Days 6 & 7 - Sushi and 2013

SUSHI! I completely forgot to post my sushi escapades yesterday, and it was soooooo fun! So here it is.

I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about sushi making, which I'll include at the bottom. These sushi Chef's are amazing to me! So clean and precise through the whole process. I may have been culinarily trained, but the exactitude and respect for their craft that show is mind blowing to me!

It really was simple, but not easy (yes, those two terms can coexist). I got all of the ingredients from my local Wegman's, including the bamboo rolling mat and a package of chop sticks. The ingredients were simple for me: sweet potato, avocado, red pepper, cucumber, shrimp, crab and peanuts. (I had a craving for a couple specific combinations that I had a year ago at a little sushi place near The Culinary Institute).

The pics aren't step-by-step, but I got so excited about creating sushi rolls that I kind of forgot :) I had my sister, brother and his girlfriend over and my hubby joined us when he returned from work. The kiddos in the house weren't really into this so it was the grown-ups having a sushi experimenting party.

 

The vegetable ingredients prepped and ready to go. Sweet potato is easiest to handle if it has been boiled and allowed to cool under refrigeration for a few hours. Don't try cutting while it's warm, it'll become mashed, you want sticks.

More ingredients: the peanuts are slightly chopped and marinated in soy sauce for 30 minutes, and nori, or roasted seaweed sheets. For the inside out rolls I cut the square sheets of nori in half; the whole sheet would have been necessary if I were rolling them with the seaweed on the outside.

The nori is on my table here and I've patted down the seasoned sticky rice rice over the whole thing, overlapping the long edges slightly. To season the sticky rice I found a number of methods but I used a bit of rice vinegar, salt and sugar. Some call for just rice vinegar. From here I transferred the rice and nori RICE SIDE DOWN to the plastic covered bamboo mat and laid my chosen ingredients in a line across the middle and began rolling. See the videos below on technique. It's pretty neat!

My rolled sushi! I was so proud of me :) I've never done this before and got so enthusiastic that I made waaaaaay too much. Waaaaay too much.

This is the sweet potato avocado roll that I was craving. I also made a peanut avocado roll remembering the yummy one from a year ago. I dipped them in a bit of soy sauce using my chop sticks, and I made everyone else use chop sticks, too.

This was so much fun! We all decided it would be fun to gather every couple weeks and make from scratch some new food that we've never made... Next up: tamales!!!

YouTube videos that I used:

Enjoy and have fun! They all say the same thing, you're only limited by your own creativity when it comes to flavor and ingredients!

2013 - No Resolutions

I don't believe in resolutions. I did at one point in time, but I found for myself, like many others, just using a new day of a new year as the reason to change something about me doesn't work. In fact, it sends me spiraling in the other direction pretty quickly. I think setting new goals for yourself when you're ready to commit to change is the best way to set yourself up for success.

Serious and lasting weight loss is a journey and a lifestyle change and commitment. Being ready is key. In my initial weight loss journey prior to pregnancy I committed in many ways: I threw out every bit of clothing that I under-grew as soon as it was too big (not allowing myself the comfort to gain weight again); enlisted the complete support of my family to eat healthier foods and not bring trigger foods into the house; I was honest with myself and world and allowed myself to feel accountable to you, my virtual audience; I talked openly to friends thus gaining their support and admiration; I tracked every bit of food that entered my mouth--this is key! you need to be fully aware of your habits and understand that even little tastes and nibbles add to caloric intake; being ready to address that there are reasons that we eat the way we do and that other areas of our lives need to be healed and need to change along with just food and activity.

It's not easy, but when I started seeing the scale continually rewarding my commitment, I gained more and more motivation. It became a wonderfully addicting feeling to succeed and get closer and closer to my goal. And if I did have little set backs, they were easier to take when I knew that if I was honest about my behavior and kept plugging away, my body would reward me.

So, no resolutions. Today is the same as yesterday for me. I recommitted 7 days ago, and having nothing to do with the new year. It had everything to do with readiness.

Tomorrow: Weigh-in results!