Vietnamese Spring Rolls

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  If your family is anything like mine, you are probably deliciously full and feeling slightly guilty about the amount of food you ate.  But mostly happy.  However, if you are looking for something a little bit lighter to serve at your New Year's function, or you just want something that doesn't require hours of preparation, this might be a nice change of pace for you. 

Spring rolls are great because there's really no rule about what you're not allowed to put in it, so you can customize it depending on what you have in your fridge or pantry.  All you need is to get these two things from your local Asian grocery store:

Spring roll wrappers

And rice vermicelli.

Okay, here we go.

-1 package spring roll wrappers
-2 cups cooked vermicelli, drained and cooled
-1/2 head of iceberg lettuce, shredded
-1 carrot, shredded
-1 ½ cups shrimp, cooked
-a few handfuls of parsley, chopped


Best thing to do is have all your veggies, vermicelli, and any other ingredients ready nearby before handing and assembling the rolls. 

Here are the vermicelli, which you can just boil as instructed on the back of the package.

 Carrots.

Iceberg lettuce.

Shrimpies.

Parsley.

Ready to assemble?  The spring roll wrappers themselves are often sold as these translucent sheets.  They aren't hard to work with, but they do have to be handled decently carefully, like eggs. 

Neat, huh?

Soak them in warm water, and they become these soft blankets that you can work with.  The brownie pan worked perfectly for this size.

Here we go.

Here's what it looks like when they're soft. 

Lay the wrapper on a flat surface, then start lining up your ingredients.  First a row of vermicelli.

Add some carrots for color.  This is something i learned from making kimbop.  Color variety is everything.

And...everything else.  Don't be shy about piling it on.  But notice how they are sorta gathered on the side closer to me?  And there is about 1/2 an inch of space from the edge on either side? 

 

That is because you wanna fold those sides in.  Fold in the sides...

Then roll the rest of it up.

There we go!  Place them seam-side down on a non-stick surface (you might lay down some saran wrap or even spray the bottom of a pan.  Just in case.

There are lots of sauces you could serve this with, but I kinda kept it simple because I was (surprise) running late to a function I was going to.  So I made a simple Korean-ized sauce of soy sauce with vinegar as the dip.  And that's it!  

Enjoy!  Have a Happy New Year!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Drop Lace Cookies

This past weekend, I celebrated my 2#th birthday with some good friends of mine.  I decided to make these drop lace cookies as one of the desserts.  I found this recipe in my Real Simple magazine, and i thought it was so snowflake-like and lovely that I absolutely had to make it! 

Ingredients (24 cookies):
-1/2 stick butter
-1/4 cup white sugar
-1/4 cup light brown sugar
-2 tbsp heavy cream
-1/3 cup pecans, super chopped
-1/4 cup flour
-1 tsp kosher salt

1.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Melt butter in small saucepan. 

2.  Add white and brown sugars and stir until dissolved. 

Bring to boil.  Add heavy cream.

3.  Remove from heat, then mix in pecans, flour, and salt.

4.  Spoon small spoonfuls (I used the 1/2 tbsp spoon) onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Using a Silpat works really nicely, I found.  I got one for my birthday, which was perfect timing :).  I did one batch on parchment paper, and another on the baking mat, and the baking mat totally won.

Oh, and by the way, the batter will melt and flatten in the oven, so space the balls of "dough" apart at least 4 inches.

5.  Bake 5 minutes, then rotate pan, and bake for another 4 minutes.  I was all frazzled so i forgot to take pictures of these particular intermediate steps.  So sorry :( 

6.  Remove from heat, and place cookie sheets on cooling racks.  Aren't they really neat looking?

It's like a baked caramel, almost.  The pecans add a nutty crunch that is quite delightful!

Once they cool a bit, they become hard and somewhat brittle.  You can pick it up.

