Thursday, July 5, 2012

Collaborative Dinner: Winging It


For tonight’s dinner due to a myriad of causes and conditions we ended up kind of winging it. Lila made sautéed green beans with garlic and she is writing about that bit. I made avocado sushi for the kids with leftover sticky rice (this is a dinner I make at least once a week if not more) and I also pan fried some tofu for the grownups (Lila ate some too though). 

From Lila:
"Today I made  "extra browned" garlic green beans and I just lost my blog post so I'm re-writing my blog post right now [so irritating.] Anyway so when my mom told me I had to make green beans I wasn't too thrilled because yesterday was The 4th of July so I stayed up until 10:30 then my little brother woke me up at 7:00 plus I felt like just sitting around and reading MAD magazine all day. So after  my mom told me numerous times that I had to make green beans I got up and started to clean them [while reading MAD,of course.] I washed the green beans. Note: don't pour the green beans into the strainer because residue will get caught in the strainer then it will get stuck on them. I did that today, thank goodness that my mom hasn't found out yet. Then you snap the ends off of green beans. Note: you probably shouldn't read while snapping the ends off of the green beans [like I did] because one, you might not notice that there are some bad spots on the green beans and two you'll most likely get your reading material wet. Bye, now i have to read my post over again [sigh.]"

I am adding this bit: The trick I have found is to blanch the green beans for about 3 mins in salted boiling water and then drain, rinse under cold water. Then saute garlic in olive oil and add the green beans and just warm through. I didn't start blanching veggies until this year and now I do it all the time!            

My sushi is very pedestrian as you will see from the photos but I do have some tips I have picked up along the way. You need sticky rice or sushi rice and the proportions for cooking are different than most rice. For 1 cup of dried rice add 1¼ cups of water. I have only made 2 cups at a time so I’m not completely sure if these proportions work if you make 3 cups or more. The basics are the same: rinse the rice several times in cold water until the water is fairly clear and drain. Then add the water to the rice and bring to a boil. Lower heat as low as the flame will go and cover. Cook for 15 minutes. Let stand for 5 mins covered and then spread out on a plate to cool. Once the rice is cool you can put it in a bowl and add a mixture of rice vinegar, salt & sugar. The recipe for making the mixture can be found here along with some good instructions. I keep it simple and kind of guesstimate amounts of the vinegar mixture for the rice since I am sometimes only making 2 rolls.

Here is basically what I do:
Cut the nori sheet in have and place down at the lower end of your bamboo sushi mat. I pat the rice down with a spoon and then dip my fingers in a bowl of cold water and smooth it all down.
Add avocado and roll it all up slowly and as tightly as you can.


Unroll and then take it off the mat to cut. I use a good serrated knife which I wet first with warm water (this really helps).


And voila!

Pan fried tofu: I just use olive oil and Braggs Liquid Aminos. You can use soy sauce of course.

My dinner tonight: leftover sushi rice with some olive oil and Braggs, tofu, avocado, and Lila's green beans. Some Sriracha is also a very wonderful addition!


4 comments:

  1. I want to make this!! I love sushi and you make it look so simple:)) and delicious!! You are an artist in the kitchen! - Donna L

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  2. OF course! How can you NOT clean green beans without a MAD magazine at your side!! Awesome!!


    juju

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  3. juju you're so funny and you can't do anything without a MAD Magazine at your side:)

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  4. oh and by the way the last comment was by me lila

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