Mmmm Homemade Pizza. featuring Biscuit Dough and Quesadilla Pizza!
Posted on: August 29, 2010
Do you ever start thinking about pizza, and just can’t stop? I keep thinking about pizza. Giant flappy slices of super cheesy NY style pizza, to be specific. Not that I’d turn down any other type of pizza, mind you. Or anything with enough cheese on it, for that matter. However, my wallet and I do not see eye to eye. And that’s where homemade pizza comes in!
It seems there are a range of definitions to “home-made”. I always make my own sauce, but it’s of the “dump out a can of tomato paste and add stuff to it” kind of making. I’m sure that if you stuffed a bunch of tomatoes into a blender along with the appropriate ingredients it would be much more delicious, but then you’ve gotta wash that blender. On a similar vein, home-made dough is awesome, but then you’ve got to set aside a chunk of extra time for the kneading, the rising, the falling, the punching, and the 289372987432 extra dishes that need washing. More often then not, lazy wins out for me in the end. Thus, here are a few ways to make pizza at home that are pretty lazy.
I call this the Biscuit Method. In the section of the grocery store with the tubes of biscuits and cookie dough, you can find tubes of pizza dough. Usually about $2 a tube (less if on sale, more if you don’t get the store brand), it is awesome for squishing all over a 9″ x 13″ cake pan if you want a thick crust pizza. For a thinner crust (like the one pictured above), you squish it even more onto a cookie sheet. Dump the sauce of your choosing on top, add cheese and ingredients, bake according to directions and voila! Pizza is done, man.
The only drawback to this is the fact that your pizza will taste a bit like biscuits. Actually, the first couple times you make this, you’ll be all like “Wowie! My pizza tastes like biscuits!” I’ve found that after several uses, however, the excitement wears off, and you start longing for a crust that is a little less biscuit-tasting. If you are really into biscuits, though, you might want to consider going straight for the biscuit dough and using that as a pizza crust. Bisquick would probably work wonders for you as well.
If you like as much butter as possible in your life, I also recommend crescent roll pizzas. Lay out flat a crescent roll triangle, dump some sauce, cheese, and toppings into the middle, lay another triangle on top, squish the edges together, and bake until delicious.
So if having to roll out a prepared crust is still entirely too much effort, there are plenty of other options. One of my favorites is the “quesadilla pizza.”
The closer half of these guys was made with flour tortillas, and the browner one is made with Flatout flatbread. You lay your tortilla on a pan, dump on some sauce, cheese, and toppings, lay another tortilla on top, and then bake for 10 minutes or so until undercooked < pizza < overcooked. You can probably just microwave it as well, for that matter, as long as you’re not using raw pork or something as a topping. If you are using raw pork, please cook it before topping your pizza with it. Your intestines will thank you!
If you want a more quesadilla-like experience, you can make these without the pizza sauce, just using cheese and toppings (errr, fillings in this case, I guess). Then you can heat up your sauce in a separate bowl, cut the pizza quesadillas into triangles, and dip away.
There’s all sorts of things you can use as a crust if you’re making a homemade pizza, including:
- English Muffins
- Bagels. Those crappy frozen bagel pizzas you can buy have nothing on homemade bagel pizzas.
- Pita Bread
- French bread. Italian bread too. I’m a silly American and get them all confused.
- A grilled cheese sandwich made with mozzarella and dipped in marinara sauce does wonders to get rid of pizza cravings.
There’s probably other things I haven’t thought of that would make excellent pizza crust. Like saltine crackers might work. Or slice a Krispy Kreme donut in half. Try it, and tell me how it tastes!
Guest Post: Good Old-Fashioned Chocolate Chip Cookies
Posted on: August 22, 2010
(Here’s another post by Julie, yay!)
It must be done. These chocolate chip cookies are just too good to keep a secret any longer. These cookies have been passed down the generations from Drew’s and my grandmother. They’re made with sugar, brown sugar, Crisco, eggs, flour, vanilla, salt, baking soda, oatmeal, chocolate chips, and optional nuts. (not seen here) The oatmeal makes them healthy.
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
1 C Crisco shortening (or one stick, if you can find it in stick form, which I totally recommend- a lot less messy. More packaging however)
Mix together, then mix in 2 eggs.
In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients…
1 1/2 C sifted flour (My mom adds 3 TBS)
1 ts soda
1 ts salt
1 ts vanilla (pure, use 1/2 of that)
Combine. Then add 2 C old-fashioned oats (quick also works), 1 C nuts, optional, like your mom, 1 1/2 C or 3/4 package chocolate chips.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes.
