Homemade sushi (no fish yet)
Monday, June 6, 2011 at 12:12AM Where to begin. We've had a hectic last few weeks so let's just say that I haven't been doing a whole lot of inspired cooking. I have, however, been doing my share of retail therapy and included in my recent expenditures was signing up for a sushi making class with my husband. I thought it would be something fun to do and given what's transpired since signing up, I guess he does too.
A few Thursdays ago, I called Jeremy on my way home from work to figure out what we were doing for dinner. "I thought I could make sushi," he said. "Seriously?" I said to myself, thinking there is no way we can go shopping for sushi ingredients, figure out how to make it, actually make it, and put this all together before it was time to give Emily her bath and put her to bed. But I bit my tongue because I sensed some enthusiasm on the other end of the phone. "Okaaay," I said in a quieter voice than usual. "Do we have what we need?"
"Yes, I got everything today during a quick lunch break," he said. "I thought we could do it with tofu, just to practice," he said. "Okay," I replied, kind of warming up to the idea that I didn't have to cook dinner.
Fast forward about an hour, and I was delighted to find myself eating spontaneous homemade sushi, and watching Emily pop edamame out of the pods. The dinner turned out so well, in fact, that my husband treated me to it all over again tonight. And I took some pictures.
Since we haven't taken our sushi making class yet, you'll notice that we have none of the right tools, and we're missing a few key ingredients such as fish. While some might not dare eat un-traditional sushi, I have to say, our vegetarian version was absolutely exquisite! Not to mention, I think we both feel more comfortable waiting for our class to learn how to buy sushi-grade fish before trying it at home.
As you'll see in the following pictures, Jeremy made our sushi with grilled tofu as the protein, brown rice, avocado, cucumber, panko, spicy sauce and some sort of rice-vinegar sauce he made from scratch that I never would have even known was a part of sushi. It was awesome. Not to mention, watching his enthusiasm in the kitchen melted my heart.
No doubt, we're both very excited about our class later this summer. In the meantime, some pics.
Remember, we have no sushi tools yet (I thought the magazine was pretty crafty - he used it to roll the sushi) 
Super yummy, right?
Cutting our rolls
Finished product
Cooking
Reader Comments (6)
Ha! This:
"A few Thursdays ago, I called Jeremy on my way home from work to figure out what we were doing for dinner. "I thought I could make sushi," he said. "Seriously?" I said to myself, thinking there is no way we can go shopping for sushi ingredients, figure out how to make it, actually make it, and put this all together before it was time to give Emily her bath and put her to bed. But I bit my tongue because I sensed some enthusiasm on the other end of the phone. "Okaaay," I said in a quieter voice than usual. "Do we have what we need?"
has played out in our house many times, only substitute sushi for some other elaborate dish... :)
Glad to hear it, Linzey :-)
Unfortunately we often DON'T have the required ingredients... or Dan will get halfway through the recipe and realize we're missing one thing. :)
That's always fun :-)
I'm new to your site...and I'm loving it! I agree with your way of thinking - to get rid of the diet mentality and just eat less and what you love! It's a hard thing to really practice though with the world pushing the dieting way of living.
Anyway, I make a (fish-free) Korean sushi all the time and, it's funny, because this seems to be the only thing my husband will make as well! It's like the one thing he will voluntarily offer to cook for supper! haha. So what I was wondering, is how you grill your tofu? Your sushi looks super yummy and the tofu looks almost crispy! Do you press it to get some of the moisture out?
Hi Erin, thanks for your comments. We generally cook the tofu in strips in a pan on the stove. Nothing fancy, but it tends to get a nice golden color and slightly crispy. Yes, we do press the tofu between paper towels to get the excess moisture out.