Making Sushi ~ So Fun!!

Our study on Japan for K's research paper is finally finished and the culmination of the entire project was to meet up with the three other families from our homeschool book club and to not only share our reports but to also bring along a special dish from the country we studied.

So sushi it was for us :) I made a special trip into the city to find Nori which is the seaweed wrapper, sticky rice and some different vegetables and fish for the filling.

We both took turns rolling the nori with sticky rice and a mixture of smoked fish or crab and avocado and cucumber. It took a little bit to get the hang of rolling them in the mat and less is definitely more when it comes to the filling part *grin*.

We made some similar to the California rolls with the crab, cucumber and avocado and then sprinkled black sesame seeds on the outside...

a smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber roll with thin slices of avacado on the outside called caterpillar rolls...

and then we thought we'd get really fancy or at least try to look like we really knew what we were doing *grin* and made Shikai-maki which are a decorative four sided version of regular sushi rolls. You can see they are the square shaped ones below and we filled them with kiwi and pineapple and had a special fruit and honey dipping sauce I made for them :)

They turned out great and were a huge hit! I never imagined that everyone would love sushi that much. There wasn't one left when we were finished *grin*. Personally I don't really care for the taste of the seaweed but the kids liked them so I will probably make them again :)

They had so much fun trying to eat them with the chopsticks I brought to :) It was a great potluck! There were samosas with chutney, special fried rice, a fluffy fava bean dip with naan bread and a ravioli pasta for everyone to try.

The whole thing really got K excited about studying other countries and it was his first big report he has actually had to write so it was great intro into thesis statements, APA style format for laying it out, bibliographies and more. All of the artsy fartsy stuff like making his kimono and geta, the salt dough map he made and the sushi making broke it up into nice little chunks of hard work with the writing and and then nice easy breaks of creativity which really kept him wanting to keep at it :)

Hugs, Rosina