*Important Notes*
Be prepared to add more flour than what is given. If cookies come out flat on the first batch, add more flour. “Sifted flour?” hmm… over rated? Or it could be that I just don’t understand how to do it right.
I find it a lot easier just to add the chocolate chips individually to the cookies, everybody seems to want a different proportion of chocolate to cookie, and I end up using way less than what the recipe calls for.
Rumor has it Grandma took the recipe from the back of a bag of flour. I’m salivating just looking at this picture. Must… bake… more…
Category: Chocolate, Dessert, Guest Posts by Julie
Tags: chocolate chip cookies, cookies
Sushi Party Platters! Part II
Posted on: August 19, 2010
The best circumstances for making sushi are usually when someone else is buying the ingredients. So, I was more then happy to put together some rolls for a group of people at the Outer Banks in North Carolina recently, especially considering the quality of the ingredients involved. Tuna and salmon and krab, oh my! I also got to use some panko crumbs, for some extra crunch and flair, along with egg, cucumber, avocado, carrot, green onion, and spicy mayo. There was also some salmon skin involved, but in the end I completely forgot about it, and there wasn’t enough rice for it anyhow given the giant pile of ingredients I had to work with.
It was glorious to have so much quality fresh fish to work with, particularly the tuna. As there were all sorts of leftover bits, various rolls got bonus toppings. The tuna topping was particularly tasty, consisting of tuna bits, a bit of soy sauce, and green onion. Regarding the krab-topped roll, seems like you can use pretty much anything as a topping as long as you’ve got some sort of sauce to make it not fall off (I ended up using panko crumbs and green onion on other rolls using this strategy).
Mmm, tuna closeup!
My plate presentation isn’t all that hot, so I took this as an opportunity to play around a bit. While I don’t think it’ll be getting me any jobs in a sushi bar anytime soon, it sure was fun to do!
Incidentally, the above plate was the only one used that didn’t have some sort of “I’m at the beach!” dishware theme to it.
There’s always room for nigiri! I’m still rather inaccurate in my omelet-making, the tamago I made ended up having too much wine – and the wrong type too! No rice wine here, just sherry.
I realized something about the nigiri I make – I totally make buffet nigiri. I’ve noticed that, at cheaper buffets at least, there’s generally not a huge piece of fish on the rice balls when they have nigiri, usually about half the quantity of fish you’d get if you got nigiri from a regular sushi bar. Either I’m not all that observant or my wallet is dictating how much fish I should be using, because my nigiri too often has tiny pieces of fish compared to the rice that the fish sits on. No good at all! Must work on that.
Also, sharp knives are really useful. There were no decent sharp knives at the beach house, so we had to make do with what was there. As a result, the rolls where the toppings are laid out on top (like the above roll with the avocado and tuna) are a bit chunkier then I’d like.
There were a few vegetarian types present, so I stuck some of the vegetarian sushi on it’s own plate to make it all fancy (with bonus carrot garnish, even!) That avocado really does not want to stay on those rolls on top, boo to dull knives that sliced the fat avocado slices! The lower one is an egg roll, and the middle one is me sticking every non-meat item into a gigantic delicious roll.
Veggie roll, with beach ambiance.
The lighting outside wasn’t quite as bright as it could have been (partly due to sushi always taking longer to make then I think it will), but it was a lot better then trying to take pictures inside on this fabulous tablecloth:
I think this is the most sushi I’ve ever made before. Luckily, I had help, and did not have to clean up after all of the sushi!
Sushi Party Platters! Part I
Posted on: August 18, 2010
Not too long ago, Drew and I went on a Grande Voyage to the East Coast, where we visited with various people. As it turns out, if you know how to make sushi, people like to have you around for their gatherings. This works out well for me, as I like to have people want me at their gatherings, and I rather like making sushi. So I got the opportunity to make sushi twice during our visit (along with getting to teach people how to make sushi), the first time at a friend’s house in Richmond, VA, for a party.
I’m still iffy on the whole “tofu in sushi” idea. We got some prepared fried tofu for this. It soaked in a marinade of teriyaki sauce for about 30 minutes before we slapped in into some rolls and into some rice for tofu nigiri. It wasn’t *bad*, mind you, but I’d much rather be eating those egg omelet (tamago) nigiri!
