Family Fun Night: Making Sushi Together

Ethan was also quite proud of his ginormous spring roll, ha!

We've been talking about making our own sushi for such a long time, and this weekend, we finally made it happen. It was actually quite simple, relatively inexpensive, and it was fun to do together. We tried some Spring rolls as well, but those were somewhat of a miss. I'm going to look up some different fillings for them and try again soon.

I found the Nori seaweed sheets and rice paper in the Asian aisle at Wal-Mart. I was surprised my local grocery store didn't have them, or if they did, I couldn't find them. I found the packaged smoked salmon in near the specialty fish items- it was expensive, but it went a long way.

We made some sticky rice on the stove top (added a bit more water than called for to cook), chopped up avocados, and cut long, thin strips of carrots and cucumbers, like matchsticks, and cut the salmon in thin strips as well. Simply lay the Nori sheets on a paper towel, spritz with clean water, and then place your toppings on 1/3 of the sheet and roll it up. Ethan discovered that it was easiest to form a seal if you put more water on the edge of the Nori sheet before rolling up. Slice and enjoy!

We piled red cabbage, sprouts, Romaine lettuce, shrimp (canned shrimp = GROSS!), avocado and carrots on the dampened rice paper discs, which are really weird but cool, by the way. The directions said to eat them as is or to deep fry them. I sauteed them in coconut oil, and the results were less than stellar. I felt like we had eaten loads of fresh veggies, though, which was awesome. We served lean steak for the main course, and the kids had buttered rolls. It was low-key but lots of fun trying something new together.