Holiday eats 2007

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...