Helloo everyone, how was your Labor Day weekend (for those who are in the US) or how was your weekend (for non US residents).

As our current situation, we just stayed and chilled at home. The big highlight for mine was I made Vegan Spring Rolls and Baked Vegan Egg Rolls. 😀
But before diving into those stuff, I found out Tra at Trayn Harder gave me this Cherry Award! – THANKS TRA!

It’s my first time get an award, so not sure how things work. But I think I need to answer these questions:

1. If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, what would it be?
Hm, I admit this is a tough question to answer, because I have tons of things I want to change and can’t pick one. Anyway, I wish I could go back to the time when I was still in university, telling my old self to learn more skills so I could get a better job with a much better pay. Don’t get me wrong, my current job is decent enough and I’m lucky enough to still keep my job in this recession. However, I know I could do better. After graduating and star working, it’s really tough to actually go back and learn more stuff like in school.

2. pick 6 people and kill them. no, wait, not kill- let them know they got it. my bad.
Sagojyou, Jessica, Danielle, Ameena, Lynn, Averie.

3. thank your awarder.
Tra, thanks so much for this award!!! I love to read about your days with JC, your CrossFit workout and also your comments and support. And again, good luck with Arizona! 😀

Alright, let’s move on to the weekend recap, shall we?

So like I mentioned above I made Spring Rolls and Baked Egg Rolls. What are the differences btw?
Spring rolls are not deep fried nor baked. They usually made from rice paper, soaked in a water for a bit. The fillings can be ANYTHING that you want. First time I had spring rolls was when I went to Vietnamese restaurant.

Source
Typically, the fillings are: rice noodles, raw bean sprouts, cilantro, shredded raw lettuce and cooked meat (shredded chicken, shrimps, shredded beef). Spring rolls are usually eaten with plum sauce, hoisin sauce or even chili sauce.

I didn’t have time for those fancy fillings, so I made my own version: Vegan Spring Rolls. (All credits go to Averie for her creative raw food ideas)

The fillings are: Spring mix vegetables, shredded carrots, shredded cucumbers, shredded apples– All raw.

Speaking of eating raw veggies, my parents pointed out something to me: beware of those little larvae and worms lurking on the raw veggie leaves and also the pesticides. I’m not a big fan of buying organic veggies and such, so these are good things to know. So what’s the remedy for this?

Soak the veggies in the water bath, mixed with some baking soda and salt for about 5 minutes. Baking soda will remove the pesticides and salt will kill those larvae and worms! After that, just rinse it off and we’re good to go! Same thing can be applied to fruits as well: apples, peaches, grapes and any fruits that you’ll eat with the skins!

Eaten with this easy peasy peanut sauce. (Thanks Averie, again!)

I was such in a mood of rolling thru the long weekend, so the next day I made Baked Vegan Egg Rolls.
A little note: usually egg roll skin has some egg in there, but the one I got was totally vegan.
The ingredients were only: wheat flour, tapioca starch, salt and water (not exactly but that’s how I remember roughly). And mostly people deep fried egg rolls until they’re super crispy. I’m not a big fan of greasy food so I opted on baking them instead.

One thing about egg roll fillings: everything is COOKED, no raw stuff. So I saute the veggies (do not stir fry the rice noodles- soak them in water until it’s tender should do it. If the rice noodle is a bit hard, soak them in warm water instead – 5 minutes should be long enough).

I added canned garbanzo beans afterwards to boost up the protein.

Now the fun part, rolling them!

One thing I wish to change: I won’t use rice noodles next time. Since I baked the egg rolls, the noodles got dry and harden. The best fillings that I should have was shredded cabbages! Next time, I promise!

Also I want to share a little bit of my “energy saving” lifestyle. When I do laundry, I usually just air dry the clothes instead of using the dryer (except when washing the bedsheets and blankets- no space to air dry them, otherwise I would!).

My parents have this odd habit not using the shower head when showering. Instead, they filled up a bucket with warm water and use the ladle to splash the water to the body. At first I found that to be weird, but then I tried it and I was so surprised how much water we actually use when showering. Just imagine: when we use shower, we had to “throw away” the cold water before the water gets warm/hot. That’s a lot of water to waste. When filling up the water in the bucket, the cold water didn’t get waste, instead it mixed with the hot water thus we got a decent warm water for showering. Talk about saving water, especially living in this water drought SoCal.

My scratchy throat is still acting up and I still haven’t taken any cold medicine. Instead I’ve been drinking this herbal cough syrup.
It taste kinda sweet (loquat and honey?)- all natural stuff. Good for your throat. Just mix it with warm water and drink it. It soothes your achy throat.
I made a little twist by adding it into my morning oatmeal today instead adding the honey

Lunch for today:

Phew, this post took quite sometime to do. Now I’m off to do school paperwork for my brother. Yeah, I was writing this post, ate my lunch today at my bro’s university’s lunch room. I packed my lunch and ate here. And it was quite nostalgic to return here after not stepping back after I graduated. Lots of things have changed and I was quite impressed!

Laters!!

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