CSA Adventures: Making Sushi

This has been our second year participating in the CSA farmshares, and we've received so many delicious veggies and fruits.  Though we've done a lot of stir frying, juicing, and salad making, I'm very proud of two uses of veggies in our household.  Specifically, I'm proud of two uses of our vast supplies of cucumbers.

The first one I'm excited to share is our adventures in making sushi!

I'm going to give the boyfriend credit for the sushi adventure, since he suggested it as a birthday celebration for him and two other Virgos.  Really, it was quite genius.

We ran into a slight obstacle that was easily solved, though we weren't necessarily sure of the success right away.

When you're preparing to make sushi, one of the most important things is to make sure you have good quality fish.  The first place we thought of was Whole Foods, but good quality fish also equals extremely expensive fish.  Luckily, the boyfriend and I have tried making sushi at home before, and we learned that our local Shaw's Market had pretty decent fish for much cheaper.  So, we went for the market fish once again.

There were 5 of us that were going to partake in sushi action, so I figured a pound of salmon and a pound of tuna would be good for us.  Well, it was definitely much more than enough!

Here's a list of all the items that we used to make sushi:
Glutinous Rice - We initially made about 4 cups of the rice, and then made another 6 cups after the first 4 cups were used.  However, we probably should have just made 6 cups of rice from the beginning, and we would have been fine.  At the end of it all, we were thoroughly stuffed and maybe used half of the 6 cups in the second batch.  Tip: The rice gets really sticky, and you want to make sure the rice cools close to room temperature before using it.

Rice Vinegar - Rice vinegar is really the best option for sushi rice.  After the rice is done cooking, you want to scoop it into another bowl, sprinkling rice vinegar on it for taste.  You can also used diluted rice vinegar (with water) to help the nori stay put after rolling a sushi, to wipe a sticky knife with, and to get rice off your fingers.

Marukan Rice Vinegar and Thai Glutinous Rice

Nori (Dried Seaweed Sheets) - I bought about 4 packs of 10 sheets.  We ended up using about one and a half of the packs altogether (including a couple of sheets that were snacked on).  The packs that I got were great mainly because of the tutorials on the back of the package on how to roll sushi and how to make the glutinous rice.

Wasabi - Truth be told, I'm not too keen on so much wasabi.  I don't add it to my soy sauce at all.  I think for me, the wasabi is too overpowering over the rest of the deliciousness.  But, alas, it is a sushi staple.

Soy Sauce - Another obvious sushi staple.

Spicy Mayo - It was super exciting to make some of this from scratch!  I had no idea what the ingredients were, but it's just so deceivingly simple!  Basically, you take some mayonnaise and some Sriracha and mix!  Add however much you would like and to taste. 

Cream Cheese - Apparently, according to the boyfriend who lived in Japan for 6 years, adding cream cheese to sushi is a mainly American creation.  Personally, I seek out any of those sushi rolls with cream cheese.  It's delicious with salmon.

Capers - This is probably never done anywhere!  One of the first rolls I made was with salmon, cream cheese, and capers.  It was like a Jewish sushi roll.  And it was delicious!

Avocado - Avocado is another item that I seek out when in a sushi restaurant.  This is definitely a delicious addition to any roll.

Chives - I don't know if I've ever had chives in a sushi roll, but this was an item that one of our friends brought to the table (pun intended!).  It adds a great flavor to any roll you could make.

Carrots - I think that carrots help to add a crunchy feeling to the sushi.  Again, this ingredient can be added to any sushi roll.

Cucumbers - The boyfriend loves cucumber rolls, simple and a perfect cooling roll for hot weather.

Ingredients!

Makisu (Bamboo Rolling Mat) - This object is a very important tool in making sushi, perhaps only second important to really good knives.  The mat just helps to ensure that the sushi is tightly rolled, and it prevents your sticky fingers from continuing to stick to the nori.

