First Sushi

So, I'm not a big fan of typical sushi.

WHAT?!?!? How can that be?

We'll I grew up in Hawaii, yes. But, 95% of native Hawaiian sushi has spam in it and is lightly toasted on a hibatchi grill! (That stuff I liked. I've not had it since I was a kid though.) It seems that all of our good friends love sushi, the kind most people think of with RAW fish. I've attempted many, many times to "love" sushi. I may be able to enjoy the flavor of the food, but the texture of the raw fish is usually hard to swallow, I mean choking it down. I don't care how good it is, I don't like to continually swallow to get the sticky stuff to my belly. Unfortunately Kenny distastes the raw fish stuff as well. We have tried really. It's rare for me to not be able to like a food. It's just too darn sticky.
Luckily sushi doesn't mean "raw fish". Luckily it refers to the rice, but not fish or other toppings/fillings.

I'm making these bento boxes now and I just have to do some oriental based dishes once in a while. I decided to try my hand at making sushi last night. I made maki-zushi with avacado, cream cheese and smoked salmon. If anyone is skiddish about trying sushi, this is the way to go... mmmm, these are quite scrumptious and no raw fish to push past the palate.

Here we have Kenny's little smoked salmon and cream cheese maki. It's served with some thai style chicken chow mein and mango pieces. I made a cute tulip out of a bell pepper and left over avocado pieces. This roll was quite easy to make. I mean simple like making a sandwich! Slap the sushi rice on the nori, spread it. Put in the fillings and roll it up.

I mean it's my first time and one or two may have came out a little lopsided. I really was expecting some feat of acrobatics to be involved with this delicate dish. But no, it was as easy as making the peanut butter tortilla wraps. This side dish is definitely not going off the menu because of difficulty, It may be made a regular feature in fact.

I wanted to make something fun for Chloe's box so I used the sushi rice and made two onigiri's (rice balls with filling). I think I did pretty good. For us American mom's there is a onigiri press I can buy that will form the perfect little balls (or triangles or even onigiri fun shapes like flowers) but I just did these with wet hands and some handfuls of rice. They have a few pieces of smoked salmon in the center and are wrapped with a thin band of nori. I used nori for the cute faces. I need to watch a bit more anime so I can get some character ideas to put in the lunch box. She also has chow mein, rice and mangos and my 'it's getting late, I need to go to bed' container with cookies and peanuts. I don't know how the meal will blow over. We may have to practice eating these at home a bit before it's successful.

Sushi is ranked as a comfort food in America now. It was the most consumed food right after 9/11 by people in New York. Did you know that 13 pieces of California Roll sushi have only 9.5 Weight Watchers Flex Plan Points? (how can this be, the bulk of the roll is sugared carbohydrates) Japanese usually eat miso soup not at the beginning of the meal, but at the end—to aid digestion.