My plan for last weekend was to visit my friend’s graduation from the MFA program we both attended (she was a semester behind me) and then catch a day of skiing at a local ski resort, plus a couple hours of cross country on MLK Jr. day, before getting back to grading essays. Boy did that plan fall through.

It’s funny to think of myself fretting on Friday about not getting any exercise for “one whole day.” I was on some kind of crazy regimen. I wanted to lose that weight I’d put on since August and I wanted to keep getting stronger and more fit. Maybe I couldn’t do the cross country marathons this year, but could start building a base. All day I was just go-go-go.

Then some pain began revising all my plans. A week later I’m feeling grateful it is not serious and that I have loving family members and friends who jump in to help me out when I need them. I do feel sad that it could be a while before I pick up my usual exercises (skiing and hooping), just when I felt I was hitting my stride, so to speak. But I think of my student who missed half the school year so far, bravely enduring six rounds of intense chemo. Puts things in perspective.

I decided that in addition to finishing up grades today, I’d embark on one project that would get me off my butt for a little bit. My dad (who left this morning) had peeled and cut the butternut squash. It felt good to make something tasty and soothing for myself. I am truly grateful for my dad and friends making me food, don’t get me wrong, but it was nice to do something for myself.

Plus there was an argument over this recipe. A chef friend told me that every smooth soup needs some fat–cream, butter, or oil–for mouth feel. I use little in this soup: olive oil to roast the squash and the olive oil spray to cook down the veggies. Additional fat probably does make some subtle difference. I think you can feel fats at the back corners of your tongue. Then you feel it drop like lead in your stomach. Or I do. So add cream or oil or butter to the recipe if you want, but I love it just like this.

This recipe might seem too close to the original post to deserve its own post. But I think it’s really that good as I’ve amped up the flavors.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

• giant butternut squash, peeled and sliced lengthwise, seeds scraped out, and then rubbed lightly with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper
• medium onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, sliced into half moons
• 2 medium carrots, sliced into thin disks
• 2 large cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 1 TBS minced fresh ginger
• 1 TBS  cider vinegar
• ¾ cup apple cider
• 1/2  tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper

1. Stick the squash into your oven on about 400 degrees for half hour to an hour, turning it at least once, until it’s soft and has a little bit of browning (I’ve done it at various temperatures and times–if you watch it and turn it, it doesn’t seem to mind)
2. When the squash is getting towards done, in your biggest soup pot, spray the olive oil and warm over medium heat. Sauté the onion, celery and carrot with a bit of salt until the onions are translucent and the carrots are starting to get soft
3. Toss in the garlic and cook, still stirring constantly, until fragrant
4. Cut the squash into big chunks and add it and the veggie broth. Bring to a boil.
5. Add the squash cubes, ginger, vinegar, cider, and spices and simmer covered for about 30 minutes.
6. Remove the pot from the heat and then very carefully, keeping the immersion blender fully immersed, blend until thoroughly pureed. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can also allow the soup to cool and puree in batches in your blender. Then pour it back into the pot to reheat before serving)
7. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you’re using homemade veggie stock and you haven’t salted it a lot, you may find you need a significant amount of salt

About 6 servings

Some people get depressed when the days get short and the weather turns bleak and cold. My mood sags when summer fruits and veggies disappear from the farmer’s market, especially if there’s no snow to compensate.

This past Saturday I bought lettuce, but no sprouts. With cukes long gone, and tomatoes with flavor also in the distant past, what in the world was I going to do about my salad? I could turn entirely to cooked veggies for winter. There are two bunches of kale taking up most of my veggie drawer, and that’s all the green leafiness a person could possibly need in a week. But I wanted salad, and I wasn’t going to eat only lettuce with salad dressing.

The broccoli and kale were out because I don’t like them raw. I could have done apples, nuts, and cheese, but I didn’t have the right cheese and wanted something lighter, anyway. Celery was too crunchy for my poor jaw, as would be carrot or that beautiful watermelon radish, sadly languishing amongst the veggies destined for actual dishes. And then I thought about shredding the carrot and radish. Brilliant!

