Sushi!

Usually when I bother to make sushi it's a big production - I'm having people over, or going to a potluck or something, and I make 4 cups of rice and end up doing something like 20 rolls. It almost always involves a shopping trip, because if I'm going to all that trouble, gosh darn it, it will have exactly everything I want in it. I'm usually not motivated to just make a couple rolls for myself, but I'd been craving it for a long time so it finally happened.

Unfortunately it happened on a Saturday, when I was almost out of vegetables (my favorite farmers market here is on Sunday - weird, right?). But I had an avocado, and that's really the only thing I insist on having before I'll make sushi. Usually I'll want some tofu and carrots, but didn't have either and it was just fine. Actually it was super.



I also didn't have sushi rice, but I did have arborio. I've used sushi rice to make risotto before and it worked great, so I figured the reverse was probably true, and it definitely is. I recommend it to everyone who has limited cupboard space and can't just go keeping all kinds of different short grain rice varieties laying around all the time.

I won't go into a whole tutorial on sushi rolling, I'll just say (1) wet your fingers before you spread out the rice, because it's sticky, (2) spread it all the way to the sides of the nori but not all the way to the top or bottom, (3) put the filling in a line, don't cover all of the rice, and (4) look up a real tutorial if you haven't rolled sushi before, so you don't squeeze all your vegetables out or otherwise end up with a big mess.



I didn't have many vegetables but I did have kale, and I sauteed it with a lot of garlic and ginger, then seasoned it with sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. One roll was just avocado and vegenaise (trust me, it's good); the other two were avocado and kale and yes, more vegenaise. I have it on good authority that in Japan apparently they put mayonnaise in almost all the sushi, so I didn't make it up. I just made it better.

The rice: I love the recipe I use; 4 C water, 3.5 C rice, cook 15 min, then leave on the stove with the heat off 15 more. Mix then add 5 T rice vinegar, 5 T sugar, 4 t salt.

Oh, and I add a little rice vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, and ginger to my soy sauce. It's worth the trouble.



Sushi is worth the trouble in general. Next time maybe I'll bother to make some with rice on the outside. We'll see.

Farro Risotto with MORELS!

Morels! It's still early in their short season up here in Minnesota, but today I went with my friend Anna to her parents' woods to hunt for morels, and we found some! Not a lot, but enough to make some amazing farro risotto. It was so good. This was actually the first time I've eaten a morel, and it kind of blew my mind.

Farro Risotto with Morels

- 1 C farro
- 1 onion, diced (we used half a red and half a yellow - shallots might have been even better)
- Several cloves garlic, minced
- 2/3 C dry red wine
- A few tablespoons olive oil and/or earth balance, divided between two 10" or so saute pans
- 1/2 C - 1 C morel mushrooms, rinsed and chopped
- 1/3 C oyster mushrooms (I just had some I really needed to use up)
- 2 C vegetable broth
- Fresh or dried thyme, oregano, chives, or other herbs to taste - we used dried thyme and fresh chives and oregano, because that's what we had
- A little bit of dried chopped chanterelle or other mushrooms dissolved in your hot vegetable broth (I just had these from some fall picking, and thought why not make it as wild-mushroomy as possible. They added a lot.)
- 8 or so kale leaves, chopped with tough stems saved for later
- 2 T or so nutritional yeast
- Truffle oil

Here's a not very good picture of farro:


1. Soak the farro in water for 20 min, then drain and rinse
2. Simmer the farro in water with a bit of olive oil for 20 min, then drain and rinse
3. Heat a couple T of the olive oil/earth balance (I recommend a mixture) in one nonstick wide, shallow pan
4. Add the diced onion and minced garlic to the pan, stir on medium-low for a few minutes with a little salt and pepper
5. If using dried mushrooms, heat veggie broth and add them to rehydrate
6. In second pan, heat another T or so of oil/EB and when hot, add chopped morels (and oysters, if using) and season with salt and pepper
7. Cook the mushrooms on medium or so heat until they're a little browned and smell amazing
8. When the onions are cooked, add the farro and wine, cooking and stirring on medium until almost all the liquid is gone.
9. Add the broth one cup at a time when the liquid is almost gone, stirring frequently. Add the kale at this point too.
10. When the mushrooms are cooked, add them to the risotto as soon as possible so their flavor is infused into the whole dish.
11. When the second cup of broth is almost absorbed, add the nutritional yeast and take it off the heat.
12. Drizzle with truffle oil to make it an over the top intense four-mushroom experience.



This isn't like a traditional arborio rice risotto - the farro doesn't make a creamy starchy sauce while you stir it, but it does get tender and delicious. It's a chewy, hearty grain that goes incredibly well with earthy, rich mushrooms, red wine, and kale. It was like eating a forest (in a good way).

One more unnecessary mushroom shot. Cute, right?



We ate this with a mixed green salad with carrots, oregano, and a pumpkin seed oil/red wine vinaigrette. Also really good.



I'm already so excited to go morel hunting again next weekend - I want enough to cook some and dry a lot. We'll see!