Sushi Making 101

Eating out is my favorite past time. One, because I have a horrible cooking skills. Looking back, I felt bad because I had more than five cooking classes as part of my program curriculum in college yet I didn't try to learn it. And number two, I enjoy eating. [define gluttony] I believe that it's one of the most pleasurable past time. The conversations over food just about anything is always pleasurable. 

However, my weekly trips to restaurants [I eat out at least twice a week] has become a costly activity. On average, me and my restaurant buddy/glutton partner Peter spends about $80-$120 every time we go to restaurants [excluding the tip]. That sums up to a large amount of money if you multiply it by the number of times we go out to eat in a year. It's just so impractical. 

This year, I vowed to start a financial makeover to be able to achieve the goals I set for myself. The first strategy is to minimize my spending. [that means zero credit card debts, less shopping, less restaurant trips] So instead of going out to eat, Peter and I agreed to cook together during our time off and enjoy a series of Netflix movies. 

Good timing because I received an awesome gift set from my Secret Santa on Christmas. 

I love sushi but I have no freakin idea on how they do it so I went to YouTube for video tutorials.

YouTube is indeed a very useful tool if you want to find out something. There are millions of video tutorials about sushi making. Aside from that, you can also pick up a random trivia  like this.

We didn't plan to make a specific kind of sushi. We basically just put all the ingredients we love. I bought a $4 smoked salmon fillet in the grocery, a pack of cream cheese, spicy mayonnaise, cucumber and avocado. I didn't have to buy the rice and nori since it's included in my gift pack from my Secret Santa.

The first sushi roll will not pass any sushi chef standard. It was a bunch of funny looking rice rolls. But we didn't give up.

After two more attempts, our sushi looked so much better. We also tried to do the inside out rolls and hand rolls [hand rolls are not in the picture since I ate it immediately]. Peter also tried the sushi roll without the nori.

We paired it with green tea. Aahh! It was an awesome dining out alternative!

I have to buy this gold tea set from Teavana so the next time we make sushi and pair it with tea, it'll be a more authentic Asian experience. Maybe light a candle or two as well!