Another great idea for sushi for vegetarian friends? Bacon. Well, bacon bits. If you’re a cheap ho like me, the bacon bits you buy are “bacon flavored”, and thus completely vegetarian! Conversely, you can also buy bacon bits with “vegetarian” or “vegan” written on the package and pay 2-3X the cost, it’s a decision I leave in the hands of you and your wallet. Anyhow, bacon bits work great for sprinkling on the outside of your rolls (well, the “rice on the outside” rolls, at least), and makes for some pretty speckled rolls. I’m sure it would also work great as a garnish sprinkled on top of rolls slathered with spicy mayo.
We ended up with a meat tray and a veggie tray. The meat tray is pictured above, and it seems I completely forgot to take a picture of the veggie tray. Either that, or people ate it all before I could shove my camera at it.
See the bright red rolls on the lower right? There was a request for tuna rolls, but all of the tuna was entirely too expensive so we got salmon instead. I hate to disappoint however, so I added some red food dye to some salmon and Voila! Tuna rolls! Nuclear violent tuna rolls, by their looks (I was a little too generous with the food dye, and it really enjoyed leaking all over the rice).
The roll on the lower left has become one of my more favorite sorts of rolls to make, using a spread of spicy crab. This involves rolling a tiny roll with a single ingredient (avocado, egg, or just plain rice work well), and then using that roll as an ingredient in a second roll, which uses a generous layer of spicy crab. Multi-layers just look super fancy, and I certainly approve of super fancy.
Soon to come is part II, my sushi adventures at the Outer Banks!
Guest Post: I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Recipes!
Posted on: August 16, 2010
(This is the third in a series of guest posts by Julie)
Sometimes it’s just too hot to follow a recipe. The first recipe-less item I created was some cream cheese wontons. Just put a dab of cream cheese in the middle of a wonton, close it up ever so gently, and stick it on top of a think layer of hot oil. Don’t forget to flip! It is summer, and even wontons want an even tan. They were so good when fresh and less good after spending the night in the fridge. They only problem with making these wontons, is that you realize how unhealthy they are. Also, I heard that you should add green onions or even chocolate, (I suppose the possibilities are endless…) and after making them plain, I would definitely want to spice them up a little the next time around.
Then I tried to reinvent a recipe that I made probably ten years ago. I looked for any spice I had made me think of Indian food. They marched into formation to have their picture taken—
…and then they dumped themselves into a pan full of oil, onion and garden fresh tomatoes. Yum.
After a while, the chickpeas were invited to come join the party, where they soaked up all the fun until they made their pilgrimage to my hungry stomach. My next plan is to find some ghee and do it the right away. Though that may involve following a recipe…
Namiko’s Sushi in Arvada, CO
Posted on: August 12, 2010
Namiko’s is a sushi restaurant which is only a 15 minute walk from where we live. Or a 5 minute drive (closer to 8 minutes during rush hour). Or around 7-8 minutes to bike. In any case, we’ve lived near it for about 9 months now, and for some bizarre reason haven’t gotten around to actually eating there until this past month, where we’ve eaten there twice. The first time I cursed myself for having forgotten my camera, and the second time I cursed the lighting for making the pictures all fuzzy.
There were four of us, and we got a range of items from the menu. As we waited for our rolls, we got to take in the decor which hovers somewhere between fabulous and tacky. Lots of fish tanks, aquatic creatures on the blue walls, plus a filtered light in one room to simulate gentle ocean waves. I wouldn’t mind a house that looked like this, actually. Even better if it came with the sushi bar + chefs!
The service was very quick, with rolls coming out not too long after we’d placed our order. This was at the expense of the plate presentation though, which seemed a bit lacking.
We started with the Line of Fire Shrimp, which is described in the menu as “Large tempura shrimp baked crispy with spicy sauce, masago, scallion, and Namiko’s sweet glaze.” It was definitely a bit heavier then regular tempura shrimp (if one form of ‘deep fried’ can really be considered heavier then another, that is), but was nonetheless very tasty. I approve heartily of Namiko’s sweet glaze, which is a component of several of their menu items.
The spicy tuna roll was appropriately luscious, and in fact a bit fatter then tuna rolls I’ve gotten from other places. I am a bit biased on any roll containing tuna – my ideal death would be a mercury overdose from having eaten too much tuna throughout my life. This is also why I should never have children – from what I’ve heard, you’re not supposed to eat raw fish while pregnant, so my kid would be pretty much screwed from the start. It does make me wonder though, how do Japanese women cope with not being able to eat raw fish during a pregnancy? Or is it just a weird American restriction? Maybe I can finagle my genetics so I could just give birth to a tuna, it would certainly save me money on shopping for sushi ingredients.