Tamago - This is another favorite sushi ingredient.  The boyfriend usually likes saving the tamago rolls for the end, since they're sweet.  Tamago translates to egg in Japanese, and it's basically an omelet.  To make tamago, you mix 4 eggs, 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tsp of mirin (we used sweet wine and just added a bit more sugar, which was a great substitute), and 1/2 tsp of soy sauce.  You can cook flat it in a pan, and if you want to flip it to make it cook evenly, then you can slide the omelet onto a plate and use the plate to flip it over to the other side.  At least, this is the strategy I use since I lack fancy flipping skillz.  You can fold the cooked tamago to make a nice thick layer of deliciousness over rice.

Tamago!

Shrimp - How could we not have shrimpy sushi rolls?  I believe some shrimp was added to a tuna roll at one point in the evening.  But shrimp with any of the other veggies is just so good.  Perhaps next time we will take it up a notch and make shrimp tempura to put in our rolls.

Tuna - A nice steak of tuna should be somewhat purple-ish/pink-ish, with a lighter pink in the middle.  Spicy mayo and tuna is really a great roll, so we had several combinations of this.

Salmon - Salmon rolls are tops!  The fish butcher (umm...is that the correct technical term for them?) gave me slightly more than a pound, and we only had to cut off the skin.  Salmon with avocado is a tasty option, and if you add some cream cheese..well, you just can't go wrong.

See food?  Why, yes!

As there were 5 of us, we each took turns making a roll and then cut them into 5 sections.  By the end of the evening, including the fact that we made a bigger batch of rice the second time around, we were stuffed.

Usually, I feel like I could just keep eating sushi forever.  I didn't even count how many rolls I ended up ingesting, but I can tell you that I felt like I was pregnant with sushi on our way home.

Two pounds of fish plus shrimp was definitely much too much for the 5 of us.  Perhaps if we had around 10 people, the amount would have been perfect.  The boyfriend and I ended up packing up the leftover fish and sliced veggies to plan to make sushi again.

Sushi success!

This morning, as we awoke to find that none of us had any food poisoning mishaps, we are proud to say that this session of sushi making was a success.  We definitely would love to do it again.  Interestingly enough, the boyfriend and I are psyched to make more sushi for dinner this evening!

Gettin' Back on the Heatlhy Wagon

Here's my #3 Goal for 2010:

3. Focus more on being healthy and eating smaller portions rather than the number on the scale.

This road has been a rough one.  I feel like I've spent my whole adult life working on it, and I'm still in the midst of it.

Hi.  My name is Cecilia.  I'm an emotional eater.

Butternut squash...nom nom nom...

With all that's been happening this month thus far, it's been really tough to not snack on EVERYTHING.  But, as I mentioned in an earlier post about my Goal #5, this is the year I'm going to do it.

The truth is 2009 was a great year for my weight loss.  I met a lot of inspiring people, I got really motivated and utilized my Netflix membership to save money, and I ate a lot of really healthy food that the boyfriend and I cooked ourselves.

I've totally slacked on this.  Obviously, the holidays have a way of messing with everyone's weight loss goals, so I'm trying not to be too harsh.  But I know I need to get re-motivated.

I'm going to start by re-naming my "weight loss goals" to "healthy lifestyle goals."  I have a lot of bad habits, the biggest of which is not taking care of myself when things get really stressful.

As I mentioned before, I've already signed up for yoga and pilates classes at a local studio.  I'm also taking belly dance classes 2x a week from 2 different teachers.  All of this is mainly for my mental health.  But the sweating ain't so bad either.

I will probably start up again with Jillian Michaels' DVD's.  She's super intense, but I love her workouts!  Even the 30-Day Shreds (which I stretch out to more than 30 days) are ridiculously intense for about 30 minutes a workout.

When it comes to food, well, we have a complicated relationship.  Strangely, when I was living by myself, I had an easier time staying away from a lot of snacks and so I wouldn't randomly eat stuff even when I wasn't hungry.

One thing I truly miss is our CSA membership.  It was really easy to focus on eating healthier when we needed to pick up fruits and vegetables every week.  But that's not a good excuse.  The boyfriend and I have both lacked a lot of veggie intake since the CSA ended, and we should have continued buying them in the grocery store.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on the outcome), the yoga studio is housed in the same building as a super market.  So, I can really commit to going straight to the fruit and veggie section.  At least, until the CSA pick-ups start up again in June.

