Sushi

Wait, does that say sushi?

Yup.

Another thing that daddy wanted to try.

Another thing that daddy wanted to try that I was really, really nervous about.

We don't even eat sushi, much less make it.

But daddy thought it looked like fun. And he is usually right about these things.

So we took out a book from the library - Sushi for Dummies. Because, seriously, we knew nothing about sushi.

Now, remember - we are not seafood eaters in this house, and we are especially not interested in raw fish. But I have had (and enjoyed!) vegetable sushi in the past, and daddy was super intrigued to give it a try.

So after reviewing the book and picking up a few supplies, we were ready to give it a shot.

The first thing we needed to do was prepare our ingredients. As I mentioned, no fish, raw or otherwise, for us, so I set to cutting vegetables into as close an approximation of matchsticks as I could manage. Some carrots, some cucumber, some celery, a couple of green onions sliced up for garnish, and of course some avocado. Which little miss was happy to help me scoop out of its rind.

Vegetables cut and prepared, it was time to make the rice. Only to find that, for the first time ever, we were out of rice in our house. How in the world does that happen?? And how did we not check before starting?? Okay, a quick trip to the supermarket later, it was then time to make the rice. For real. The book recommends using medium or short grain rice, but what we use for absolutely everything else is long grain. The book said that long grain rice would still work, so we decided to stick with that. While the rice was cooking on the stove top, I mixed up the dressing that transforms ordinary rice into sushi rice. It is a simple mixture of rice vinegar, sugar and salt.

Preparing the sushi rice is a fun and amusing process, one which little miss was greatly looking forward to. As was daddy, too, actually. The rice, once cooked, is turned out into a bowl, then the dressing is poured onto it, over the back of the rice-mixing paddle, and then the dressing is mixed into the rice all while someone fans the rice to dissipate the heat and cool the rice to a working temperature. Little miss fanned while I poured and mixed, and then we each took a little taste. And were shocked to find that it actually tasted like sushi rice. Wow. Those Dummies books sure know what they are talking about!

At this point, all of the fillings were ready, so it was time to start rolling our sushi! We'd purchased nori, the seaweed wrappers, as well as a sushi rolling mat (which came with the rice mixing paddle, mentioned above) when we saw them on sale at one of the local supermarkets a few weeks ago. As luck would have it, that same food store has a prepared foods section that includes a sushi station. So we also watched the guys there for a while. You know, to study. So, following the instructions from the book and trying to imitate what we had seen, we began preparing our rolls. The nori was lined up at the bottom of the rolling mat then covered with rice, leaving the top half inch bare. We then lined up our fillings in the middle and began to roll. Daddy handled the first one. For some reason, the rolling process had me really nervous. But daddy's came out beautifully. I mean, he sliced it, put it on the platter, and it looked, well, like real sushi!

It went so smoothly that little miss couldn't wait to take her turn.

So she filled her nori with rice and vegetables:











And she rolled it up:











And let me tell you, she did an awesome job. So awesome that daddy and I each only rolled one roll ourselves. She did the other four. And she had a blast doing it. So while she rolled, daddy sliced the rolls and I, well, I did the dishes. But that's okay. We soon had a tray full of fresh and delicious looking sushi all ready for our dinner. With a little bowl of soy sauce for dipping, we were ready to eat.

And eat we did. For a family who "doesn't eat sushi," we certainly ate our fill! Little miss wasn't a big fan of the nori, so she wound up unwrapping hers, but she more than made up for it with the amount she ate. And she totally chowed down on those edamame on the side. And, in case you are curious what that light colored roll is in that picture, we made one totally random roll using chicken salad as the filling. Yeah, when daddy suggested it, I thought he was nuts, but it turned out to be really, really delicious.

We didn't have much leftover, but what little there was, I devoured the next day for lunch.

So now I am totally looking forward to making this again, and to trying all kinds of wacky fillings for them!!

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