work than I am from it at home. I'll do my steady run in the am before class and then do 30min after class in the gym.

as a side note- grad studies are kicking my a#@. Quantitative research methods is a demanding class. The curriculum is easy enough, but the pace is quick and the assignment load is unbelievably heavy. So forgive me friends, if I don't join you outside on the patio as much as I'd like to in the next 5 weeks.

Love and Peace- VV

Travelling Alberta

Looking for a rejuvenating get-away? Want to reconnect to the planet? See this video about Travelling Alberta.



http://www.travellingalberta.com/