There are 46 days until school starts again. That’s right, I am counting down already. Some folks would say that I need to live in the now and not be looking forward to future events; that I will miss the joy in life because I am not satisfied with the present. I am not in danger of that. No, I am actually having a very nice, quiet summer. We go to the library, we go to the pool, the kids play at friends’ houses, friends come here. That is what the problem is. I have let so many things slide because we are in vacation mode.
Having school start again will get me back into the routine that I enjoy most. I like having a set time to wake up and go to sleep. I like knowing when my kids will be here or not. Instead, summer has us staying up late, sleeping in, eating whenever we feel like it. The kids are coming and going and coming and going. It’s got so that at least once a day, I turn to one of my kids and ask, “who’s home?”This laid back life is really eating into my blogging, too. During school, I usually have five to ten foods made and photographed ahead of time. Right now, I am barely keeping up. With no school schedules or homework worries, you’d think that I would be cooking all day. The lure of the community poolside has been too much to resist.
I am hoping that confessing how little I am cooking this summer will be the first step in getting back on track. Becoming one of the Devo Divas has been another step. Each month, I will receive a couple of flavored olive oils or balsamic vinegars from Devo Olive Oil to use in a recipe or two.
In anticipation of the Fourth of July, this month I received a red, white and blue trio of vinegars: apple, coconut and blueberry. My imagination went all over the place. I came up with a cold Blueberry Chicken Rice Bundle with a Blueberry Balsamic Sauce. I had not worked with rice spring roll papers before. They are gluten free, however, so I want to use them more.
1. Info for Blueberry Chicken Rice Bundles
- Cook Time: unavailable
- Total Time: unavailable
- Servings: unavailable
- Calories: unavailable
2. Ingredients for Blueberry Chicken Rice Bundles
- 2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
- 2 cups fresh blueberries
- 3 ribs celery, cut into four inch matchsticks
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 sweet onion, sliced
- 2 cups cooked rice
- 8-10 rice spring roll wrappers
- Sauce
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 4 Tbsp blueberry balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp honey
- 2 tsp fresh lime juice
- 1 tsp thyme
- ⅛ tsp Tabasco sauce
3. Directions:
- In a small skillet, heat 1 tsp olive oil.
- Cook onion in oil until caramelized.
- Set aside.
- Make sauce by sauteing the garlic in the 2 tsp olive oil for two or three minutes.
- Add the blueberries, stirring constantly as the berries heat and pop.
- Add the remaining ingredients and bring the sauce to a boil.
- Lower heat and simmer until the sauce thickens.
- To assemble the bundles, soften the rice wrappers, one at a time in a bowl of warm water.
- You want about ¼ cup of filling, so put a little chicken, blueberries, rice, onions and a couple of celery sticks in the center of a wrapper.
- Spoon on a little sauce and then fold two side of the wrappers over the filling.
- Roll up the wrappers like an egg roll.
- Serve more of the sauce on the side for dipping.