The flavor combination of sharp radish and sweet carrot was a perfect balance with a little salt and pepper and lightly dressed in balsamic vinaigrette. The strips were juicy and the colors were crazily vivid. I ate more than the one plate of salad before the rest of my meal (tempeh sloppy joes–recipe forthcoming!) It’s ridiculously easy but so beautiful and flavorful, you could serve it at a dinner party.

Shredded Root Veggie Garden Salad

(Yield: two large salads)

• Leaf lettuce, torn–enough for a bed on each plate
• 1 giant carrot
• 1 big watermelon radish (or other red colored radish)

On top of your bed of lettuce, grate carrot and radish. Toss. Serve with balsamic vinaigrette, salt, and pepper. Ta-da!

Say you have TMJ issues and your jaw is really hurting. Maybe you decide the solution is culinary.

You conclude, finally, that you can no longer curb your carb craving with carrots and celery to scoop up your super healthy bean dip snack. Your jaw says, something soft, please. As you begin packing your lunch for the next day, you ponder the veggie drawer of your refrigerator. It calls out to you: the beautiful radish impulse buy from the farmer’s market. It’s unassuming white on the outside, but gorgeous magenta inside.

You think, I’ll sort of roast it to make it soft enough for my jaw, but leave it with enough structural integrity to scoop up dip. You turn oven on to 400 degrees. You go back and forth on bake-broil-bake-broil and settle on bake. You line a pan with foil and slice gorgeous radish medium-think. Spray with olive oil and stick in oven.

Sometime later, it reaches desired consistency. Cooking has mellowed the sharp bite by just a bit and added a touch of sweetness. This should go on my blog, you think. Transfer slices to plastic container and pack up unbelievably yummy balsamic and roasted garlic bean dip.

Overnight, unbeknownst to you, gases build up inside container.

During your second block class, hours to go until lunch, you open the container, pluck out a limp slice of radish and dunk into delicious bean dip. It’s not great, but it doesn’t hurt to eat. You consider the experiment a success. Meanwhile, five of your students in the rows closest to your desk pass out from the gaseous cloud. The others complain of stench.

Well, the bean dip was good, anyway.

Balsamic and Roasted Garlic Bean Dip

• 2 cups white, navy, or pinto beans (I used soaked and pre-cooked for better taste and presumably less gas, but you can use canned)
• 1 tsp good olive oil
• 2-3 tsp good balsamic vinegar
• 3 or more cloves roasted garlic
• salt and pepper to taste (fresh ground is best)
• water to desired consistency–about 1/4 cup, but it depends on how wet your beans were

Puree all the ingredients in your food processor. Enjoy with a spoon. Or with anything you like to dip. Even with a stinky soft radish.

 

Amidst a bunch of major life changes in less than a year, (moving, going back to work, getting a divorce), I’ve lost 20-some pounds (yay!) and gained five back (boo). Before my friends chime in, I’ll acknowledge that I wasn’t “overweight,” but I sure felt great five pounds ago. I think I was in the best shape of my life, probably. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe to go back to teaching, since the clothes I’d worn two years before were about 4 sizes too large.

Before I am forced to go clothes shopping for bigger clothes again (in a fit of optimism I donated all my too-big clothes), I am re-evaluating my eating and other life habits since September. That’s when the graph started moving in the opposite direction.

Is it exercise? No, I think I am actually getting moreexercise now that I’m back to teaching than in previous months. It’s not hours sitting in front of a television, either (a habit which is associated with weight gain and premature death). When I moved to my new house, I decided not to get a television set at all. I don’t even watch Hulu or Netflix anymore. I do spend too much time in front of a computer, but probably less than before September.

Is it my diet? I eat pretty similarly to what I’d been eating during the weight loss phase–at least for the first half of my day. I am actually more religious in my farmer’s marketing and veggie consumption (I even finally made the commitment to join a CSA). My snacks between 2:30 p.m. and bedtime, however, just might be the culprits.

After school, after the gym, and after dinner, I’ve been eating crackers and pretzels and cereals. They’re all from the health food section, all claim to be high in fiber and protein and low in bad stuff, but as the trainer at the gym pointed out to me, they’re all processed foods, specifically, carbs. Eat whole foods, he advised.

