Sushi Ya!

As long as these Tanners have been Tanners (nearly a whopping two years), we have reserved one night a week for Date Night.  Generally, this consists of going out to eat and some sort of activity.  It is our chance to talk, relax, have fun, even splurge a bit.  This week we thought we'd try something a little different for date night and instead we stayed home and made an awesome dinner!

SUSHI!!!

I spent the day scouring the countryside for the perfect ingredients... (I really just went to two stores).  

Yes... that is chicken in the corner... I was experimenting...  

In the end, I spent a little over twenty bucks which is way cheaper than it would have been at a restaurant.

Grant & I split up and had different tasks.  He took care of the fish while I made the rice.  Sushi rice rice is made from short grain rice like the Botan rice shown above.  You find it in the Asian section of the store instead of by all the other rice.  I threw it in the rice cooker like normal but when it was done I added a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.  I cut and folded that into the rice basically until it cooled down & was all sticky... and irresistibly yummy.

Normally we're not afraid of the raw fish that typically comes with sushi.  However, considering the questionable state of grocery store fishes, we decided to err on the side of caution and baked the fish just a bit.  We used some salmon from Costco that we had frozen previously, and some fresh tuna that I bought at Sprouts that day.

So to walk you through the basic steps of making sushi from there:

First you lay out your nori, which is basically seaweed paper, and cover it it in sticky rice, leaving a bit open at the top.

Then you lay out the insides of your roll.  We really have no idea how to do this part... but it worked out fine to do it the way below.

Then you bring the ends of the sushi together and squeeze.

At that point, you can lay it back down and begin to "roll" it.  I have no idea how to describe that part... so I won't even try :)  And as you can see here, I squished the heebie jeebies out of this one and it ended up falling apart.... whoops.  Things got better after that first roll...

Then you slice them up and eat like there's no tomorrow!

Honestly, it was as good as most sushi we've had at restaurants and we had a lot of fun making it as well.  A shout out to Nadine Beaufort back in Boise who not only gave us the tools for sushi making, but left us nifty instructions as well!!

We're excited to make sushi again soon and we've been brainstorming ideas for Tanner Classic Sushi Rolls....  Brilliant ideas like: the Waffle Roll, the Howard Roll (not with Howard inside, just in his honor), and the Swaggly Roll.  Any other good ideas?!