Delicious!  They are really light, delicate, and looks like it was way harder to make than it actually was.  Try these for your next holiday party!  And thanks to Real Simple for such a delightful recipe :)

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Spicy Cornbread Casserole

About a year ago, I participated in a recipe exchange that got me tons of yummy recipes from random strangers.  One such recipe was a Cornbread Casserole, which a woman named Jill sent to me.  I decided to make it for a potluck last week, and, because I am who I am, I spiced it up a bit with green chilies.  I would have added jalapenos, but I didn't want it to be too spicy for the, er....weaker crowd.  Just sayin'.  My level of spiciness doesn't seem to correspond to other people's level of spiciness.  That word looks strange.  Spicyness.  Spicy-ness.  Spicy Ness.  Whatever.

This is a truly easy recipe that took little time and little money :)  Try it out, it is a great dish!

Ingredients:
-1/3 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup oil
-1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix
-1 8oz package of sour cream
-1 can corn kernels, whole
-1 can creamed corn
-1 small can green chilies (or chilis in adobo, mmm)

Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix sugar, eggs, and oil in large mixing bowl. 

Here we go!

Okay, now get your box of Jiffy corn muffin mix.  You might be jealous to know that I am personally friends with (as in, she's invited to my wedding) the heiress of Jiffy.

Here is the corn and green chilies.  The corn kernels add a bite to the cornbread, while the creamed corn helps maintain the richness of the casserole.

Creamed corn.

Whole kernel corn.

Now it's time to add the sour cream.

You might wonder how I'm able to hold a container with one hand, scoop out the sour cream with another hand, and also take the picture.  This is how.  I prop things in place to make it look like i have a mysterious third hand.

I think sour cream does such interesting things when used in baking.  I can't eat it straight, but I love what it does to the texture of foods like this. 

Now time to add the chilies.  The next time I make this, I will add chopped up chilies in adobo to make it even spicier.  This is good enough for now :)

There we go!

Pour batter into a 13x9 casserole dish...

And bake it for 45 minutes or until inserted chopstick comes out clean.

Tada!  It's a wonderful, cost-efficient dish that makes a very easy side for any meal.   Thanks, Jill, wherever you are, for such a yummy recipe! 

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

What better way to kick off a renewal of SSUR than this sweet and salty combination that has become hugely popular in the last few years?  When you take something as rich and often blindingly sweet as caramel and then cut it with the shock of sea salt, you really have a killer combination.  I decided to celebrate this union in the form of a cupcake.

The culprits. 

Ingredients:
-1 box chocolate cake mix plus eggs, oil, and water you need for the mix
-1 small box instant chocolate pudding mix
-1 jar of caramel topping
-sea salt, coarsely ground

1.  First, make the cupcakes as instructed on the box.  Except, you will add a package of pudding mix into the batter to make the cupcakes extra moist.  It's soooo worth it...you'll get some really fantastically springy and delicious cupcakes.

I also ran out of cupcake liners, so I made some out of squares of parchment paper.  They make the cupcakes look like they're from a cafe.

Pour in the lovely batter.

2.  Here are the done cupcakes!  And how cute does my cupcake oven mitt look holding a cupcake?!  My friend Dani made this for me to accompany my tailor-made apron, also in cupcake print.

Let these babies cool.  That's important.

Okay, here's where you can do one of two things.  You could just top the cupcake with the caramel and salt and be done with it.  Watch this caramel action sequence.

Ooooooey gooey caramel!

Another thing you can do is cut a 1" hole in the top of the cupcake and remove the inside.

Pop!

3.  Drizzle a good spoonful of caramel into the center, and add a pinch or two of sea salt.

See that pool?  It won't stay like that for too long...the cake will absorb it.  But that's perfect :) 

I love this sea salt grinder. 

4.  Replace the top (kinda lopsided for fun) and drizzle more caramel.  Add another pinch of salt. 

This is really quite fun.

You can even top it with some frosting and add a caramel square on top, but since I don't like frosting and the caramel is sweet enough, I left it as is.  I also liked how they tasted after the caramel has kinda soaked through the super-moist cupcake.  Enjoy!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.