the best homemade peanut dipping sauce for your spring rolls, noodles or salads

Yesterday I posted this recipe for grain-free sweet potato nacho bowls and today I'm posting this recipe for gluten-free veggie spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce that uses many of the same veggies as the nacho bowl so you can prep once and eat multiple times.  According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, produce prices are on the rise, big time, which makes letting your vegetable drawer grow moldy particularly annoying, wasteful and expensive!   Plus, a variety of colorful veggies is beneficial to reducing your risk of cancer, heart disease, accelerated aging, diabetes and weight gain. AND, these rolls are a fun way to get your kids involved in the kitchen and expose them to a variety of colorful vegetables and textures.

For the spring rolls:
1 carrot julienned or shredded
1 red pepper cut into thin strips
1 avocado, cut in thin strips
1/2 cucumber cut in thin strips
1 cup shredded cabbage prepared like this
1 handful cilantro chopped
1 handful lettuce chopped
1 package spring roll wrappers

For the "best homemade peanut dipping sauce":

1 Tbsp Hoisin sauce
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 glove garlic diced
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
2.5 tbsp tamari (gluten-free) or soy sauce
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
dash red chili paste or srirasha type sauce (to taste)
1 tsp ginger- grated or diced
2 tsp honey
crushed red pepper to taste/heat preference

Soak the rice paper wrappers according to package directions and load veggies on.  Roll like you would a burrito and lay seam side down on a plate.  Serve with peanut dipping sauce and enjoy!  PS, my 4 year old really enjoyed helping with this process and choosing which veggies to include in his roll.  So he just chose cucumbers, but hey, it's a start :)

I used the extra veggies in a layered salad dressed with the peanut sauce for lunch the next day and added a little flank steak.  Chicken, nuts or shrimp would also be a great addition to both the rolls and the salad.  (PS, for layered salads, be sure to put the lettuce and herbs on top so they don't get soggy :)