He’s right, of course. This satisfying black bean stew, served over brown rice, is part of my new regimen. But before the recipe, I should also share my other tactics, in case any of you readers want to play along at home.

After a good, honest self-chat, I admitted to myself, I am eating more than before and more calories than I need. It turns out that I’m lucky enough to not want to eat when I’m feeling all out of sorts. On the other hand, I tend to snack nervously when I’m just feeling tired and overly busy. (I’m down with this NYTimes editorial that “busy” is not a worthy goal.) Trying to simply “eat less” doesn’t work for me, so I came up with some rules:

Rule one: No eating after 8 p.m. Studies suggest that late evening eating itself is associated with weight gain. I also know that for me, when I get tired I feel hungry and think I want yet another bowl of honey almond granola, but actually what my body wants is some sleep. Which brings me to my next rule.

Rule two: Get more sleep–at least seven hours a night. Less than seven hours of sleep has been associated with weight gain, according to studies.

Rule three: As much as possible, as advised by the National Institutes of Health, eat whole, not processed, foods. I’d been doing a great job making huge vats of food and having healthy meals ready to eat on days when I got home too late to make something from scratch. What I was ignoring were my processed carb-y snacks. I’ve been replacing them with cut up veggies and hummus (recipe coming soon for healthier hummus) and low sugar Greek yogurt with fruit. (And I’d love other suggestions!)

I also realized I’d snuck in some high calorie foods during the day, without thinking about it. Natural peanut butter and preserves on whole wheat crackers, despite their provenance–the Natural Foods section of the supermarket–is still a whole lotta calories. And those calories still count, even if they are meant to stave off the funk that comes over me when faced with a mountain of papers to grade.

Rule four: Eat more slowly. The evidence on this diet claim is somewhat mixed, but I know that wolfing down my food just cannot be good for me as enjoying my food and giving myself time to feel fuller sooner.

Caribbean Style Black Bean Stew

• large onion, chopped
• 2-3 ribs celery, cut into half moons
• 1 large carrot, cut into disks
• 1 red and 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 gigantic clove garlic, minced
• 3 cans black beans, rinsed well and drained (or pre-soaked and cooked black beans–soaked overnight, if you can plan ahead, probably better for your digestion! They take about 1.5-2 hrs to cook after soaking.)
• 2 cups veggie broth or water
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into medium chunks
• juice of one small lime
• 1 cup tomatoes, chopped
• 1 chipotle pepper, minced, with some adobo sauce
• a few sprigs of cilantro, chopped
• optional: 1/3 cup fresh salsa (I used this to up the sweetness and make up for the fact that it’s late in the season for tomatoes, and they weren’t too flavorful)
• 1 TBS ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. In a large pan, saute onions, celery and carrots in a tiny bit of olive oil. You don’t need much oil. I add some salt to help sweat the veggies.
2. Add the garlic and peppers and cook briefly until the garlic is fragrant.
3. Dump in your black beans, broth, sweet potato, lime, and tomatoes. Bring the whole shebang to a boil and then allow it to simmer until the tater begins to soften.
4. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until you’re about ready to serve. You can transfer it to a crock pot, set your rice cooker, and have dinner waiting for you when you return from work or the gym, or wherever you’re going. Before serving, you can turn off the heat and briefly stick your handy dandy immersion blender in to thicken it up, or just leave as is.

 

I was at a retreat center when I took my first doubtful bite of steel cut oats. The chewy texture instead of the paste-like consistency of its rolled oats cousin delighted me so much I almost gasped aloud during silent breakfast. It even had some flavor of its own and it has enough body to accommodate any toppings including fresh fruit.

I didn’t want it to be a retreat-only fling with these amazing oats; I definitely wanted a long-term relationship. But then I learned about the prep. I refuse boil anything on the stove for breakfast, and certainly not for 40-some minutes. So steel cut oats and I agreed we just weren’t at a point in our lives to commit to one another.

Because it’s healthy and I’d convinced myself I really liked it, for several years I had eaten oatmeal–the rolled oats kind–for breakfast every day. Finally one day I admitted to myself that no matter how much granola, brown sugar, nuts, ground flax, or dried fruit I piled on top, I was not enjoying my oatmeal. I was even beginning to dread it.

