Success

I have lots of things I need/want to blog about - I've been away for a while. 

Amy told me she missed my blogging and knowing how much I appreciate her frequent blog posts that allow me to keep in touch with day to day happenings of her life I decided I needed to do better.

Thanks Amy!

So with many important things that have recently happened and are currently happening I choose to blog today about something kind of silly - food.

Years ago during a visit to Mesa, AZ my parents took us to a little Vietnamese restaurant they like. We started the meal with these wonderful Vietnamese spring rolls. Fresh veggies and herbs wrapped in a rice paper wrapper - cold and fresh - the mix of flavors was divine.
All the food was really good and despite my dad ordering some kind of soup with tripe in it
(I've seen him eat some disgusting things in my life but this was the kicker -
the owner wasn't sure if they had any on hand, people usually don't order it)
we really enjoyed the meal.

I have since tried to make them - 

actually I have been successful at making them in the past with a few challenges:

gathering the right ingredients - regular grocery stores don't carry the rice paper wrappers or the fish sauce for the sauce. Also buying fresh mint and basil from the grocery store is pricey!

And cutting the carrots and cucumber in tiny little matchsticks just about killed me. 

But I recently purchased a mandolin:

Where have you been all my life!?

The best $15.00 I've ever spent.

I had fresh mint and basil in my garden

(I will have to plant twice as much basil next year - the two plants just can't keep up)

and the slicing for seven (or eight) spring rolls was amazingly fast. 

I have to tell you too that tearing the basil and pulling stems on the mint leaves smelled HEAVENLY.

The recipe calls for shrimp but I used what I had on hand - imitation crab meat.

I also made some with no meat/fish at all and they were wonderful.

I'm not sure how many I ate but I am one happy camper.

Here is a link to the recipe.

I even made the fish sauce and it was just like the restaurant.

Except for not adding rice noodles, substituting the crab and adding avocado to some

 and using baby spinach instead of lettuce leaves.

I followed the recipe just like it's written

(Oh yea, I also soaked the rice wrappers a little longer to soften them)