Month 7 day 15: Asian-inspired sandwiches and spring rolls

Today I wanted to make Saveur's Jiyou Jun Bao Ji. But Shaw's didn't have four of the ingredients, so I realized that was a no go (ok, so they did have dried chanterelle mushrooms, but 1 lb fresh ~ 3 oz dried which would have cost over $20. So, no).

Instead, today I made:
Asian-style veggie rolls, Cooking Light August 2010
Peanut-sauced chicken pitas, Cooking Light August 2011

These two recipes go well together, because they both contain a lot of the same fresh vegetables. So it takes a while to wash and cut everything, but once you do it's just mixing-and-matching, and no cooking.

When I was in Japan, a few of my friends and I made the "Shimizu Cooking Club." If I recall correctly, it was because our friend Mark was hopeless in the kitchen, and we wanted to help him learn a thing or two. Basically, we each took turns planning a 3-course menu, and then we'd gather at someone's house and make it and eat it together. It was a lot of fun. One of the members can make some great, authentic Vietnamese food, so among other things she taught us how to make spring rolls, with either shrimp or boiled pork in them. Spring rolls are great, but they're always so expensive to buy, so I thought I would make them again.

But Linna would be so disappointed in these...

I think I got a little too greedy with the amount of stuffing. The wrappers ripped and the ends couldn't even fold in to contain everything!

Halfway through, these rolls decided they would become a salad instead.

 Fine, have it your way. Tomorrow I guess I will have the leftovers as a salad too, since I don't think a premade one would hold up overnight and it might be a little obnoxious to be rolling spring rolls in the lunch room :-P

These were fine, but I do think spring rolls are better with some shrimp or pork in them! Or I needed to be a little more heavy-handed with the dipping sauce. As it was, there wasn't a whole lot of flavor, just the mint and cilantro basically. But still, they are very fresh and have good crunch.

These pitas were easy to make, as they started with precooked rotisserie chicken and are flavored by jarred peanut satay sauce. Other than that, they essentially have the same cut vegetables as the spring rolls.
This was good, but the peanut satay sauce jar costs like $4 and apparently is only good for 3 days after opening! I guess I will try to freeze it or something.