My younger sister and two of my nieces love spring rolls. I have never really liked the taste of ready made vegetarian spring rolls, always preferring the home made ones.  I tend to make them in a large batch and freeze them so as they are ready to have when ever I want to make a complete Chinese meal. There are many different versions I have made. Out of them it is the Thai and Chinese versions that I truly enjoy.

Some of the dishes we learnt at a very early age, used to be at the ladies club. We used to meet up on a regular basis and food, flower arranging, house hold tips etc. used to be demonstrated. This is where we learnt how to assemble spring rolls, I remember when my mother and sisters used to do it all together, like a production line. Now when I make them on my own I have fond memories of how we used to listen to music and were gently coaxed into making sure we have enough paste and roll it tightly. After a few broken ones, we got there in the end Of course it is much easier now that we buy the ready made frozen pastries, as opposed to rolling them out ourselves, which is where we started – Oh the joys and convenience of ready made items to make cooking life easy

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If you look at the complete menu for a Chinese meal in our house, then you see sweetcorn soup, spring rolls, and stir fry with either rice or noodles. This was also the standard order when ever we used to go out to eat in Malawi. That used to be the set menu we would get, probably because that was all the vegetarian option that was available.  I remember how we used to keep on adding more pepper to the soup because that is what  our father did, and then as we got older adding the garnish also just like he did. The chilli in the vinegar gives it an added flavour and depth to the taste especially if you like the slightly tangy and spicy flavours. Just simple tastes and natural flavours, this is what you get from this soup, not to mention the health benefits of the key ingredient itself. Sweet corn is rich in vitamin A & C and folate and magnesium. Cooked sweet corn is said to become rich in antioxidants and believed to help fight cancer and heart disease, however you loose the vitamin C.

I don’t know why I don’t make it with out having the other Chinese dishes, as it is such a quick simple recipe and can be eaten with bread or rice crackers. Oh well will have to try and remember next time I am looking for a healthy filling snack

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