The Last (Summer) Supper

Apparently I'm really hung up on the season ending. I guess it's hard to avoid that I'm coming into a time of transition. Yesterday I went to orientation, met with my academic adviser and looked my grad school future square in the eyes. Right now I'm waiting (impatiently) for my registration period to start (at 3:00 this afternoon) so I can hopefully get the classes I want.

Tuesday night, the eve of my orientation, we had a chill night at the apartment, watching TV and making dinner. Photos from Tuesday are below. I just realized that if my phone didn't have a camera, I wouldn't have taken any of these.

Earlier in the day, we made it to Barton Springs! It was 194 degrees outside so the -25 degree water was perfect. At first I could only dip my toes in, but I eventually bit the bullet and went in the water.

Back at the ranch, EC chopped up a colorful array of veggies for a soy-ginger stir fry.

I think this was taken moments before she broke the spatula.

My contribution to dinner were these spring rolls, a recipe I learned from my former roommate and fellow vegetarian, Jenny. (See below for the recipe.) It's a really fresh, summer-time food. I didn't make too many so we'd have room for stir fry, but I think we both could have eaten twice as many.

Stir fry rainbow and accompanying seasoned tofu triangles.

Finished product.

Our small kitchen was trashed by the end of the evening, but it was messy in a satisfying, good-food-was-made-here, kind of way.

Tofu Spring Rolls
- rice paper
- firm tofu
- rice noodles
- assorted veggies, I like avocado, carrots, cucumber
- mint
- basil

Dipping Sauce
- soy sauce
- sesame oil
- garlic

This recipe is very flexible on portions. Last night I only made 4 rolls, but you can scale it up to as many as you'd like. The rice paper was hard to find (not at HEB, but at Central Market), and a safe bet would be getting it at an Asian grocery store. Cook the rice noodles ahead of time and rinse with cold water. Cut all the ingredients into stick-like shapes so they will fit well into the wrap. A little of the fresh mint and basil goes a long way, so I rip up 1-2 leaves of each per roll. The rice paper becomes soft in hot water, then put the ingredients in and wrap like a burrito. Refrigerate for a while, (~30 mins) so they are nice and cold when served. The sauce is roughly 5-6 Tbsp. of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp. of sesame oil and 1-2 minced cloves of garlic.

I would like my next cooking post to be an adventure of making gnocchi from scratch, but I'm not sure if that ambition will ever be met. For now I need to get out of the house because I'm just refreshing the registrar's website and watching my classes become waitlisted and closed...