I have been absent – on and off – for quite a while now. I think it may be a year since I’ve been “neglecting” my blog.
We have had a rough ride with life over the past year, but I have not let it stop me from cooking or from photographing my dishes.
I think it’s time to start rolling them out. Now, I can’t make any promises – I have a 3.5 and an almost 1 year old at home – things can get hectic and some evenings I just collapse from exhaustion. But, my goal and wish is to share it all with you.
While living in my in-between-homes apartment (see the yellow plastic plates I had to eat off of for over 3 months), I came across a fantastic blog: Budget Bites. Now, I love meals that keep me from spending lots of money. And, I love them even more when they are recipes of traditionally expensive dishes in restaurants.
To make this recipe even better, it saves me the hassle of rolling – to the disappointment of my 3.5 year old son who loves sushi rolled.
I did change up her recipe slightly to fit our family’s needs. I wanted a dressing that even our little one could enjoy and came up with an avocado dressing that went great with this dish.
The other day I blogged about a great new sushi rice recipe that I found on VideoJug. I decided to go ahead and give it a second try and make some exciting sushi with some new ingredients.
Yesterday I went walking through a store that I had never been to before and I found lots of new ingredients to play with…so I brought home 4 new ingredients to try out in sushi:
-raw salmon
-chive sprouts
-red beet sprouts
-wanton-wrapped shrimp
I am not going to reproduce the sushi rice recipe here because it’s perfectly written up in text form and has a great video here on VideoJug. Instead, I will tell you all the combinations I came up with and what I thought of them.
Last week I had to have my camera’s sensor professional cleaned because of a piece of dirt that kept showing up in every picture. €50 and a week later, I have my camera back from Nikon.
This weekend I ended up getting sick with a stomach virus and a bladder infection…which sucks even more when your pregnant because not only is the baby pressing down on your bladder but up on your intestines and stomach as well. I am 80% better now. Of course, I was out of commission for 4 days and I have quite a lot of cleaning to do this week to make this place look normal again!
Many of you have asked if I know if I’m having a boy or a girl yet….no I don’t. Last ultrasound the baby gave us his/her back the whole time. I have one last ultrasound in June and if we don’t find anything out then, then there will be a big surprise in September.
Ok…on to food…
A few weeks ago I started doing to research on how to better make sushi rice. Mine just kept falling apart. Of course, I also kept cutting corners with my recipe and that didn’t help, but I found another fantastic recipe (with video) on VideoJug and I wanted to share it with you. I have never made such perfect sushi rice before. There is also a text version bellow the video which I found quite helpful.
(my son loves sushi…that’s his hand trying to steel some)
Last weekend, the day I cut my finger, my husband and I went out on our first date in over a year. It gets to be difficult to go out when you have a little one, but this was a special event that we wanted to go to.
Each year in Fürth there is a Sommer Nachts Ball (Summer Night’s Ball) in the city park (photo gallery here). The park is roped off so you can only enter with a ticket, and attendees must be in suite and tie or tux (for guys) and a ball dress or cocktail dress (for ladies) – those who are not appropriately dressed are sent home to change. (I will update with pictures soon!)
There were 4 or 5 stages with live music of all different kinds, dance floors, a cocktail bar in the rose garden, catering, bbq (yeah…that was kind a weird..ball dresses and bbq…), beer, wine, fireworks…it was fabulous. Time went by so quickly that we could hardly believe it!
Not knowing how expensive the food at the ball would be, we decided to go and eat at a local sushi restaurant that we had never tried because it was a bit more pricey than the others we are familiar with. But, being a special occasion and being all dressed-up, we decided to go give it a try.
We were both thrilled by the sushi at Wasabi!! It was fabulous and they have many of their own creations that were fabulous! I am planning on going back for my birthday.
One of the rolls we tried was the New York Roll. It was sweet and savory and nutty all at the same time. We both loved it, so I decided to make it at home – it seemed easy enough…and it was! Continue Reading »
I came across these absolutely adorable rolls while searching for some other maki rolls. Not only do they look good – stun your friends at your next sushi party – they are really easy to make.
One tip: slice them really thin or you may not be able to fit them in your mouth! The last thing you want is to have to eat a bite without the yummy fruity filling. Continue Reading »
I got adventurous – this is the first time I’ve used something close to raw fish: smoked salmon carpaccio – which is smoked and salted salmon cut into see-through thin slices.
This roll was a big hit – even my husband liked it and he hates anything with fish – and my 14-month-old son loved it!
Here you’ll get the recipe and how-to on how to roll and inside-out maki sushi roll. Continue Reading »
Ok, so I’m kind of cheating on my own rules… I’m going to be reviewing 2 recipes for Taste&Create. One from Sushi Day and the other from Taste and Tell. I wasn’t able to submit my event entry to Is My Blog Burning – the entry form just wouldn’t work and neither would the email address. So, I was left to “advertise” for myself. I was really hoping for a greater turn out, but this time around it’s just the 3 of us. But, we’ll be back for more next month! §Review of Sushi Day’s Crunchy Shrimp roll. After reading about how this is Allison’s favorite roll, I figured I couldn’t go wrong. That and that fact that it has tempura (fried) shrimp in it.The roll came out tasting excellent. The creamy avocado complemented the crunchy green onion and the very flavorful shrimp. However, I always have trouble rolling sushi with avocado. I need a lesson from the pros! I was just squishing it all over the place and it was complicating my rolling abilities. Maybe I need much thiner pieces next time?? No matter how messy, the delicious taste was worth the hassle.
I can definitely recommend this recipe to anyone you would like to try sushi for the first time and is afraid of raw fish, or to just anyone in general! Sushi Day also has great photo-instructions on how to roll maki sushi. Thanks Allison!
I didn’t have to search long to figure out what I was going to make from Deborah’s recipes! I got soooo excited when I saw her big bowl of corn salad! I’d never had corn as a salad, AND I had a whole bunch of ears left on the corn stalks in my community garden that needed to be “dealt with” quickly.
The salad was really easy to make – took no time at all! It was so light and refreshing; basil and corn, what a novel idea! My husband and I had some, and then decided to save the rest (it was so good!) for my birthday party this Sunday! It’s so hard to not just open up the Tupperware and steal some!
So, if you’re looking for something to do with loads of corn, or just looking for something new and refreshing, I definitely can recommend this to you! I’m planning on planting extra corn next year to be able to make this more than once!
