Sushi sushi

E and I made sushi! We're so much more ambitious when we get together. The first step was going grocery shopping in Arlington's little Chinatown. We walked up and down all the aisles, and then we went back and did it again. At the end, lugging a heavy bag of sushi rice and lots and lots of impulse purchases, we entered the produce section. It was beautiful. We went around identifying all the vegetables. We saw a kiwano. We bought the largest avocado I've ever seen in my life. And then we saw the mangos. They were champagne mangos. Small and perfect. And they were five for a dollar. As we approached the table with reverence, a man came over with a new price sign. We knew it was too good to be true. Twenty cents for a mango? But then the man posted the sign. They were now six for a dollar. You can see them all piled up in that orange bowl. Also, notice the bamboo which I had just happened to grab on my morning walk.

Back at my parents' house, we began by boiling the rice. Short grain white rice cooks really fast. It was something like five minutes of boiling, and then fifteen minutes of waiting with the lid on. Nice. While we waited for the rice to cool down (apparently hot sushi rice is a no-no), we started our prep.

We made traditional avocado rolls with avocado, carrot, and green onion from my dad's garden. The other rolls had portobello mushrooms that were sauteed with sherry and soy sauce. And probably some sort of oil. E will eat anything with mushrooms. I'm currently hatching a plot to get her to eat beans by smothering them with mushrooms and oil. Shhh...

Then we got bored and made another roll with everything mixed together.



Look at this avocado pit! Really, this picture doesn't do it justice. The avocado was HUGE. As big as my head. If nothing else, it could have been used to make guacamole for a small marching band. If E and I hadn't eaten all of it. Fine, it was me! I ate most of it. But look how happy it made me.




And we roll it up.


This was so much fun. Nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be.