Sushi!

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So, a few months back, I was at my favorite Asian superstore, Fubonn, and decided to purchase a gigantic bag of sticky rice.  I’m not really sure why, I just sort of wanted to experiment with it.

Turns out, it really fails in most contexts, except for mango sticky rice (dessert AND breakfast!), and sushi.

Now, I’m not going to get terribly fancy with my sushi.  If I want some edible-grade raw fish and fancy garnishes and tempura involved, I’ll happily trek over to our favorite restaurant and lay down $15 for a wonderfully satisfying meal.

This is more about utility and function.  I’m on the gluten-free train these days, and have been pretty content lately making myself lunches comprised of corn tortillas and yummy cheeses, which I heat up at work, some deli turkey, and greens or a lightly dressed salad to tuck inside.  That to me is a perfect lunch taco.

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Easy Asian slaw for the week

But, I do get bored eating the same thing every day, so this seemed like a good way to switch it up.  We always have nori on hand — I buy it in massive bulk at Fubonn and honestly can just rip pieces of the sheet off and eat them I love it so much, particularly during certain times of the month when my body is craving iron.  It just seems like the right thing to do.

So I consulted the Internet about what sticky rice is actually supposed to be used for — rather than failed side projects to my various stir-frys — and realized that it’s super easy to make sushi rice.  Cooked on the stovetop just like any other regular white rice, you just add some rice vinegar, salt, and sugar, and call it a day.  Well actually, the methods I spotted involved cooking the dressing separately, stirring it in after the rice was cooked, blah blah blah.  But I am a lazy cook, and my way worked just fine.

And the filling?  I wanted this to be a fridge excavation project, so the only ingredient I bought to sushify things up was some imitation crab meat from Safeway, and other than that just filled the rolls with sliced up cucumber and avocado that we already had on hand.

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And voila!  I did have a little dish of soy for dipping, but honestly, as untraditional as it sound, Fire on the Mountain‘s spicy peanut sauce really does the trick, too.

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This Week’s Groceries

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Roasted a chicken so I’d have some easy shredded meat on hand in the freezer, (and stock!), and a handful of sushi ingredients

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Brunch party at our house!


4 thoughts on “Sushi!

    • Ha! I didn’t even notice the receipt. That’s how I like to roll: employer? Self. Cashier? Self.

      Here’s the deal with the chicken: I get in there with my hands and just basically break it to pieces. I lived on kibbutz when I was 18 and one of my jobs every day was to take the “diet” chicken (i.e. the only thing served that wasn’t deep fried — these were whole chickens that were boiled for the old people), wait until they cooled, and then separate all the meat from the carcass with my bare hands. It’s pretty barbaric to watch, but this was lost on me as an 18-year-old and now I still do it and it seems normal to me. Although I don’t like Jesse to see me do it so I only do it on the nights when he’s out — ha!

      Anyway, I think it’s totally worth it. When I roast a whole chicken and try to serve pieces by slicing and eating it I feel like I lose so much meat, and all my energy is spent trying to figure out if something is meat or fat, and how to cut it apart off the bone, rather than enjoying my food. This way I get all the meat off in one go, separate it into meal-sized packages that I wrap up in foil packages and freeze, and then have the barren carcass left over to boil down into stock (which I also freeze). Sometimes I leave bigger chunks of meat, but usually the pieces are pretty little — perfect for easily adding to stir-frys or curries or jambalaya-like rice dishes. 😀

  1. I have several thoughts! First, I love how your cashier was “self” on the receipt. Second, how do you go about shredding your chicken once you’ve roasted it? Do you have a device to shred the meat? Just cook it long enough that it falls apart? I sometimes aim to shred meat, but then get overwhelmed by what I perceive to be a lot of work–all the cooling off and cutting. Is it worthwhile?

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