Real Raw – Days 76 & 77 – Homemade Sushi

What happened to the last few days? They zoomed by so fast, I hardly know what happened, but I will do my best to summarize from a raw food perspective. The gist is that I’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting.

Yesterday (Saturday), I make a large batch of “not tuna” paté, which is essentially a pate of nuts, usually sunflower seeds and almonds, seasoned with minced vegetables, a little lemon juice, salt, and pepper. There are many variations of this paté in the raw food cookbooks I own. In this case, I was out of sunflower seeds, so I used pistachio nuts instead, figuring that they also have a kind of creamy consistency. The resulting paté is okay, but not as flavorful as the previous one I made, using sunflower seeds. (Note for the future.)

For lunch, I made a large salad and an open-faced sandwich with the paté and a slice of unleavened, sprouted grain bread. I’m finding that my favorite salad dressing is very simple – I drizzle 1 tsp of flaxseed oil over the salad, squeeze fresh lemon juice to taste, then toss. The end result is very fresh – the lemon seems to enliven the vegetables, and the flaxseed oil improves digestion. It’s a good mix.

For dinner, we had a wakame salad and sushi (ordered to go) from a local restaurant. I always feel like I’m compromising with the commercial sushi, because of the cooked rice and sometimes-cooked fish, as is the case with eel.

So today, I am inspired to try sushi on my own. I recently purchased a bamboo rolling mat and some nori (those are the sheets of seaweed-vegetable in which sushi is rolled) and have been waiting for an opportunity. One of my books describes the process for rolling sushi. I pretty good at learning things from books, so I decide to forge ahead.

As usual, I’m going to wing it. I have an idea of what I want to do, and I gather all my ingredients together: sheets of nori, not tuna paté, romaine lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red bell pepper. I slice all the vegetables into long, thin strips. When I am ready, I take a deep breath and begin by placing one of the delicate sheets of nori on the bamboo rolling mat.

According to the directions in my book, I spread a few tablespoons of paté on the lower 1/3 of the nori, leaving about an inch at the bottom. On top of the paté, I layer vegetable strips and lettuce. Then, I begin rolling.

What I quickly discover is that rolling sushi is like making burritos. If you have too much stuff on the tortilla, it doesn’t roll up very well and everything squishes out the ends. This is what my first sushi roll is like. Too much paté.

My second one goes in the opposite direction — I don’t put enough in it and it’s too loose. By the third one, I’m beginning to get the hang of it, and I’ve gotten the bright idea of using a little wasabe (that wonderfully hot green stuff) to seal the edge of the sushi roll. My best roll is my final roll — I’ve made five, which is enough to feed all of us for dinner and then have some leftover for tomorrow.

My first homemade, raw sushi

Continuing with the sushi theme, I make miso soup to which I add minced tofu, marinated mushrooms (sliced mushrooms marinated in Nana Shoyu), wakame (sea vegetable), and garnish with thin slices of green onion.

Miso soup with mushrooms, tofu, and green onion

Yum, yum, yum. My family likes it and I’m excited about discovering something new.

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Tags: almonds, experiment, flaxseed oil, making sushi, nori, Not Tuna paté, pate, pistachio nuts, salad, sunflower seeds, sushi, wakame