Vietnamese Rice Bowls

Is it summer yet?

This is a perfect simple, healthy meal. It's easy to prep a bunch of the ingredients and eat these bowls for days, just baking the egg rolls and heating a portion of protein each time.

It's also completely customizable depending on what vegetables and proteins you have on hand. We will be trying a CSA this summer, and I'll have to keep this meal in mind when I have lots of veggies to use up.

The "Recipe": ("Recipe" is in quotations because I don't have any kind of helpful quantities to offer here)

Jasmine rice

Lots of sliced vegetables (this time I used cucumbers, carrots, scallions, and lettuce)

Protein (I like cubed tofu, tossed in olive oil and salt and baked at 350 for 40 minutes, or shrimp)

Nuoc cham (I mix water, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and chili paste to taste)

Peanut sauce (I like Cookie and Kate's recipe: 1/3 c peanut butter, 2 tb rice vinegar, 2 tb soy sauce, 2 tb honey, 1 tb sesame oil, 2 cloves garlic, and 2 tb water.)

Fried spring rolls, baked and sliced into 4 pieces

Optional garnishes: cilantro, fried shallots, chopped peanuts

Layer everything in a bowl, in the order listed above.
Eat.

The Verdict:
Overall grade: B+
Overall reason: Healthy, cheap, and pretty easy.
Time to prepare: About 1 hour, including baking tofu and cooking rice
Husband quote: "I'm out of clever things to say. But, well, it was good."

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