Vegan Hand Roll (Sushi) and/Or Sushi Plate

Helllllllllllllllo!

Seriously, everyone should try drinking kombucha in a wine glass. It makes me feel like such a luxurious person:

I don't know if you remembered, or knew for that matter, but I used to work for Sushi Zanmai, there I learned how to make the perfect sushi rice and the basics of rolling sushi. We were having a gluten free friend over for dinner the other night and I wanted to make sushi (turns out, my nori had gone bad, so I made one hand-roll which I photographed and turned the rest of my ingredients into a sushi-plate instead)

This is vegan and gluten free

You will need:

For sushi-- (this serves 6 people, reduce as needed)

3 cups of sushi rice

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup of white sugar

1tablespoon of sesame oil

sesame seeds (I have black and white sesame seeds!!)

Roasted seaweed (nori) cut into half-sheets (for hand rolls)

Suggested fillings/toppings--

3 stalks of green onion, chopped into thin rounds

2 carrots, grated

Coarsely chopped garlic, about 4 cloves

1/2 cucumber, peeled and cut into strips

1 cup of baked tofu, cubed (I baked my tofu, at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, on a cookie sheet and flipping it once, I marinated my tofu in pineapple juice, tamari, sesame oil and maple syrup for 30 minutes before I baked it)

1 avocado

For Ponzu:

1/4 cup of lime juice

1/4 cup of tamari

dash of chopped green onion

For Spicy Mayo:

1 tablespoon of Sriracha

1 tablespoon of tamari

2 tablespoons of mayo or veganaise

Start your sushi rice-- place 3 cups of sushi rice and 4 cups of water into a pan that has a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil. Boil for one minute, stirring and then cover and reduce heat to low and allow to cook/steam with the lid on for 20 minutes. Then remove the covered rice from heat and keep it covered for another 10 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, prep your veggies/fillings:

I fried my coarsely chopped garlic in sesame oil as an added filling-- who doesn't love friend garlic? Fry the garlic over medium heat until it is golden brown. Then remove it from heat and drain the sesame oil.

 Mix the sushi rice ingredients: rice vinegar, sesame oil and sugar, with a fork until the sugar is dissolved. It isn't quite a full quarter cup of sugar in this recipe...just an fyi.

When the sushi rice has finished sitting for the additional 10 minutes of covered time after the initial 20 minutes of covered on the stove time (so uh, after 30 minutes of rice steaming) uncover and stir the vinegar-sugar mixture in with a wooden spoon. Stir it gently as you don't want to crush the rice-- think of it as folding the liquid in.

When it is mixed thoroughly the rice will be quite sticky and stand on its own without settling under its own weight. Allow the rice mixture to cool for another few minutes uncovered as you will have to handle it with your hands and don't want to burn yourself.

Mix your sauce ingredients if you want them (ponzu and spicy mayo) at this point as you are waiting for the rice to cool.

Prep your sushi ingredients, get them all in one place so that it is easy to reach as you are manipulating the rolls. Keep a bowl of cool water within hands reach to rinse your fingers off between rolls or else your fingers will get too sticky from the rice.

For a handroll, place your half-sheet nori horizontally oriented on your working surface and take a handful of sticky rice and place it down orienting it like the photo below, making sure you have that top right corner still exposed as naked nori.

Build your desired handroll, we were taught to cut the avocado thinly with a spoon so that we got really delicate, workable slices out of it, as pictured below:

Holding the whole roll in one hand, tuck the top right corner onto the topping and then flip the left side around, it should wrap around about 1 and a half times, the tuck it tightly for a more manageable roll to eat-- and it should stick together from the rice, if it doesn't use a slightly dampened finger to moisten the nori so that it sticks together.

And because my nori was stale, and not very wrapping friendly, I made sushi plates out of my ingredients on this evening for our dinner guest instead...

enjoy! xoxoxoxoxoooo!

Quick (30 minute) Korean Dinner

I made this dish so quickly, I barely remembered to take photos. I was so damn hungry (and so was AJ! He was asking when dinner would be ready the whole time!) But it is an easy one.

This dish is vegan and gluten free.

What you will need:

7 ounces of extra firm tofu, cut into rectangular pieces

1 cup of short grain/sushi rice, rinsed and drained

Sesame oil

1/2 of a white or yellow onion, cut into long thin strips

1 carrot, cut into nickel-thick rounds

1 cup of green cabbage, shaved or cut into strips

1 small zucchini, cut into quarters

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

Tamari

1/3 of a cup of rice vinegar

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

Green onion, minced

Sesame seeds

Garnish:

kimchi, sriracha, chili-garlic paste

Preheat oven fo 350 degrees. Lightly drizzle olive oil on your tofu so that they are covered on each side with a fine layer or oil.

On a greased cookie sheet, lay your your tofu rectangles down and bake on each side for 12-15 minutes, until they are browned on the outside and soft on the inside.

While the tofu is baking, begin cooking your rice, 1 cup of sushi/short grain rice to 1 and 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for 20 minutes once boiling. Remove from heat after the 20 minutes is up, but leave covered and standing for another 10.

Saute the onions and carrots over medium high heat in sesame oil for 7 minutes, then add the cabbage, zucchini, pepper and garlic for another 5-7 minutes, until they are softened but not mushy. This is a "stir-fry" so high heat for a short period of time so that the veggies remain crunchy. Season with a splash of tamari. For the last few minutes before you serve, stir in the green onion and turn the veggies to low heat.