Moving on, the futomaki roll was futomaki-tastic. In reality, it tasted about the same as almost every other futomaki roll I’ve eaten. Not that this is a bad thing. Futomaki rolls are magical, full of flavor, and I would totally order it again. The asparagus roll was a bit surprising. The first time we ate here, we got a roll with asparagus in it (among other things, including crab), and I thought it was rather average. This asparagus-only roll was delicous, though. The difference? The asparagus was deep-fried. Deep-fried makes everything (with some exceptions, I’m sure) taste better!
We got a few pieces of eel and tuna nigiri. The tuna nigiri ended up in everyone’s stomach before there was a chance to take a picture, but that only affirms it’s tastiness. The eel nigiri was good as well, with a generous piece of eel atop each ball of rice.
As good Americans, we got both a California roll and a Philly roll. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with California rolls, and that was the case with this one. I didn’t actually have any of the Philly roll – cream cheese in sushi seems a tad wrong to me – but Drew gobbled them down like nothing else, so I’ll assume they were good.
My favorite roll at Namiko’s thus far is the Master Blend Tuna. A bit pricey at $8.50, but so freaking good, with a giant tuna center along with spicy mayonnaise, masago (fish eggs), avocado, and cucumber.
The last roll we got (and the most interestingly presented roll) was the Tomodachi roll. It’s description on the menu is “Crabmeat, avocado and spicy sauce roll, covered with Albacore tuna slices and baked warm with Namiko’s sweet glaze.”
It was rather tasty, but what I’d like to try is baking the roll without the tuna on top, and searing the tuna separately, laying it atop the roll after it’s done making and then drizzling the entire thing with the sauce. I really really like seared tuna, and I wish the tuna in this roll was a little less cooked then it was.
In conclusion, if you find yourself in the Arvada area, or are heading west on I-70 and are craving sushi, it’s 5 minutes off the highway and completely worth the visit!
Salami Day Incoming!
Posted on: August 6, 2010
So the truth of the matter is that I’m a bum. Well, maybe not so much the last month or so, when Death Job Schedule has kept me from updating here (incidentally, if it’s not already apparent, I’m back to posting). However, I am a bum in that all those months of previous soul-crushing underemployment, I never touched the photos from Salami Day 2009. 2009! Salami Day 2010 is almost upon us, coming up in about a month. It’s on September 7th, so start making your cured meat wish lists now!
We celebrated with a Salami Day cookout. Who needs bacon on their burger when you can have salami!?
I enjoyed my salami burger with a side of salami. Unfortunately, it’s been it bit too long for me to remember exactly what type of salami we had. It was a Safeway purchase I believe – we were a bit short-sighted and by the time we headed out to get our Salami, Elke’s German Deli had closed for that Labor Day holiday. Still, what a treat, Labor Day and Salami Day joined in beautiful union!
Being new to Colorado, we had a smaller celebration then in years past, but it was still both joyous and delicious.
Here’s hoping this year’s Salami Day celebration is even more delicious! If you need ideas, be sure to check out the Salami Day website!
Guest Post: 2010 Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a
Posted on: August 3, 2010
This week’s guest post is from none other then Drew!
Having already earned a year’s supply of Chik-fil-a (as told previously) last winter, you might think that we don’t see a need for additional free chicken. You might think that, but you’d be wrong. We’re always up for free Chik-fil-a!
And so, for this year’s Cow Appreciation Day, Virginia and I and our friend Lucy cobbled together some cow costumes and drove to four different Chik-fil-a’s in order to indulge our desire for free chicken combos.
The bulk of our costumes were made by cutting cow-pattern-holes into white garbage bags, then pulling those over black shirts. Cardboard horns taped onto headbands completed the look, though it gave us a bit of a Viking look that may not have been ideal. Virginia added some nice cow ears to her costume with cow-colored folded construction paper.
With the exception of Chik-fil-a #4 (near the airport) all the stores let us have any combo we wanted just for being cow-like. Thus (after eating some of Virginia’s food) I had a golden opportunity to sample every single major item from Chik-fil-a, in rapid succession. All ratings are from one to five, sorted by taste and (my extremely vague) health benefit.
