I did shrooms. Also, rice fail.

   Hello again. I would call this a pretty bad sushi day but I will start with the positives.

    Remember when I said I wanted to get my hands on some shiitake mushrooms? Well, I did!

Shiitakes are a type of mushroom native to east asia, and they have a strong, earthy flavor. I did some research on them and decided I would sautée the shrooms in some sesame seed oil and soy sauce to give them an extra punch of flavor. They came out really, really yummy and packed with flavor!

 Next, I prepped the rest of my veggies (just avo & cucumber) for what I originally intended to be an all-veggie roll, but later decided to top with smoked salmon. 

    Everything's going great so far, right? I've washed my rice, prepped my veggies and all is well. WRONG! My rice came out SO BAD! Like, not just "okay, this is usable" bad, but I-had-to-throw-it-away bad. It was wierdly sticky/starchy and mixing it the correct way did little to improve its consistency. It was almost like a paste instead of individual grains. The only reason for this I could think of was that I used the remainder of the rice that came with my sushi kit that I bought in like August. I probably should have used the fresher rice! This was a HUGE disappointment considering how excited I was about this roll and how much time I spent doing research/prepping, but now I know to use fresher rice and maybe rinse it a few more times. 

    Despite the crappy rice, I threw together a roll and split it with my mom and sister. The flavors were excellent, but the consistency of the rice was very hard to get past. My family (my cheerleaders) were still excited to sample it. God bless 'em.

Conceptually, it was an awesome roll but Jiro hasn't even died yet and he's already rolling in his grave over that rice. Speaking of the rice, here's a picture of the rice on an upside-down spoon. 

Sushi rice is supposed to be sticky to an extent, but never that sticky, hahaha. Wish me better luck next time, friends!