Homemade Sushi

Chris and I have been experimenting with rolling sushi at home. When we lived on the Outer Banks it was so easy to get great seafood. I could stop by the seafood market on my way home from work, or Chris would check his crabpots and we'd have fresh blue crab meat. My favorite rolls last summer had fried shrimp or softshell crab in them. 

Our neighborhood in Brooklyn has a large Polish population. Greenpoint has plenty of meat markets, with sausages and smoked fish, but so far we haven't found a good place to buy fresh fish in the neighborhood. 

Last night we made veggie and smoked salmon rolls. We used cucumber, green onion, carrots, cream cheese, and smoked salmon. 

Warming up

While our heat was broken we stayed warm by preparing meals that required long baking times. I made this spanakopita using the recipe in Amy Sedaris's book I Like You. 

Here it is with some leftover wedding wine. That's one thing that wedding books and blogs don't tell you--agonizing over all those wedding decisions really does pay off because you get to have leftover wedding stuff when you're broke and unemployed in New York City. 

I also made some pizza dough and used it to make a pizza roll with ham, cheddar, and pineapple. I used this recipe, but ignored the instructions for the filling and made up my own. This is the second time I've made a pizza roll, but I don't think I'll make it again. The outside of the crust gets over done while the inside is still doughy and undercooked. Next time I make homemade dough I'll do a calzone or just a pizza. 

photo by Chris 

The undercook/overcook problem may be caused by our oven. I think it may run hot. Also, the knob is slightly askew, so really I've just been guessing while setting the temperature. I probably need to get an oven thermometer before I start baking Christmas cookies. Amy Sedaris was on The Splendid Table yesterday and said that her favorite Christmas cookies were butter cookies with frosting made from the recipe on the back of the Domino's powdered sugar box. Guess who wants me to make those? 

Our heat is now working. The boiler is fixed, and Chris and Andy fixed the radiator in the living room. It hadn't worked since we moved in, and they were stumped...until this bit of inspiration came along. It turns out that when the radiator was painted (in a glossy chrome), paint was slopped right over the pressure relief valve, and air wasn't able to get out to make room for the steam bubbling up from the boiler. 

Gorgonzola!

This is my new favorite veggie meal. Chris deserves all the credit. Okay, maybe Ocean Boulevard deserves a little credit, because the inspiration for this meal came from a dinner we had there last spring. 

Kale recently replaced collards as my favorite leafy green. I wash it well, remove the stem in the middle of the leaves, and tear the leaves up a bit. I put a little butter into a pan and add the kale. Once it has cooked for a few minutes I add a little honey and balsamic vinegar, cook for another minute or two and it's done! 

To go with the kale for our dinner pictured above, Chris dabbed a little olive oil on some slices of bread and toasted them. Then he caramelized some onions and topped it all off with some gorgonzola cheese. 

Wunderkind

My niece and nephew came for a visit. It rained the entire time (we're going on five days in a row now) and they didn't mind a bit. We had all kinds of fun. They planted some seeds themselves. 

I was telling them about the different seeds I had, and I described one packet this way: "these are a mix of white, pink, and red flowers." To which T replied, "hmm, sounds like cosmos." He planted cosmos (clearly he is a fan) and daisies. Ry planted sunflowers, cosmos, and Shasta daisies. We recycled a take-out sushi container for their seeds. Eight large peat pellets fit just fine, but the lid was a close fit. T wanted to turn the seed growing into a competition, and he wrote out some rules on the back of their seed labels. 

Our favorite produce stand Tarheel Too is now open! I bought some local asparagus and it was amazing. I couldn't get over the purple tips. 

 

I added a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and did a quick broil. Which means I put it in the oven on broil, checked it, decided it needed just another minute, forgot about it, remembered it, then ran to the oven to pull it out. And they were cooked perfectly! Works every time. 

I also cooked shad roe and lemon rice. This is supposed to be a quintessential spring meal. I found the recipe here.