Vegetarian Spring Rolls

Tonight's dinner (not pictured) was a comedy of errors, without any of the redeeming comedic value. (Meat gone off, a burned sauce, boiling water spilled on my tummy...) I started my evening tired, hungry and not feeling that well, and now I've lost two hours, am still tired, still hungry, still don't feel well, AND I have a burned stomach. Plus a sink full of dishes to wash. Sigh.

I've not been updating to much this last while, which maybe means I'm getting tired of this and it's time to give up. Or maybe it means that I've not been happy with anything I've been making. Or maybe it doesn't mean much of anything. I don't know.

I think I've mentioned that I'd been feeling unwell for a while, well, I finally went to a doctor about it, but I'm not really convinced that his diagnosis really was the whole story. The medication I've been taking hasn't really been helping. I suppose I need to go see someone again, but I have a hard time going to clinics about things that feel wishy-washy to me - vague discomforts (I can't really call them pains, but they're so constant that it's worse than just a short sharp pain would be) to me don't lend themselves to visits to a clinic. They want Symptom A + Symptom B = Diagnosis X, leading to Treatment Y, and Patient Z out the door. I wish I could find a doctor taking new patients. Preferably not an old doctor, either, because that would be just my luck that I'd start seeing someone and s/he'd retire.

Anyway, these vague discomforts are mostly related to my stomach and the treatment I was given was Prevacid, so if I've got a problem with stomach acid, that means I should be more careful about what I'm eating. I've not felt inspired by food in a while.

Still, I finally got around to making spring rolls the other day. I don't know that I did a very good job - it seems like there should maybe be more filling so the rice wrapper isn't layered so thick and one of the spring rolls I made had a lot of tears in it by the time I got it on the plate. Still, these were really tasty - the vegetables are bright and fresh and came alive with garlic and cilantro and serrano pepper. It was really spicy (I should be avoiding that... didn't seem to bother me, though) but pretty spectacular tasting. I've got enough rice papers left to make spring rolls every day for the rest of eternity, so I'll definitely have to try it again.

A few days prior to the spring rolls, I made healthy meatloaf. This meatloaf probably had pretty equal amounts of meat and vegetables in it - finely diced mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, and red pepper, as well as rolled oats.

It's not the most tasty looking thing, but it was really delicious, especially as leftovers with a bit of cheese melted over and a puddle of ketchup and mustard for dipping. I served it with mashed sweet potatoes, which I found tasty but too strange to want to eat often, and sautéed snap peas (delicious!) I've got most of the leftovers in the freezer, so I'll definitely be eating this again, and will probably make it again someday if I'm in the mood for comfort food.

Even though they're completely different meals, this sort of looks samey, doesn't it? I made this a few days prior to the meatloaf. It's just salmon in a very simple marinade of (mostly) orange juice and ginger, and the glaze was quite tasty, though most of it cooked away. I severely overcooked it though and didn't eat very much of the salmon because it was so dry.

And that's the backlog. Enjoyable, all. Shame I didn't get to eat any of them tonight, instead of my trashed stir-fry beef with snow peas and tomatoes...