Spring Rolls

Ingredients:

· Cucumber, cut into matchsticks

· Carrot, cut into matchsticks

· Red cabbage, shredded finely

· Green onions, chopped finely

· Mint, basil or other fresh herbs

· Rice paper wrappers- can be found at local Asian supermarket

· Tofu, prepared how you like, sliced thinly (simple way to prepare is to coat lightly with cooking spray and sauté in skillet until slightly browned)

Instructions:

1. Soak rice paper wrapper in a shallow dish filled with water, until wrapper is pliable and transparent.

2. Arrange wrapper on a flat surface.

3. Place vegetables, herbs and tofu slightly off center of rice paper.

4. Roll rice paper over two times, until half way rolled, then fold other two sides over, on top of roll and continue rolling. (see image to right)

5. Enjoy with spicy almond sauce (see recipe below)

Spicy Almond Sauce

· 1 Tbsp. Almond butter

· 1 Tbsp. soy sauce

· 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

· 2 clove garlic

· 2 Green onions

· ¼ cup chopped Cilantro

· ½ cup water

Use blender to blend all ingredients to a sauce. You may add carrots, cucumbers, or vegetables if you would like to enrich the sauce.

A few weeks ago was session 14 of the community CHIP program. I can’t believe that we are over halfway through the program. The participants did their 6 week lab draw and I can safely say there was an improvement in every single participant’s lab results! The work this group has put into changing their lifestyle has been amazing! I am so lucky to be part of such a cool program.

The topic for session 14 was forgiveness, not only forgiveness of others, but forgiveness of ourselves. This is not an easy topic for people; I certainly have been working on this quite a bit myself lately. Health and wellness is not something that is always tangible, not always something we can reach out and touch, and is not always something that we can recognize from the outside. It’s not just the food and exercise; there is an emotional and mental aspect to wellness that often gets overlooked. The practice of forgiveness appeals to that emotional and mental well-being.

One of the participants mentioned at the meeting that forgiveness is not for the person being forgiven, it’s for the person who is doing the forgiving. I feel that this is so true, once you are able to forgive another, you are no longer living in that experience and you are free. That goes the same with forgiving yourself. So what, you ate 2 donuts today? That’s ok. Maybe you planned to exercise this morning, but wanted to sleep in instead. That’s ok too. We are too hard on ourselves. In a world with so much going on, why can’t we even rely on ourselves to be that one person that treats us with kindness and respect?

Every day we make thousands of decisions and some of those are not going to be the best, but if we start and end each day with acceptance and forgiveness, we may find that the world is a lot more beautiful.

I like to end my day by listing three things that I am grateful for or things that went well for me. This practice helps me reset and think positively for the day to come.

On top of discussing forgiveness, we also learned how to make spring rolls! I don’t know about you, but spring rolls are one of my favorite things to make, they are incredibly easy too! I have included a recipe for you to make your own below.