Goodbye, July! . . .

In July, I discovered Vietnamese rice paper wraps (mine were 12 for around $2.00 at the local Asian market) and felt pretty cool, hahaha!

Underneath the thinly sliced cucumber, couple small pieces of garden kale and chard, a sprinkle of bagged salad mix, chopped mint leaves and thinly sliced peaches, is a softened rice paper. 

Here they are all wrapped up and about to be dipped in a dipping sauce of peanut butter, milk and hoisin sauce (see below). I really enjoyed them, they are a little chewy but not to a point of distraction for me. Next I saw a recipe where you fill with a tofu/mixture, double wrap them and fry them in a pan along with a different dipping sauce.

You see...yes, from the person that does NO social media other than looking at my Nextdoor App checking the sales and lost dog situations...I've discovered the tiktok world of the 50 and older set. Which means to me, watching a zillion cooks, chefs and gardners to my heart's delight.  Unfortunately, like all the rest of those things, it's true that one can easily lose an hour with all the scrolling. But, I've got some great recipes to try out of it and I'm not really someone that can sit on that phone scrolling away all that much anyway!

Much of the garden is doing great for the most part (the pumpkins, gourds and some tomatoes though are not enjoying all the rain this summer, well, kinda like my roof, anyway, slow development there). I've been really enjoying an eggplant/yellow squash saute I've been making these days. I sprinkle them with kosher salt, pepper and garlic powder and let them set while I chop up the home grown green onions (that's been exciting for me this year), mince a little garlic, kale, chard and various herbs. Today it was thyme, yesterday it was tarragon. often it's parsley since I have a lot. Then I throw them into a pan of olive oil and a little butter. I'll tell you what friends. WOW!

What's hoisin sauce made of?

The key ingredient of hoisin sauce is fermented soybean paste. Some hoisin sauce ingredients include starches such as sweet potato, wheat and rice, and water, sugar, soybeans, sesame seeds, white distilled vinegar, salt, garlic, red chili peppers, and sometimes preservatives or coloring agents.

Now you know!

(-: