bringing food
I’m off to meet friends for lunch, and we’re each bringing food. Not everyone can come, though, so it’s a smaller group today. I enjoy preparing stuff to share for lunch, and often use the occasion to make things I wouldn’t usually make for myself. This is what I’m taking — it looks like a box of lettuce, doesn’t it? But it’s not.
Today I’m bringing rice-paper rolls — basically some prawns, noodles, and sliced salad veggies and herbs, rolled up in rice paper. They’re the perfect light snack or dish for summer.
I confess I do often make these for just me, but they’re fun to make and easy to transport. On-line websites say to wrap each roll in cling film, because they have a tendency to stick to each other, and the dish they come on, but I have my own method.
I like to avoid using cling film where possible — our bodies are already carrying too much microplastic — so I semi wrap them in lettuce leaves, tucking them in and around the finished rolls so they don’t touch. And afterwards you can eat the lettuce leaves.
Last time I made them to take to lunch, I forgot to bring the peanut sauce, and they weren’t as good with just soy sauce. But this peanut sauce is yummy, a little bit spicy, but not too hot I hope.
There’s quite a bit — I followed a recipe (sort of) this time, instead of my usual make it up as I go, and it made quite a lot. But I think it will taste pretty good drizzled on those extra lettuce leaves, so we’ll see. I don’t like to waste food, so if we don’t finish it, I’ll just have to make more rice paper rolls tomorrow.
I’m also bringing this — stuffed eggs with smoked salmon. I call them stuffed eggs, not devilled (or deviled) eggs because there’s no hot spice in the mix.) I’d already boiled the eggs before I learned that a couple of people had pulled out. Plus I wanted to use this very cute plate which has hollows in which the egg halves sit. It only sits six eggs halves, so I rarely use it, since I’m generally making them for more people. And others are also bringing food to lunch today, so we’re not going to go hungry.
So do you like rice paper rolls? Or stuffed eggs? What do you like to bring to a summer bring-a-plate.
Our family loves getting together for meals any time of the year but summer is especially fun when we can be outside and the kids can run and play. I love deviled eggs, but we call them that whether there is spiciness in the filling or not. Usually ours are more bland. I bring a pasta salad of my own creation that we all call summer salad, and we always greet it with, “Summer (some are) salad, summer (some are) not.”
It is nice to have inside, silly family jokes.
Thanks, Karri. I love the sound of your summer pasta salad and the ssspecial pronunciation your family gives it. I love it when families give special names for dishes. We called a minced steak dish my mother used to make “Scrumfus” — because that’s apparently what I said one time when I was three, that it tasted scrumfus. We also called the bowl with some mixture left over from making a cake — the sum. Or possibly the Some. Because when my brother was a little boy he used to loiter when Mum was making a cake and say “Can… Read more »
Hi Anne, I love your food-inspired newsletters and both the rice paper rolls and the stuffed eggs look pretty darn good. My preference is the rice paper rolls, which I confess never to have made, though I feel inspired now as I love peanut sauce and there are so many uses for any left-over sauce. I also hate wasting food and Bob never eats the crusts off loaves of bread. They’re the only bits I eat because why waste them? Yesterday I had lovely sweet tomatoes from my garden lightly sauteed with baby spinach leaves and spring onions, also from… Read more »
Thanks, Shelagh. The rice paper rolls are pretty easy, and lend themselves to all kinds of fillings. Check recipetineats for tips on rolling them. The first time I rolled them was years ago in a Vietnamese restaurant, with a dish called “sliced fish.” We were given a dish of lettuce, sliced apples, bean shoots and a plate of sliced ‘raw-but-cured -in spices fish and some dipping sauces.’ Can’t remember what else but we also were given a large bowl of warm water and a stack of rice paper. They showed us what to do, then left us to dip the… Read more »
It all looks so good. I love all those foods. I have never made the rolls, only had them at restaurants.
What to bring all depends on the season or the event and who will be there. I like to fix a medley of veggies in a salad, so it can be almost any combinations with various dressings. I am always asked to bring fruit pies or pecan pie to family festivities. We also have a favorite apple cake that shows up at almost every birthday. Most of my family prefer healthy foods rather than “junk” foods.
Thanks, Margot. Fruit pies are common enough here, but if anyone just says “pie” to an Australian, everyone will assume it’s a meat pie. <g> And yes, veggie salads are yummy. My nana made what she called an apple cake, but it was more like a slice, with a sweet pastry base, apples, a thin pastry topping and lemon icing. I have been trying to recreate it for years. It was delicious.