I switched to cold cereal for a while, punctuated with occasional eggs, but felt a growing sense of dissatisfaction with my morning meal, especially after learning that steel cut oats were out there. Then I read that one could make steel cut oatmeal in a rice cooker. Since then I have been enjoying a satisfying relationship with my breakfast. I add water and steel cut oats and set the rice cooker for an hour before I wake. The next morning, my perfect cereal awaits me. I dress it up just so, and voila–happiness!

You can’t really make one serving at a time, so I refrigerate the other three portions and the next three mornings I scoop out a serving (I admit it looks rubbery and gross at first), add a little milk and microwave. Perfect again!

Perfect & Convenient Steel Cut Oatmeal

(makes 4 servings)

• 1 cup steel cut oats (also called groats)
• 3 cups water
• pinch of salt

Dump your oats, water, and salt into your rice cooker. Set on porridge setting. If you don’t have such a choice, try the brown rice setting or experiment to see what works. If your rice cooker has a timer, set it to start an hour before you wake so that it’s ready for you. Not to make you jealous or anything, but my rice cooker also keeps it warm for me.

Toppings: I love brown sugar, ground flax, and fresh blueberries. And you?

Leftovers: Refrigerate in single size portions in microwave save containers. To reheat, cut the springy mass into several pieces with a spoon and add a little milk or a milk substitute. Microwave for a minute and stir and then continue heating until it reaches the desired temp. Add toppings. Just as delicious as fresh out of the rice cooker!

 

This is not one of those blog posts that makes excuses for a long hiatus and promises to be better in the future. Let’s just say stuff happened and now, finally, I’m back. And on a related note, if the photos don’t look as professional as before, that’s because they’re mine and I’m just learning.

Here is a happily simple tempeh dish for one without a ridiculous quantity of leftovers (something else I’m learning, lately). In the half an hour before I went to the gym, I mixed up the marinade and cut up tempeh to soak in the fridge. When I got home I stuck it in the oven and half an hour later dinner was served. (Well, a little later, perhaps, because I’d forgot to start the quinoa in the rice cooker until I came home. Oops.)

Anyway, I ate it at the dining room table with real plates and utensils and wondered at single friends who tell me they don’t like cooking for one. I find it reassuring to prepare healthy and special meals for myself, though I will admit that on my way home I found myself hoping to bump into some hungry vegetarian eager to eat tempeh with me. The new house is still clean enough for unplanned visitors, I mused. But then I’d have to find another place mat. Plus I really would have needed a shower before interacting with any potential guests. So I counted myself better off with NPR for company over a tasty dinner.

Tempeh Marbella for One

• 1 block tempeh, cut into thin strips
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped or pureed
• 1 TBS dried oregano
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 TBS cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup pitted prunes
• 1/4 cup pitted Spanish green olives
• 1/4 cup capers with a bit of juice
• 2-3 quartered artichoke hearts (fresh cooked or canned, not marinated)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white wine

Spread the tempeh out in a baking dish. Stir together the remaining ingredients and pour over the tempeh. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and well absorbed into the tempeh. Bake for another five minutes or so until the tempeh turns golden. Serve over quinoa or rice.

Two tablespoons of chili garlic sauce for just over two servings of food did, I admit, seem like a lot. But chili garlic sauce (along with roasted peanuts) is a major flavoring in kung pao, according to my Chinese cookbook. I scooped out one tablespoon of the fiery red paste and plunked it into the wok. I hesitated a moment and repeated, and then quickly turned on the exhaust fan.  It sure did it look beautiful, shimmering red flecks mingling with the different greens of the celery and scallion, the tan tofu, and the smooth red flesh of the bell peppers.

Wayne took a bite first and started coughing. I thought he was going to eat a few mouthfuls and make himself a pb & j, but he soldiered on through his entire plate, not speaking much except to say it was good. I polished off a normal serving, though I’ll also acknowledge that it really didn’t need to be quite that hot.

I remember reading in a psychology textbook about a correlation between thrill seeking and enjoyment of spicy foods. Or was it outgoing interpersonal behavior and spicy foods? I’ve never been able to find the reference again, but it makes sense to me that people who are sensation seekers–socially or through adventures–would gravitate towards extra sensation in their foods as well. Beyond taste, we crave a burn.