Soda
Chik-fil-a is the only restaurant I know of that offers both Coke Zero and Diet Caffeine Free Coke. Coke Zero (and the nigh-identical Wal-Mart version, Sam’s Zero) stands as the single best “diet” drink currently in production – flavored by delicious aspartame. I place “diet” in quotes because no one loses weight drinking these things. I know I don’t, anyways; but the lack of calories means I get to stuff my craw with more chicken instead of filling up via my caffeine vehicle.
Taste: 4
Health: 3 [neither harms not helps much]
Later in the night, I switched to Diet Caffeine Free Coke because I like the fizzy soda experience but want to be able to sleep a few hours later. It tastes marginally better than water, and that’s all I ask.
Taste: 2 [I don't spit it out]
Health: 4 [it's fizzy water – water's good for you!]
Waffle Fries
Fully 40% of the reason I go to Chik-fil-a. Seriously, these things are awesome. Their only downside is that they are highly unstable, like radioactive isotopes, and their flavor decays quickly. Flavor half-life is approximately five minutes in the open air; maybe twice that if carefully wrapped.
Also, reheat-ability is as close to zero as you can possibly get.
Taste: 5 [when fully charged]
Health: 1 [deep fried and covered in salt]
Spicy Chicken Sandwich / Spicy Chicken Club
This is a new item on the rather limited Chik-fil-a menu, and although I intended to order it at some point, I ordered it that night first thing by mistake.
So my review is tinged by the fact that for the first ¾ of the sandwich, I didn’t even realize I was eating it – I thought I’d ordered a regular chicken club. However, the entire time I ate it, I kept thinking “weird, what’s wrong with this sandwich?”
So how spicy is it? Well, it was hot enough that I kept swallowing my bites of food before fully chewing them. I’m sure people used to spicy things will find it rather mild, but I have to say that since the spice overwhelmed all the “club” items’ tastes completely, I’d consider it too hot. Thus there seems to be no difference between the ‘regular’ and ‘club’ versions of this spicy guy.
Taste: 2 [too hot, but I finished]
Health: 2 [I think spice is supposed to be good for you, sort of]
Chicken McNuggets – er, Chicken Nuggets
What can I say? Nuggets are nuggets, pretty much wherever you go. These are excellent examples of the type, but that might just be because they serve as crispy vehicles for Chik-fil-A Sauce – which is itself superb.
However, it leaves me wondering if I could just walk into the restaurant, get a water, ask for Chik-fil-a Sauce packets, and lick them dry for a similar taste experience. So they get a 4. They also don’t quite give you enough nuggets for your buck (If I’d paid for it, which I didn’t).
Taste: 4
Health: 1
Grilled Chicken Club
It’s grilled chicken! It doesn’t taste as good as the crispy chicken, but it’s less artery-clogging!
Plus, it adds bacon and a few vegetables.
Join the Club! The Grilled Chicken Club, to be precise. There are many members, and we all like sandwiches.
Taste: 4
Health: 3.5 [4 if you remove the bacon]
Chicken Fingers
First, chickens don’t have fingers. Second, I think they’re actually called Tenders, which makes less sense. That’s like somebody inventing a slightly different kind of burger and calling them Burger Tasties. They’re really just Nuggets Plus, if I may coin a term. Or Large Nuggets.
Anyway, they’re pretty good. They’re a little easier to screw up than Nuggets, so I give Chik-fil-a some credit here. And they’re even better when you chop them up and put them on a delicious salad, like we did!
Taste: 4.5 on a salad [less when naked?]
Health: 4, although that’s mostly the salad [probably 1 when naked]
Chargrilled Chicken Cool Wrap
This was quite possibly the single healthiest thing one can get from Chick-fil-a that is not a salad. Thus, this had to be balanced out by a hefty dose of the gigantic packet of salad dressing it comes with (mmm, ranch). The restaurant seemed to be quite prepared for the onrush of people in cow costumes, meaning that things that could be prepared ahead of time, were. This did not bode well for the chicken wrap – the tortilla was a bit on the soggy side. Aside from this, the ingredients were fresh and tasty.
Taste: 3.5 [Would be higher without that pesky soggy tortilla.]
Health: 4 [The ranch dressing might have brought it down a tad. Then again, every diet needs a little fat in it!]
Original Chicken Sandwich
We are blessed to have won a year’s supply of the Original Chicken Sandwich combo. People told us we’d get sick of it – but we never really did. Despite this, we were excited this Cow Appreciation Day to have an opportunity to sample the rest of the Chik-fil-a menu.
