I’ve been on school holidays for exactly 1 week – although that includes a weekend and a public holiday, so I’ve had 4 days of no work. The weather has been stunning, and I’ve been a mixture of busy and relaxed – doing personal admin bits, as well as simply binge watching Netflix shows. Life is tough as a teacher on holiday….

Over the course of the past week, I’ve noticed that I’ve had a lot of vegetarian food. My meat intake has been minimal, and I’ve got a fridge-full of vegetables that need using. Luckily I have recipes for all of them. Some of which will go up on the blog, and others which won’t.

My first big cook of the week was Loaded Miso Noodle Soup, from The Colorful Kitchen cookbook by Ilene Godofsky Moreno. As the recipe is not on the blog, I don’t have the right to print it on here – but if you buy Ilene’s cookbook, you’ll be making it in no time. I never used to be a fan of miso soup, but the other day I had it at a restaurant as part of a tasting menu, and I enjoyed it. Plus, Ilene’s noodle soup is reminiscent of the chicken noodle soup that we were all fed when we sick. Packed full of nutrients, it is a truly comforting dish.

But that’s not why we’re here today. Whenever I go to a Vietnamese restaurant, I always want to order the fresh rice rolls – meat, seafood or veggie. They’re delicious. The combination of flavours is always spot on. The beauty of these rice rolls is that you can basically add anything you want in to them, there’s no real rules. You just need everything to fit and roll up tightly in the rice wrap.

So, I decided to make rainbow rolls, using colourful vegetables, and dipping them in a sweet chilli sauce (from a bottle, sorry I didn’t make it myself).

They tasted great, but I could have done with some purple cabbage, or slices of mango to take it that next step further. What can I say – there’s nothing wrong with trying out a different combination of flavours every time I make these rolls. They’re so easy to make – the hardest part is all of the vegetable prepping before you start wrapping.

Ingredients

8 rice paper wraps
1/2 yellow pepper, julienned
1/2 red pepper, julienned
1 cup grated carrot
1 avocado, julienned
sweet chilli sauce

1. Line up all of the vegetables on a wooden board, or counter, in order to make it easier to put all of the ingredients together.
2. In a bowl wide enough for the rice paper wraps, add enough water to soak the rice paper wraps.
3. One at a time, soak the rice paper wraps in the water for about 15 – 20 seconds; until the wraps are pliable but not too soft. Place the wrap on a wooden board to fill.
4. Slightly off centre, add some of the grated carrot, yellow and red peppers and avocado.
5. Folding in the bottom and top of the wrap, tightly roll the rice paper into a spring roll shape, ensuring all of the vegetables are kept neatly inside.
6. Repeat for all of the rice paper rolls, and serve with the sweet chilli sauce.

You can use thick chilli sauce, or a slightly thinner dipping sauce.