Sushi Tuesday

Adam and I started a new fun thing together: Sushi Tuesday. We love sushi-- who couldn't love fish and veggies with the health benefits of nori? Yum! Its pretty easy and something we can do together-- and we can do any fun combo when we do it ourselves without worrying about paying $12 a roll (more like $1/roll).

There are some specialty things that are needed to pull this off. First, a bamboo roller. I think I got one at whole foods for $2-- it is the tool used to make the sushi into a perfect roll. Also, nori-- you eat this as part of the sushi and I also got sheets of it at Whole Foods. The rest is fairly basic: Jasmine rice (cooks faster and is cheaper than other rices), sugar, typically rice vinegar but we have experimented with this too, veggies, fish, cheese or whatever else sounds good to you.

First- cook the rice. For Adam and I, we use 1.5 cups of uncooked rice and we get about 5 rolls out of this.

Second- If you have fish, I cook mine while the rice is simmering. We don't mess with the raw stuff here. We have used crab meat, cooked or smoked salmon, and shrimp. These are allllll good options!

While those two things are cooking, I spend some time slicing my veggies into long skinny rectangles. I always do English cucumbers (so not to worry about seeds) and avocado, but we also do carrots, radish, lime pieces (fruit is ok too...) and anything else we can find in the crispy drawer of the fridge.

By now the rice and fish should be ready and I take them off the heat. I sprinkle in my vinegar and sugar into the rice and mix it until it has a sticky consistency. I wish I could give measurements-- maybe for this much rice I would say 2-3 TBSP of both sugar and vinegar. Totally a guess. Anyway, that is all that is needed to make sticky rice! Its super easy. I have used rice vinegar which is great, but I also this time I tried a flavored vinegar (thanks to Carol-- its delicious!). There are a lot of flavors but I have tried pineapple and lime-- both amazing.

Once the rice is totally ready, I lay down a sheet of nori and spread a thin layer of sticky rice over it, leaving about 1/2 an inch at the top uncovered. Then I lay down my slices of fish and veggies and place the sheet on my bamboo roller. With the roller I can create a perfectly tight and round roll and then I slice into 6 or 8 even sized rolls. PS do not over fill them. It doesn't look like tons of food when you're sprinkling it in there, but dainty rolls are the best to eat, and if you want lots of food, just eat lots of dainty rolls, not a few massive ones. Its super fun and its a good way to get creative with dinner.

Tonight we made cooked salmon, cucumber, avocado, and pineapple flavored rice. Adam was obsessed and ate almost the whole batch himself (and that is a big deal because he's not a nori kind of guy)! I saw some with different veggies and meats and cheeses, but I haven't gone there yet... If we do I'll keep you posted! I am dying to try shrimp with lime and jalepeno and avocado. Doesn't that sound yummy??

And we did have some pictures of us making it to better outline the lesser known stuff I mentioned, but Adam's phone deleted every single picture off itself this weekend, so you only get one of our finished product from our most recent Sushi Tuesday. Enjoy!