Okay, so finally I have an actual cooking story to tell you! I feel like all the rest of the recipes I have tried went off without a hitch and I wasn’t able to give you a fun account of how it all went down … well, fear not my friends! This one was a bit of a doozy.

I’m not saying that to scare you away.

Really, I’m not …

But, this recipe is not the easiest one to accomplish though I think even if you mess up the first few steps, the end result is still pretty good. At least that’s how it was for me!

So the first step of this recipe is to make the inside concoction for the spring rolls. That would consist of garlic, tofu, spring onions, bean sprouts, and glass noodles. There are also a few seasonings thrown in there. You start by cooking up the garlic and oil, then adding the tofu to cook, then seasoning, adding veggies and noodles, a bit of water, and voila! You have your insides …

Things didn’t work that well for me.

I got the first part down … oil and garlic? I’m a pro.

Then I added the tofu, and it just wasn’t cooking right. I waited and waited and waited and it just wasn’t browning like it should. I think my heat wasn’t up high enough … so in the end, by the time my tofu was cooked, I think my garlic was a little crispy. Oh well, such is life.

Then you are supposed to add water and seasonings, also an easy step for most people. Well, remember I just said that I think my heat wasn’t up high enough? Well, toward the end I had turned it up to finish the tofu and didn’t turn it back down. The result? Adding water and causing a large billow of steam and probably oil that, if I wasn’t cooking outside, may have caused some issues in the house. Oops 🙂

I then added the veggies, which was all easy peasy, but they I didn’t quite know how to tell when they were done. Are the sprouts supposed to be really soft? What are the noodles supposed to look like? How do you tell if spring onions are finished? I guessed and took them off the stove after about a minute and a half.

So, step one, Complete!

The next step is to wrap the spring rolls. Oye. You need some skill for this.

Quick note, I cut my spring roll wrappers into quarters to make smaller rolls. This was mainly because the big package didn’t fit in my freezer, but also because this is how it was done in the cooking class. I wanted to follow directions as strictly as possible this first time around!

To wrap the spring rolls, you are supposed to lay a wrapper on the table with a point facing you, place a tablespoon of insides on it, roll over twice, put egg on the three remaining corners, fold the sides in, and finish wrapping. It sounds fairly simple … until you have too much or two little of the insides … or too much of the sauce from cooking the insides so it gets soggy … or not enough egg to make it stick … or so many other things.

Let’s just say, mine were U-G-L-Y.

Then you are supposed to drop them in the oil that you have been heating this whole time. Oops, forgot that until about halfway through, so by the time I finished, my oil still wasn’t hot enough. I’m impatient. I started anyway. I put one in as a tester just to see if it would work. I waited forever for that thing to be done! So much for avoiding a wait.

When that one finished, I took it out and put in all the rest. They all made it successfully into the oil, except the last one which I hurriedly dropped and splashed oil onto my favorite fisherman pants. Grrr. Not a happy camper.

Long story short, they cooked, and voila … spring rolls!

They didn’t look quite as good as they probably could have, but boy did they taste good! Paired with a sweet chili sauce, they are delish!!!

Needless to say, this was a bit of a cooking adventure, but the end result was still quite tasty. I urge you to give it a try!

And, I apologize. Given the craziness of this cooking attempt, I was unable to get pictures during the process. I was too scared of dropping my camera into the oil!

Next time, I promise .

So, here we go with the recipe!