Super Healthy and Super Fun Thai Fresh Rolls

This has got to be Melanie and I's favourite thing ever. Thai Fresh/Cold Rolls. So one rainy Saturday afternoon, we decided to make them at home ourselves.

So they turned out pretty good. Not restaurant good, but hey! They are delicious, nutritious, and soooo healthy, nothing fried or fast about this... they take a while to prepare, but it's worth it. Definitively a weekend adventure.

 This is what you'll need:
Rice paper, found in the Asian aisle of your local market.

Optional.... (well everything from her on out is optional as you can place whatever you like in them). I like the thin little vermicelli rice noodle. You will need to soften these up. So put them in a glass bowl and pour some boiling water over them and let them sit there until they become soft.

Now, here is my 'mise en place'- that's a French culinary term I'm throwing your way. It's real important here, you need to chop up and have all your ingredients ready to go. We like, some chopped cooked chicken, vermicelli rice noodles, chopped carrots (bought in a bag), cooked chopped egg, chopped cilantro (my absolute favourite herb in the world), thinly sliced cucumber and crispy bean sprouts. The crisp factor is important here, it's a nice contrast to the soft rice paper/noodles and eggs/chicken.

 Here's the fun part folks!!! The rice paper. It comes out of the package pretty rigid.

As demonstrated by my sous-chef Melanie, you need to soften up. Take a pie plate and add some luke warm water, place the rice paper in there until it's soft and pliable. About 1 minute. Our method was to place a sheet in the water as we started working on wrapping the next roll.

This is how we did it:
Place the wet rice paper, careful, it's sticky! Place the vermicelli about 1/4 of the way down the paper.

 Then pile on the rest of the ingredients. Roll up the rice paper over the ingredients and then fold the sides into themselves and roll all the way up.

 Et voila! Easy peasy!

 Here's Melanie (scary face and all), loving to get the fingers wet to start the process.

 Here's our little dipping sauce- this really kicks it up a notch! Delicious, sweet chili heat!

 Here's our attempt, a little misshapen and very different sizes, maybe not ready for the big time restaurant kitchens... but heck, they were delicious and so much fun to make with my little girl. Healthy, Happy and filled with cilantro! What more can anyone ask for?