When the rice has stood for the 10 minutes after it simmered for 20 (so 30 minutes into your rice's process) uncover and add a whisked vinegar-sugar-sesame oil mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon gently (like making sticky sushi rice)

Serve in a bowl with a nest of rice, scoops of sauteed veggies and slices of baked tofu. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and offer kimchi or sriracha condiment.

Cheers! xoxoxo

Tom Kha Soup (with Rice Noodles)

Tom Kha soup, also known as the most delicious, creamy, flavor-explosive soup known to man.

Know stories this time, let's just get down to business:

You will need:

**This recipe is completely gluten free and vegan EXCEPT** for the fish sauce, which you can leave out and replace with tamari, if you decide. However if you are ok with ingesting animal products, I highly recommend the very pungent saltiness of fish sauce over the tamari, it really is much fuller flavor.

The broth:

32 ounces of veggie stock

2 fifteen ounce cans of organic coconut milk (full fat)

2 lemongrass chunks as long as your middle finger and as fat as your thumb, cut into rounds and crushed with the butt of your knife

1 thumb sized piece of ginger, cut into chunky pieces (you don't have to skin it)

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into chunky pieces

5-7 kaffir lime leaves (these are sometimes hard to find, either fresh in the herb section or dry, when I do find them I buy bulk and keep them in my freezer)**if you can't find them, quarter a whole lime as a replacement in addition to the other lime for the broth

1/2 of a lime, cut into chunks, skin on

2 butts of yellow onion (the useless part of the onion that you use for broth)

1 heaping tablespoon of brown sugar

1 heaping tablespoon of chili-garlic paste or srirachi

1.5 tablespoons of fish sauce (**or tamari)

4-6 cremini or button mushrooms, washed and cut into thin half moons

3 green onions, chopped (both white and green part)

Toppings:

7 ounces of firm tofu, cut into bite-sized slices

1 lb of rice noodles

1/3 of a red cabbage, sliced in thin shavings

2 handfuls of bean sprouts

8 baby tomatoes, quartered

Garnish:

1/3 of a bunch of cilantro, chopped

wedges of lime

First, prep your broth flavorings. You really want to bruise and smash the lemongrass and the ginger with the butt of your knife to help release the flavor.

In your soup pot, add a tablespoon of coconut oil on medium heat and lightly saute all of the broth ingredients to release the flavor-- about 3 minutes. Add the veggie stock and the coconut milk. Cover the pot and let the ingredients simmer  on medium low in the liquid for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

While the broth is getting flavorful, simmering away, fry the tofu in coconut oil. I spiced mine with garlic salt, cayenne and turmeric. Set aside once they are complete.

At this point, start the water boiling in a separate pot to cook the rice noodles for the soup.

After the broth has simmered for at least 45 minutes, strain the chunks out of it with a strainer or with a colander, and then return the liquid back to the stove. Over medium low heat, add the brown sugar, the chili sauce (or srirachi) and the fish sauce (or tamari).

Allow the broth to continue to simmer on low, meanwhile prep all of your veggies (if they aren't already).

And add your rice pasta to the boiling water, cook 6-8 minutes, until soft but still chewy.

Add the chopped mushrooms and green onions to the broth to let them get soft and soak up the flavor of the soup, they need to be in the broth on medium-low heat for about  7-10 minutes to get to that
"perfectly delicate" texture.

Finish prepping whatever is left (you'll want tomatoes, cilantro, lime wedges, red cabbage and bean sprouts)

Drain your rice noodles:

Now start building your soup! Noodles, veggies, tofu, broth, topped with bean sprouts, tomatoes, cilantro and a wedge of lime squeezed over the whole thing.

When AJ took this photo, the kitchen smelled so much of mouth-watering lemongrass coconuty-ness, and I said to him a moment before he snapped the shot "Can we just eat now, please?"

Enjoy!!!!!!!!! xoxoxo

Peanut Noodle Salad

This was a leftover salad from our pho extravaganza. I made about 2x too many rice noodles-- I made 15 ounces of rice noodles (I instructed you peeps to make 7 ounces) and had the rest in the refrigerator--- they needed to turn into something! So I was inspired to make this dish.

What you will need for this dish:
Rice noodles, already cooked (about 7 ounces)
Fried tofu (mine was leftover, you don't need this, but its nice)
A handful of shredded cabbage
Half of a cucumber, grated
Two grated carrots
Two green onions, chopped thinly
A handful of cilantro, chopped
A handful of tat soy greens or romaine, chopped
1/3 cup of tomatoes, chopped

Dressing:
Three tablespoons of peanut butter (chunky or not, or almond butter will do fine too)
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons of tamari
1 tablespoon of srirachi
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 "thumbnail" sized piece of ginger, peeled
A few sprigs of fresh basil

Toss your rice noodles with any vegetables you would like sans the tomatoes (save those for putting on top last), tofu if it isn't already, fry and then toss into our vegetable-noodle mix.

Blend all ingredients for your dressing together, and then taste. If you like it sweeter add more maple syrup, spicier add more sriachi or garlic, tangier add more vinegar, etc.

Top your salad with the dressing and stir.

Add all greens so your salad if you haven't already and stir.

Top with tomatoes and serve!'