Happy Valentine's Sushi Extravaganza!

Thinking about plans for Valentine's this year, I knew we weren't going to be able to go out for a big fancy dinner. New York fancy dinners are expensive enough without adding a big Hallmark holiday on top of them. Plus, sometimes just the sheer amount of choice of where to go in Manhattan is overwhelming. 

So, instead of stressing, we decided to stay in. And not just stay in and be boring, but stay in and make sushi!! We had gotten a whole sushi making themed gift from our dear friends Erin and Ben for our wedding last May and had yet to use it. We figured it would make an excellent Valentine's project! 

I asked one the Japanese students where I work where we should pick up the ingredients. She recommended a place called Sunrise Market in SoHo. Thanks Masae!! This place was adorable. It was small, but had everything we could possibly need for sushi. It also had very few things in English, which made our shopping all the more exciting. :-) I love looking at all kinds of different food in Ethnic grocery stores, and this place had tons of fun stuff.

For our Sushi night, we didn't want to get too over ambitious, being our first time and all. We decided on California Rolls, Spicy Tuna Rolls, and Philly Rolls. Only one of these actually had raw fish, so not to worry moms. :-) I used a combination of recipe ideas from the cookbook above, to Pioneer Woman, and The Way The Cookie Crumbles Blog. The last one I used especially for the rice. I followed her recipe, but instead of adding Sugar and Salt and what not, we just bought Sushi Vinegar, and went with that. It worked great! The Philly Rolls I kind of made up. I mean, you can't really mess up smoked salmon and cream cheese.

For an appetizer I had been craving cream cheese won-tons and had starred a post on Erin's blog with this recipe awhile back. These were SO easy and delicious. I made them into garlic cream cheese wontons, which worked out great. I just pressed a few cloves of garlic into the cream cheese, mixed it up, and dropped it into the wrappers. Awesome.

Cream cheese wontons.

Frying in oil.

Won tons! YUM!

Bag o Sushi Rice!

Super easy rice directions.

Alex preparing the sushi rice.

Crab Sticks for the California rolls. California rolls are made with fake crab made from white fish. Don't freak out, it's tasty.

Red chili paste for making the spicy mayo. This stuff is HOT!

Yes, there was some English on the back...

Salmon Philly Roll

Roll it up!

Alex weilding the knife. 

 

Preparing the crab sticks.

Sticky sushi rice.

WAAAY too much rice. Oopps.

My not as pretty California rolls...

Alex's rolls are much prettier then mine. Shoot.

The finished platter. We forgot to add avocado to the salmon philly rolls, so decided to just plop some on top, sorry it doesn't look pretty, but it was tasty!!

This was one of my favorite Valentine's meals! If you've ever thought of making Sushi, you most definitely should give it a shot!

Happy Valentines!