Ancient Chinese Secrets

Every few months, my husband and I get together with a group of friends for a dinner party.  Years ago, someone in the group wrote down the names of lots of countries on different little slips of paper and put them in a container.  Each time we meet, the next country is drawn at the end of the night.

It's not an outrageous amount of work for anyone, no matter how many people come, because everyone brings a dish.  We end up with tons of food, and everyone learns a little something about the dishes from the selected country.

So for China night, I decided to make Spring Rolls.  I'm not a big fan of fried foods, so there was no cooking involved.  Just some chopping, wetting, and rolling.  I have to admit, a cheated a bit and got my dipping sauce from Pei Wei, because in my opinion, theirs is the best.  And I go there often enough that they were happy to give me loads of it for free!  Yay!  I love free!

I boiled some rice noodles and used those, along with chopped  cucumbers, carrots, peanuts, baby shrimp, and cilantro.

Then I took these spring roll wrappers, and soaked them (one at a time!) in hot water until they became soft and very bendable.

The final step was to put those chopped ingredients in the middle of the wrapper and roll things up neatly and tightly.  And voila!  (Altho, I don't think that is the proper Chinese word...) 

I have to admit, I was so tired of assemblage that I had to lay down for a short nap after I was all finished!

Which left my husband completely on his own for the making of the home-made fortune cookies.  I was so impressed by his work!  I don't know exactly what recipe he followed, but I know it involved some sugar, egg whites, cornstarch, vanilla and almond extract, and perhaps a few other ancient Chinese secret ingredients. 

The country selected for our next dinner party is Mexico.  So guess who's hosting? The Arista's~  Ole!