Another study (also remembered imperfectly from my undergraduate days) found that chimps enjoyed hot-pepper laced food after watching a parent savor it, but found it distasteful when presented by the experimenter. So perhaps my attraction to hot food is my dad’s fault, having watched him sweat delightedly over his meals my entire childhood.

Wherever it comes from, the desire for hot foods is a peculiar drive. Certain foods, I feel, should not be spicy. Like eggs. Perhaps because spicy foods don’t sit well for me in the morning. But other foods are disappointing without enough spice. Red sauces in Italian cooking, for instance, or anything in Indian cuisine. But I’ve noticed that everyone seems to have a particular food spiciness range, like a temperature comfort range. For me the scale runs from bland to inedible, with variations on degree of pleasure in between.

On one end, a food that I feel should be spicy falls dull on my tongue if it isn’t sufficiently hot, while a food like, say, miso soup, never disappoints me with its lack of heat. The more spice, of course, the more challenge to eat. I might enjoy the hottest food on a certain menu for a bite, but I wouldn’t be able to eat an entire dish of it. And sometimes I think a dish is just the right level of spicy, but find I can only eat half of my usual dinner portion.

Which brings me to a kind of food machismo I occasionally find myself guilty of: ordering or continuing to eat something that’s way too spicy to enjoy. Or going into a hot sauce store and sampling my way up to chemical burn hot. That’s a drive to show off my imperviousness to pain, I guess. What’s weirder, perhaps, is the actual enjoyment of the pain in the midst of the pleasure of eating. Or, come to think of it, maybe that’s not so peculiar at all.

Kung Pao Tofu

(Makes two large servings)

• 1/2 box extra firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• soy sauce–just enough to very lightly coat the tofu
• pinch white pepper
• 1/2 veggie broth
• 1 TBS cornstarch or arrow root
• 1 tsp sugar or agave nectar
• peanut oil for cooking
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into smallish squares
• 3-4 ribs celery, cut into thick moons
• 4 green onions, with tops, cut on the diagonal
• 1-2 TBS chili garlic sauce (2 is really quite hot, but suit yourself!)
• 3/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts

1. Lightly coat the tofu cubes with soy sauce and sprinkle the white pepper atop. Set aside
2. Mix the sugar or agave nectar into the veggie broth and then stir in the cornstarch or arrow root. Set aside
3. Heat the oil in your wok or stir fry pan. Add the garlic and cook very quickly, until fragrant and just beginning to brown.
4. Add the peppers, celery, and green onions. Cook until the veggies just begin to soften and then add the tofu.
5. Spoon in the chili garlic sauce and continue stirring until the tofu is heated through.
6. With the heat still on, add the veggie broth mixture and keep stirring until the now-thickened liquid is well distributed. Add the peanuts, stirring to coat and then turn off the heat. Serve over rice.

On the second bite I notice it: not bean, not onion. I hesitate as the unexpected texture rests on the tip of my tongue. It’s been a long time, but I haven’t forgotten bacon. Soft, smoky, forbidden.

What’s a vegetarian to do? Spit into a linen napkin in the best Mexican restaurant in Chicago which doesn’t accept reservations and the wait is two hours but where my friend has hip-checked our way to a bar table and finagled a third chair? No. I haven’t eaten meat in years, but the bacon is already in my mouth. I could feel disgusted, dismayed, disappointed. Instead I lean into the moment: salty, earthy, illicit.

This reminds me of a piece of advice a professor gave me in college. Walking out of the English exam, I passed my professor at the vending machine (which, because Cornell has an Ag school, vends milk cartons). Just as I got too close to pretend I didn’t see him, he poured the contents of said milk carton down the front of his shirt. He looked up at me (through sunglasses) and said, “I thought it was going to be orange juice. And you know, when you find yourself between two paradigms? All you can do is just experience.” Which, even though he was clearly high, continues to strike me as good counsel.

Don’t worry–I’m not  afraid the taste of bacon is the gateway drug to a carnivorous lifestyle. Which apparently is a good thing because a study found that people who ate meat every day were 13 percent more likely to die prematurely. So, yeah, I ate a bite of bacon and I liked it. Maybe two bites. I didn’t turn into a meat-crazed lunatic. Crazed lunatic, perhaps. But not owing to meat.

