Colorful Spring Rolls with Creamy Garlic Peanut Sauce

Colorful Spring Rolls with Creamy Garlic Peanut Sauce (and a pep talk for health)

Taste the rainbow.  The colors in these spring rolls are from real,whole ingredients. Not to be confused with the toxic storm of chemicals coloring the product whose advertising campaign I just borrowed.

These spring rolls are going to help you do your job of providing your body with the quality of food it needs.

Imagine knowing that your body is functioning exactly the way it should be. Your immune system can handle any threat because it has been nourished from the cellular level. Makes you feel pretty badass, huh? That’s plant power!

Because here is the bottom line: the body that you are sitting in right now is the only thing that enables you to experience this beautiful life. Do us all a favor and take care of it, because we want you around for a long time!

You can add whatever ingredients you like. I used collard green, red pepper, carrot, cucumber, avocado, mushroom, cilantro, basil, and mint.

Baked tofu strips and vermicelli (skinny rice noodles) would be a great addition and are usually found in spring rolls featured in restaurants. Honestly, I just didn't plan these that far in advance. 

It is difficult to photograph these suckers (especially when you have zero photography knowledge) so you'll just have to believe me when I say these are beautiful in person. Because I added so many fresh herbs, there are a lot of strong flavors going on here. The sauce has raw garlic and ginger, so it has a bite to it as well. You could eliminate or scale back on those ingredients, but I love how each bite bursts with freshness and flavor! Another option would be to roast the garlic first. Mmmm... roasted garlic...

The sauce would also make an excellent salad dressing if it was watered it down just a bit! 

Colorful Spring Rolls with Creamy Garlic Peanut Sauce

Peanut sauce:

1/3 cup peanut butter

2 TBSP of each: rice vinegar, sesame oil, maple syrup

1 inch fresh ginger, minced

1-2 cloves fresh garlic, minced

Rolls:

5-15 sheets rice paper (depends on size and how full you like them)

Collard green leaves

1/3 cucumber

1 avocado

1/2 red pepper

2 carrots

2 mushrooms

Fresh herbs: basil, cilantro, mint

*Optional: baked tofu, vermicelli, sweet potato, anything else you can think of.

To make the sauce: blend all of the ingredients with a high speed blender until smooth and creamy. I used a NutriBullet, which is definitely not the most powerful high speed blender (I’m not in the Vitamix club), but works just fine for my needs.

To make the rolls: you will need to soften the rice paper sheets in warm water until they are pliable. Do this one at a time. Lay the sheet down on a flat surface to arrange chopped veggies and roll like a burrito. Whichever ingredients you put down first will be visible on top, so you can play with how you want them to look. I like to put the collard green down first and wrap everything else inside of it.
Garnish wish fresh herbs or sesame seeds.

Eat as much as you want and enjoy!