Happy Thursday folks!

You may have seen this title and thought, wait, didn’t we already meet Sweet Heat Chefs already? You met half of the team of Sweet Heat Chefs in June when I interviewed Monica and if you remember, I was totally starstruck by her and her daughter. They have appeared on the Rachel Ray show and this week I am thrilled to introduce you to her daughter, Jasmine, a 12 year old with some serious cooking chops. I think at age 12, I was microwaving cheese and ham together and calling it cooking.

Moms, are you looking for ways to get your kids to eat veggies? Jasmine is going to share a great recipe for spinach chicken Thai wraps and I know I can’t wait to try these. Peanut sauce, spinach, and rice wrappers, two of my favorite foods and you get to play with your food. Can you beat that?

Without further adieu,

heeeeerrrrrreeeee’s Jasmine!

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I want to thank Kimberly for allowing me to share my love of cooking with her foodie friends. I want to thank my mom, Monica Mooney, for encouraging me to begin cooking and sticking with it when I wanted to quit. My name is Jasmine and my love of food and cooking began when I was around 2. My mom had me up on the counter mixing cookie dough and adding ingredients to the bowl as she went. As I got older, chopping and slicing came into my repertoire, and a few nicks here and there I eventually learned my lesson on how to do it correctly.

I would like to talk about some yummy Thai wraps that are so flexible you can change out the ingredients any way you like and make them to your own liking. That is the fun that you can have with your food.

You know the saying, “don’t play with your food?” Well my mom always told me TO play with my food. I have 4 other siblings and I think we all enjoy cooking and or helping out in some way in the kitchen because of my mom’s encouragement in that way.

Like a typical mom, as I know anyway, my mom is always trying to get her kids to eat more vegetables. I have to admit, I’m 12 and I don’t like too many vegetables. I know I should eat them and that they are good for me, I just can’t get past the taste of some of them (cauliflower being the WORST! Sorry mom I don’t like your roasted cauliflower 🙁 ) So, when my mom started putting spinach into different foods, I was rolling my eyes like the typical pre-teen. Yet when I tasted it…I actually liked it! Spinach is now one of my favorite vegetables and that is what inspired my Thai Chicken & Spinach Wraps making it a fun “Thaifusion” of flavor!

If you want to see more of mine or my mom’s recipes, you can visit us at:

Sweetheatchefs.weebly.com

https://www.facebook.com/SweetHeatChefs

Follow us on Twitter at: @sweetheatchefs

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Thai Chicken and Spinach Wraps with Peanut Dipping Sauce

Filling Ingredients:

1 bundle Saifun noodles
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, grated
1 garlic clove, grated
4 chicken breasts cut in half and diced in smaller than bite sized pieces, or ½ lb ground chicken
Salt/pepper to taste
½ can bamboo shoots, diced
½ can water chestnuts, diced
1 cup shredded, carrot
2 tablespoons soy sauce, low sodium
2 teaspoons sesame seed oil
2 cups washed baby spinach leaves
12 rice paper wrappers

In case you haven’t seen Saifun noodles before, here is what they look like:

saifun noodles raw

Peanut Dipping Sauce Ingredients:

4 tablespoons soy sauce, low sodium
¼ cup hot water
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, grated
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoons sesame seed oil
1 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter, your preference

Directions for Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Combine all ingredients, EXCEPT, the peanut butter and mix well. Using a whisk add in peanut butter and mix well. Refrigerate until the wraps are finished.

Directions for Thai Chicken & Spinach Wraps:

  • Take Saifun noodles and place in heat resistant bowl. Heat up 2 cups boiling water. Pour boiling water over noodles and cover, set aside.
  • Preheat skillet with 2 tablespoons coconut oil. Add garlic and ginger cooking only a few minutes so as not to burn garlic. Add chicken and salt/pepper.

    cooking ground chicken

  • Cook a few minutes until pink is almost gone, then add soy sauce, carrot, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts. Cook until chicken is cooked thoroughly.  Remove from heat and set aside.
  • Set out a bowl or pie dish (I used pie dish) large enough to fit 1 rice wrapper in it without bending. Fill with warm water.

    dipping rice wrapper in water

  • Take 1 rice wrapper, dip quickly in water making sure all of wrapper is wet, and place on a piece of wax paper that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray. The layers are as follows:

thai chicken wraps, first layer spinach

add ground chicken to the thai wraps

layers for Thai chicken wraps

The noodles don’t need to be drained at all; I just grabbed them directly out of the water as I made my wraps.

  • Roll the wraps as you would an eggroll and set aside on a plate.

plate of thai wraps

The rice wrappers get softer and stickier as they sit. After you dip it in the water quickly it will not be soft, do not dip again in water and be sure to roll quickly to avoid a sticky mess!

  •  Continue with the remaining rice wrappers or until all filling mixture is used.
  • Serve over coconut rice and a garnish with cilantro and the peanut dipping sauce.

 thai rolls with coconut rice

Change-out ingredients

You can use pork, beef, shrimp, salmon (my favorite) and even ground turkey as the meat

You can use Napa cabbage or bok choy instead of spinach

You could add onion, shallots, mushrooms and even celery

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Wow! I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to try these. I love how simple they are and at the same time, seem a little fancy with those rice wrappers.

So folks, were you cooking like Jasmine when you were growing up? What was your favorite thing to make?


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