Note to self: if it smells funny, just throw it out. Resist the urge to toss it into the wok with all those fresh ingredients. Even if fresh straw mushrooms are expensive and a favorite treat and you don’t know when you’ll get a chance to buy them again. And even if they are mixed in with bamboo shoot strips and baby corns which you don’t believe ever go bad. Even if you think they’re not that old. Even if you tell yourself that maybe they always have a slightly funky smell. Even if you suppose cooking will kill most microorganisms. Even if you are self-righteously countering the American wasteful and overcautious habit of throwing away plenty of still-good food. Even if a little mold or bacteria won’t kill you, probably. Just don’t do it.

What’s that old saying? One handful of smelly mushrooms spoils the stir-fry? Or, makes a huge mound of perfectly seasoned veggies and tofu inedible? Something like that. Net result: one sad cook sticking her fingers in the bowl to fish out as much of the scalding hot broccoli, tofu, bean sprouts, black mushrooms, even slippery onions and strips of limp bok choi as possible to eat atop her precious udon, which she had fortunately stir fried separately from the veggies. Only a slight taste of plecch, she decided, and hopefully only a small chance of being dangerous to eat. Before dumping the rest of the depressing vat into the garbage. A big kitchsplosion with no joy.

So all the photos here represent a take-two on this recipe and are the happy result of a second trip to the Asian supermarket to re-buy the fat squishy udon noodles and another batch of beautiful bok choi from the farmer’s market. The only sad part is that you can’t see the beautiful huge noodles beneath the veggies, which I served piled  on top without pulling the noodles through. Doh! Well, I can tell you they are down there in their voluptuously fat, squishy, satisfying glory. Completely worth the trip, agreed our friends. (Yes, that is THE famous actor Brenny Rabine about to enjoy my Yaki Udon.)

Veggie Yaki Udon

(for four people)

• Peanut oil for frying
• 2 16-oz packages of big, fat fresh udon noodles
• 1 sliced onion
• 4 green onions, separate whites and greens. Save a few greens slices for garnish.
• 2 oz sliced carrots
• 4 oz bok choi, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp fresh ginger
• 10-15 rehydrated black mushrooms (save liquid)
• a pinch of rehydrated wakame flakes (save liquid)
• tofu strips
• a few handfuls fresh mung bean sprouts
• enoki mushrooms (optional–say you were in the Asian grocery store and couldn’t resist them because they are tall, skinny, weird looking things–pictured below next to the peanut jar which has absolutely nothing to do with this recipe)

Sauce

• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 4 TBS soy sauce
• 2 TBS mirin
• 2 TBS sake
• 1 TBS sugar or 2 TBS hoisin
• 1 TBS chili garlic sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper (to taste)

Preparation

1. Mix sauce in a small bowl, adding 1 TBS each of the mushroom water and wakame water
2. Put fresh udon noodles in boiling water for 1 minute or less–just until the noodles separate and are hot (jostle them to loosen)
3. Heat peanut oil in a frying pan and cook onions and whites of the green onions for 2 minutes
4. Add garlic, ginger, and carrots and cook for an additional 2 minutes
5. Add bok choi,  green onion tops, black mushrooms, wakame flakes, bean sprouts and tofu and cook for 2 more minutes
6. Add salt and pepper
7. Add less than ½ the sauce mixture and stir to combine. Remove mixture to a bowl
8. Add additional peanut oil, udon noodles and remaining sauce mixture and stir until the noodles are well coated
9. Serve the veggies over the noodles (don’t forget to pull noodles up through the veggies). Garnish with gomasio and green onion.

Do you ever get a case of the I-Don’t-Wanna’s? An activity that is usually painless or even pleasurable suddenly seems like way too much work. You feel inertia like a big rock in your lap. Sure you could move that rock–it’s not pinning you down, it’s just holding you firmly enough in place (on your couch, say) that to gather the momentum to get up and do something (write your blog entry) seems like a colossal effort. And then your self-imposed deadline passes and no post. It gets later and later into the week until finally you decide to wait until next week without even a word of apology to your readers. (Sorry, dear readers!)