And you know what? It was pretty much all inferior to the Regular #1 combo. This sucker is just about the best fast-food chicken you can get, and better than many restaurants.
When that dark day comes where we run out of free chicken, I’ll probably continue to pay for this bad boy right here.
Taste: 5 [off the charts when you add Chik-fil-a Sauce!]
Health: 3 [I think I read somewhere it was better for you than the average fast-food burger]
So what’s the moral of this story? Sometimes you don’t need to look very far to find love – when love was right nearby all along! Also, cow costumes get you lots of free food. Maybe next year Burger King will let you dress up like a chicken to get free Whoppers.
We can only dream.
Category: Chicken, Entree, Guest Posts by Drew, restaurants
Tags: Chick-fil-a, cow appreciation day
Guest Post: Sushi Is For The Dogs
Posted on: July 21, 2010
(This is the 2nd in a series of guest posts by Julie)
Thus continues our short series in foods inspired by Virginia. That’s Virginia the person, not Virginia the state. Virginia the person is way cooler. Especially in this heat. And she’s nicer to gay people and doesn’t talk about the War of Northern Aggression all the time. But I digress. Anyway, I was talking on the phone to Virginia about making sushi, and she made a joke about dog sushi. Always be careful when making a joke, like I just neglected to do in the above sentence. The following “food” is what you get when you combine an offhand joke with a magical pot of sushi rice that only increases in volume the more you use (see previous post).
I knew that dogs’ stomachs could digest rice, and I was hoping that the other stuff in it (sugar and vinegar) wouldn’t mess them up. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. I skipped nori altogether to be safer, plus, it’s really expensive in Williamsburg anyway. I started with a bowl of Russell’s uneaten breakfast, Iams ProActive, purchased in bulk.
I know what you’re thinking- how could it get any better than this? Well, let me tell you. I took the day-old sushi rice from the fridge and wrapped these babies up. A little bit of finger water helped everything to solidify. Some mint flavored dog treats provided the perfect garnish. Very easy.
This is my faithful dog Russell, who is very excited to try some international cuisine. He earns his keep by looking cute, keeping the floors cleared of food, and inspiring such terms as sniffy tube and snouty tube.
The anticipation grows as the food gets set on the floor. They’re very good at waiting to eat food. I have them do this trick when I need to prove to somebody that I’ve actually trained them to do something positive- usually after they’ve been bad. So, this happens a lot.
Here’s a closeup of Russell’s mom, Piccolo. This is the moment when I learned that it’s actually really hard to get a good shot of a dog eating. Perhaps such a thing does not exist.
Category: Guest Posts by Julie, Hors D'oeuvres
Tags: dog treats, onigiri, piccolo, russell, sushi
Guest Post: First Solo Sushi Attempt
Posted on: July 15, 2010
(This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of guest posts by Julie!)
So, inspired by this blog, I finally decided to take the plunge and make my own sushi. The sushi plunge. To prepare myself, I read all of Virginia’s sushi posts, although that really just made me want to create all sorts of food with faces on them. And eat a big breakfast. Oh, well, that works, too.
I made this HUGE bowl of sushi rice, completely forgetting that sushi has a very short lifespan…
I added a rice vinegar/sugar mixture whose recipe I found in the internet tubes, and it seemed really strong, but then I decided that smelling vinegar in my food makes me feel like a better chef. I don’t try to understand these things – I just accept them and move on.
Of course, by this point, I couldn’t remember how to roll up a roll. I was just happy that the rice came out sticky, since so many internet-type people said it was hard to make sushi rice on a pot on the stove. But I’ve always found rice cookers to be extraneous, and you can’t believe everything you read on the internets (present blog excluded). So, I made a small pile consisting of (from bottom to top): bamboo rolling mat, plastic wrap, nori (the dry seaweed paper stuff), very thin rice layer, very thin slices of avocado, and sometimes the occasional very thin slice of carrot. Oh, there was also the occasional thin slice of cucumber, which has been procreating like crazy outside in the garden. I used half sheets of nori, and the whole thing kept coming out extremely thin. Not that that’s a bad thing, but next time I will try rolling thicker tubes.
I slowly came to realize that at the rate I was going, it would take me forever to use up all the rice, so that’s when I started treating it more like little snowman heads, wrapped around the leftover vegetables. I should have just made an entire snowman.
Overall, I was very happy with the whole experience- I do like playing with my food. My roommate got the extra heads in a surprise lunch Tupperware container with a side container of soy sauce. Don’t worry about her, though, she’s used to these kinds of things.
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