So my mom’s been making these spring rolls lately, and yes, I truly believe they’re going to make her famous. There isn’t one person who’s tried them that hasn’t fallen absolutely in love with them. And how could you not love them? They’re f’in lovely. And delicious. And healthy.
Above are all the ingredients to my mom’s version. I make the much more standard vietnamese version with noodles, shrimp, cucumber, carrot, cilantro, and sprouts. Well, my mom hates cilantro so she would never make anything with those. Instead, she incorporates red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers, avocado, spring mix, vermicelli noodles, shrimp, and imitation crab legs. They’re a sight to behold. The colors are amazing.
The worst part about making these is really getting all the innard ingredients ready. There’s just tons of julienning and slicing and dicing that has to happen. But once that’s all done, putting them together is actually a piece of cake. And you don’t really have to cook anything, other than the noodles and the shrimp.
The wrappers themselves are dry and once you either run them under hot water or soak them in hot water, they become all rubbery. You lay all the ingredients in the middle and then roll up the little suckers. It’s really as easy as that.
And voila, you have a plate full of these gorgeous handfuls of fresh, crisp, healthy goodness.
Gah, I could literally eat a dozen of these at a time. Yes, I know they’re supposed to be an appetizer, but seriously, I could make them into a meal, and any meal of the day. For whatever reason, the dipping sauce of choice for these is just straight out of the bottle sweet chili sauce with a little bit of sriracha thrown in there (however spicy you want it). When I make my regular viet version of springn rolls, I stick with the hoisin/peanut variety of sauce, but for the mom version, trust me, sweet chili sauce with the sriracha is all it needs.

My family doesn’t really do much for thanksgiving. It’s never been a big holiday for us, and we’ve never really gotten together with extended family for it. At least not for at least 15 years. This year wasn’t much different. Just my moms, bro, and sis-in-law eating well, let’s face it, a very schizophrenic thanksgiving dinner.
I told you we didn’t go traditional, but we had to have turkey. I really do like turkey a lot, so this had to be included. And heck, let’s throw in a ham while we’re at it.
In addition to other non-traditional random foods, we had kalbi and some of these shrimps that my mom had marinated with lemon and lime juice, tons of garlic, and some parsley. The only annoying thing was that she left all the shells on. Totally wished she would have peeled em. There was tons of other food too, including some delish spring rolls, but more on them later. It was so much food that when I saw the table, my immediate reaction was “who’s gonna eat all this food?” But I guess that’s what thanksgiving is all about.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday season, whatever you celebrated. I celebrated by stuffing my gourd… no different than every day really. I was down in Baltimore earlier on xmas day, and I was being lazy, so I got to my aunt’s a bit late for dinner. But luckily for me, there was still some food left, and my aunt, being the loving aunt that she is, guarded some of the chinese dumplings for me. Since after all, I was the one that asked her to get them.

My mom totally surprised me by making these funky fresh spring rolls. They’re like the vietnamese ones, but with far more ingredients stuffed in, including: avocado, mixed greens, red and green bell peppers, shrimp, fake crab. They do not include cilantro, mint, or sprouts. But damn, these were good! Instead of the hoisin/peanut based sauce, she made a dipping sauce by using sweet chili sauce (just the simple bottled kind) and squeezing some sriracha in it, to make it even more spicy. I’m going to have to add these to my spring roll repertoire.

Those shrimp look sad and greasy, but they were not. And here are those fine fine dumplings that I love more than just about anything. Even after sitting out awhile, they still tasted great. And I promptly stuffed at least half a dozen in my mouth. There was kalbi, of course, but I did not partake. There was also some shrimp lo mein, with the biggest shrimp I’ve seen in awhile. After stuffing our gourds, we exercised the food away by playing wii until the wee hours of the evening…