Well, no more of that state–I’m turning over a new leaf (in this recipe, Chinese basil). For most people this kind of compulsion happens at New Year’s (and I’m sure I had a new-leaf-moment then, too) but last night I felt it bubbling up inside me again (to thoroughly mix my metaphors/cliches). I promised myself I’m going to eat healthier and more mindfully, get more exercise, drink more water, get more rest…you get the idea. Fortunately, this week’s recipe, fresh rolls, fits the bill perfectly–light and healthy. They are sometimes called summer rolls to distinguish them from their fried brethren, the spring roll.

Mine were not beautiful like the versions I find in my favorite Asian restaurants –firmly tubular, balanced, and sliced like a colorful nori roll, but they were tasty anyway. The one ingredient that is necessary and most likely only found in an Asian supermarket are the “spring roll skins” or rice paper wrappers. They come in a small wheel of clear plastic and are usually located in the noodle aisle, often near the rice vermicelli (skinny rice noodles) that you’ll want as well (but can often find in regular supermarkets these days). The wrappers I use are made of rice flour and tapioca starch, and unless there’s cross contamination, they should be suitable for gluten-free diets.

Fresh Rolls

makes about 6 rolls–3 to 6 servings

• round rice paper wrappers (sometimes called spring roll skins). Found in Asian supermarkets.
• rice vermicelli (thin rice noodles) soaked until soft and drained.
•  a handful of Chinese basil leaves, rinsed and patted dry. Or holy basil or something in the Asian food market that says basil but has purple stems–very pungent smelling. If you are in an Asian food market to get your spring roll skins, this herb is distinct enough to make a difference in the dish and you’ll want it to make Thai Basil Chili Stir Fry , anyway. If, on the other hand, you’ve got the skins at home (and there’ll be plenty left over after a batch) you can substitute regular basil, if you must.
• handful of carrots, peeled and sliced into very thin matchsticks, a few inches long
• one cucumber, peeled, seeded and sliced like the carrots, though not quite as skinny
• several handfuls of crispy fresh mung bean sprouts, rinsed well
• tofu, sliced into strips
• a few lettuce leaves (Romaine is easiest to work with)

1. Create an assembly line: a clean wrapping surface; wrappers ready to be dipped into a plate of warm water; rice noodles; tofu sticks; and veggies/herbs each on their own plates
2. Dip a wrapper carefully in the water, your hand resting gently atop to feel it go from crisp to pliant. Remove as soon as it begins to soften. (The directions on mine say 30 seconds). A properly softened wrapper should stick to itself when rolled, but not become a sticky sheet, welded to itself beforehand.
3. Lay softened wrapper on surface. Start with a leaf of lettuce and a line of basil leaves close to the edge near you. Arrange lines of the vegetable matter and tofu.
4. Fold sides over as you roll from your end away from you.
5. You have tons of wrappers–you can rescue the innards and throw out the first few that are too ugly to serve.
6. Serve with sauce(s).

Dipping Sauces

My favorite Vietnamese restaurant in NYC serves these with two dipping sauces, one a (non-vegetarian) clear sweet-sour-salty-spicy fish sauce based condiment and the other, peanut butter based. I like a whole lot of each on my rolls. In other restaurants I notice that fresh rolls are served with one sauce and it is a peanut butter and hoisin sauce. I can’t tell which is more “authentic” but I don’t like this mixture at all–some flavor notes strike me as all wrong–but Wayne likes it. So the following are my sauce suggestions and you should mix them according to taste.

Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 2 TBS soy sauce (use gluten-free tamari for gluten intolerant eaters)
• 1-2 tsp white sugar (or agave or hoisin, to taste)
• 1 tsp chili garlic sauce

Sweet-Sour-Salty-Spicy Sauce (measurements are a suggestion–mix to your own taste)

• 2 TBS rice vinegar or lime juice or 1 TBS each
• 1 tsp white sugar dissolved in 1 TBS hot water
• 2 tsp soy or 1 tsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp chili garlic sauce or 1 fresh serrano chili pepper, sliced into discs
• 1 shallot sliced into discs or equivalent amount of thin sliced red onion