My family has a mental defect. Why? Every black friday, we go shopping. We don’t do any of that doorbuster nonsense, but we do go shopping. To malls, shopping centers, that kind of nonsense.
On this black friday, we stopped by Ikea. Luckily, stuff from Ikea isn’t typically what makes for good holiday gifts, so it wasn’t very busy. Since it was lunchtime, we had to stop for a meal at their cafeteria. Moms got the shrimp sandwich and some potato soup. I’ve had the shrimp sandwich before and yes, it’s good. It’s got a freakishly large dollop of mayo, but otherwise, good stuff. The soup was also pretty good.
As for the rest of us, we all went with swedish meatballs. C’mon, we’re at freakin Ikea, we’ve gotta get the meatballs! I don’t know what it is about these that makes them so damn tasty. I just can’t help myself. They always come with lingonberry jelly. I got mine with some mac and cheese too, cuz y’know, I love me some mac and cheese. I always make myself a lingonberry juice spritzer when I’m there. Oh so good. And man, the food here is so damn cheap. And there’s no lunch prices and dinner prices. It’s just Ikea prices all the time. If I was homeless, I would totally eat here all the time.

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.