It’s official, we’re in Asia! Not yet “home” in Bali, but certainly well into our long journey to get there. Please excuse any sleep-deprived delusional writing — I'm headed straight to sleep in a recliner in Singapore once I press publish! We’ve spent the last week hanging out with my Dad in Hawaii. It’s nice to have an “excuse” to visit places like Hawaii! This trip looked similar to our others — lots of fish {ahi poke}, time on the paddle board, toes in the sand, hiking muddy trails — but with one major difference: IT RAINED! A lot. Hurricane Ana was slowly moving past the islands over the weekend, so we saw a huge dose of precipitation Saturday and Sunday. We didn’t let it stop us Saturday — we headed right out to the beach to watch the surfers and body-boarders get pounded by hurricane waves! We didn’t get in {um, duh}, but ended up just as soaked as they did due to the rain. Oh well! Sunday we played it a little bit safer and stuck to playing dominoes and reading inside with the kids. Works for me!
Monday was beautiful again, so we headed around the island to see the North Shore — one of my favorite activities when we visit Oahu. There was a swell coming in from the North, not hurricane-related, so Pipeline had some awesome waves and the guys (and one girl!) out there were certainly giving us a good show. I can’t imagine surfing waves THAT big… especially with a sharp reef right underneath. Ouch. We stuck to the soft, sandy shore with another bowl of poke, before continuing on our way around the island. Have I mentioned how much poke we ate?
After six weeks on mainland USA, we were glad to have a week in Hawaii to ease our transition back to Asia. We, once again, had rice with every meal. Lots of fish! Soy sauce! Asian herbs! We seriously ate all sorts of Asian food — Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean — and absolutely loved it. I missed Asian food at home, and it showed a bit in my cooking! These nori wraps were partially an effort to use up things we had in the fridge/garden/pantry, and partially an effort to get some seaweed and peanut sauce and Thai basil into our lives! Basically, a vehicle for those things. A delicious vehicle.
Our favorite use of nori is usually in quinoa sushi salad, which was a staple for us (and many of our friends) in Bozeman. The crumbled nori absolutely makes the salad! Frankly, I eat the stuff plain. It is so. darn. good! It’s a strong flavor, but perfectly salty and amazing. Having made sushi salad at my moms house, we had some leftover nori — so I figured I should wrap up some veggies and eat it! I sliced cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers together for the filling, along with some Thai basil and a quick, simplified peanut sauce. For a fresh, healthy, vegetable-rich lunch, this pretty much takes the cake. Plus, if you love spring rolls but hate the sticky rolling part of making them, this is WAY easier to assemble android casinos! Just make sure to spread some sauce on the far edge of the nori, which will act as a glue to keep the roll together. Brilliant!
I’m sure we’ll be spamming the heck out of instagram in no time, so make sure you’re following both Derek and I if you want to see what we’re up to! Hopefully we’ll have a house within the week, and quickly get settled into our new lives in Indonesia. First step: Learn Indonesian! More on that later! 🙂
Print
Nori Salad Wraps
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- Sauce
- ⅓ cup smooth peanut butter
- 2 Tbsp water
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- ½ tsp Sriracha (optional)
- Wraps
- 2 large cucumbers
- 2 large carrots
- 1 cup shredded red cabbage
- ½ cup fresh Thai basil
- 8 sheets nori
Instructions
- In a blender or food processor, combine the ingredients for the sauce. Pulse until completely smooth, then set aside.
- Cut the cucumbers into wide, long slices. Julienne or shred the carrots.
- On one end of a sheet of nori, arrange a small amount of each vegetable, along with a few leaves of Thai basil. Drizzle a little sauce over it all, and spread a thin layer of sauce on the opposite end of the nori. Roll the nori, starting from the side with the vegetables, ending with the the thin layer of sauce acting as a bonding agent to keep the wrap together.
- Repeat with all ingredients, and use extra sauce as a dip. Eat immediately.
Leave a Reply