Alrighty.  Did you get all that?  Let's review shall we?

1.  Workout schedule:  Monday and Tuesday is for belly dance.  Wednesday and Thursday is for yoga and a pilates/yoga combo.  Friday with a rest day or a 30-Day Shred workout (I have to give myself some leeway...it's been a rough month, remember?), but will start committing to a 30-Day Shred workout more often than not.  Saturday is pilates.  Sunday is rest (but if I'm feeling highly motivated, I will do some belly dance practice).

2.  Buy veggies after my pilates class on Saturday - at least enough for the rest of the week.  I will start planning ahead with the boyfriend to make sure we don't over do it or waste a lot of food.  I will also start really paying attention to my moods and my hunger response.  Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?  So, there you go.

Starting anew...

CSA Adventures: "All We Are Saying Is Give Pizza a Chance"

So, since the first couple of times that we made our own pizza, we really enjoyed the process and the result.  In the past month, because it was so easy to grab fresh pizza dough from Clear Flour Bakery while getting our veggies from our farmshare pick up.

 Playing with Dough!

With the farmshare ending on October 11th, we've celebrated our last couple of weeks of fresh veggies and breads by combining them into pizza form.  Now, eating pizza every week has the potential to be very bad for your health.  Perhaps if we were to have tons of meats on the pizza every week, we'd be in serious cardio attack alley.  But, we used mainly fresh ingredients, and treated ourselves to some delicious meals.

Without further ado, I introduce to you our Nice and Naughty Pizzas.

Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onions, and Goat Cheese Pizza (Click here for the recipe!)

Sweet and Delicious!

I was SUPER excited about getting butternut squash in the farmshare!  I haven't ever really eaten it until I moved to Boston, but I fell in love with it when I did.  I'd have to credit Giacomo's Restaurant in the North End for my love for the butternut squash.  There's always a line in front of that restaurant, though they have a sister restaurant in the South End.  But the butternut squash ravioli makes waiting so worth it.  To quote my friend Jenny, they're "pillows of heaven."  No joke.

CSA Adventures: "Take Another Little Pizza My Heart Now, Baby"

I've never made my own pizza before...though I've bought and eaten quite a lot of it.

With our CSA facing some opposition from some locals...oh, ya..can you believe that someone was AGAINST the farm sharing??  This older woman considered the farm share pick up as a safety hazzard and disturbance to the oh-so-darling neighborhood of Brookline.  Meanwhile, literally around the corner from where we pick up our veggies, all the college students have moved in, stirring up the vermin with all the trash they leave behind with all their moving.  But, ya....all these locals who walk/bike/scoot on down just to pick up their veggies...we're just plain old terrorists.

But, I digress.  Stillman's was lucky to have an ally with the owner of Clear Flour Bread, a fabulous bakery that borders the Allston/Brookline line.  The owner helped Stillman's fight back, AND he allowed the veggie truck and pick up to move to the back of the bakery.

Now, the boyfriend and I feel ever grateful to Clear Flour!  Last summer, they helped supply our sourdough for our kale salads.  This year, they saved our farm share.  They have some loyal customers in us now.

CSA Adventures: "Beet It"

I've never really had beets before...

I mean, maybe in small amounts - in salads or as part of a bigger meal.

But never this much:

(Borscht! So much of it that only the slow cooker could hold it!)

Borscht. It's fun to say, actually. But damn, it's hard to eat if you're not used to beets.

CSA Adventures: "Let's get it on."

Many of us are already well-versed in being eco-friendly, toting our reusable bags full of organic and locally grown Farmer's Market purchases on our bikes or onto the T. With all the hoopla about going "green" and "eco-friendly," it was refreshing to hear first-hand about the benefits of joining a CSA. I first learned about the marvels of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) through my lovely friend Julie (and Adam!), who waxed poetic about the awesomeness that is the weekly box of veggies delivered from a local farm.