Sushi

Back when we were dating, James for some reason bought Nori seaweed from Many Lands. We love Many Lands. Sometimes it's just tempting to buy something new and fun-looking with so much foreign food all in one place.

But, it's lame to be stuck with a bunch of seaweed. We tried to eat it with regular rice and let me tell you, it was just not very enjoyable. I had been wondering about homemade sushi for a while, because there's this sushi place in American Fork that we love to go with my dad. We almost always go with my dad, because whenever we suggest it to him he cannot resist.

Anyway, I finally made up my mind and I bought sticky rice, which is VERY sticky! (You don't say.) But we were able to still do normal things with it, like cook it in a rice cooker and use it with fried rice, etc.

What stopped me from trying to make sushi was that it's hard to get sushi-grade raw fish. One lucky day, however, an idea occurred to me that we don't really NEED raw fish in it. In fact we have canned Bumblebee Tuna fish! And it would still be totally authentic! (That one's for Abbey.)

So here is what we put in it:

• Nori seaweed
• Sticky rice
• Canned tuna
• Red bellpeppers
• Green Goddess dressing
• Sriracha sauce
• Ginger

(I mixed the dressing and Sriracha into a sauce to pour over the rice.)

If this sounds weird to you, then you are probably right, I am no sushi expert, but I will say it tasted quite good for my first homemade sushi ever! Even James says he liked it.

I actually went to the Asian market and bought a cheap sushi roller, which did the job.

Here are a few pieces of the first roll, complete with James' fancy retractable camping chopsticks (Yes....I wish that I was joking too.) and an elegant swirl of sauce that also makes it look like the plate has a face. :)

 

A closeup...

And here is our second roll which we did inside out. Although it was very hard and messy to cut it into pieces, I still think this looks more appetizing than the first one.

 

We dipped them in soy sauce to eat. It was very filling, tasted good, and was a fun food to try making! I'm glad that at least it didn't fail horribly. We still have plenty of Nori, so hopefully some day I may actually go find some raw fish. Or just make vegetarian rolls. Yay!

Saturday in Salt Lake

On the 14th, we went to West Jordan to see my family and all headed up to Salt Lake to see the Ferrell family (James' sister and brother-in-law). We were pretty late in getting there, but it worked out fine. We went to the visitor's center in Temple Square and found them looking at all the Book of Mormons in different languages. Katie kept running around and finding ones that Benjamin could read (German and Russian).

At one point we saw a Japanese one, and I told Katie her mom had gone to Japan. She didn't believe me. "No she didn't!" I told her to ask her mom, and she did. She was pretty surprised when she found out it was true!!!

It was fun to see them! Katie and Jane were very excited. I don't know if Jack and Aiden recognized us. Probably James, but I don't think they knew who I was.

It sounds like AnnaMarie and Tyler had rotten luck with their no-storage 15-passenger van. But Jane and Katie were sure happy to each have their own row of seats! James and I got to sit by them.

After Temple Square we ate at a fun waffle place, where for some reason at least 3 different manifestations of James Bond picked up separate orders. They were good waffles. We also got french fries. Jane was having trouble with her napkin flying away in the wind until we showed her how to keep it down by putting a soda can on it. Then she decided that instead of the soda can, she wanted to put ALL her fries on it to hold it down. She became very frustrated as she ate them all.

After the Waffle place the Ferrells left for their vacation. We were about to go home, but saw a booth-festival-fair-thing going on and decided to walk around for a bit! The first section was mostly home-grown produce, but then it got more artsy and crafty. And snacky. I just love seeing all the crafts! Some of the booths gave me ideas of fun projects to do.

1) Owl pillow. There were pillows that were cut in the shape of owls. So cute! I could do that with dinosaurs too. The only difference was that they got a really nice edge using a serger, I think. I got nothing that fancy, but I do have a super little sewing machine from Marianne! :D

2) Book cover notebooks. They had plain blank notebooks, but had re-bound them with covers of children's books and old books. I really liked them, for some reason. I found tons of kid's books at DI that would make cute notebook covers. But I think the binding process is a little beyond what Cougar Creations can do. You never know though.

That's basically it for projects, though there were lots of fun things they were selling. Like superheroes and comic book characters painted into famous paintings. And wood crafts like Michael does. And jewelry, clothes, etc.

My mom couldn't resist buying some cupcakes, since she is the Cupcake Expert and has dreams to open a cupcake shop. So we all got some yummy dessert.

One tent that James found interesting was Tin Type. They had this really old-fashioned looking camera that took pictures and somehow put the pictures right onto thin plates of metal, about 4x5 inches. They looked brown, faded, and old-fashioned like. I guess Tintype was a thing in the late 1800s!

So it was a fun day! Sadly, we only got two okay pictures of the whole day, so here they are:

 

 Dad, Josh, Emily, and Mom

 

My dearest sister Emily!

Camping (Hobble Creek Canyon)

Back in the middle of June we went camping with our friends the Randalls! Our Oldsmobile made it all the way up to Hobble Creek Canyon. It's the first time James and I have been camping together since we got married. So fun! But the only tent we have is James' little two-man tent (AKA one-man cave) which made things a little cramped...or cozy, if you look at it that way. Our sleeping bag was seriously bigger than the tent.

Matt and Angelique brought their hammock. James has one too, but sadly it was stuffed away in our closet amidst boxes. We have a few boxes we've never opened at Wymount. In August we'll have to do some last minute camping.

  

Matt the Elusive

 

Everyone got a turn on the hammock...Even the feet of James.

James brought his rifle and Matt also brought a BB gun. We didn't have ear protection so the boys put wadded up wet toilet paper in their ears. Gross.  They shot James' gun a couple times and then used up all of Matt's BBs trying to shoot some previous camper's soda can off a branch. It was fun to watch them.

For dinner we ate yummy Mountainhouse dinners and the Randalls had tinfoil dinners. Then the S'mores! Mmm. S'Moores. We had fun around the campfire. We played "Never Have I Ever," which is not really the best game to play when spouses are involved. We also  watched Matt pick up bugs with the fire tongs and put them into the fire. I guess he doesn't like bugs or something. (Not complaining.)

 

James splitting some wood while sitting.

  

A very handsome fellow.

 

I think this lens is most hilarious.

James also did some fun star photography at night. You can already see SO MANY stars out there in the middle of nowhere... It's just amazing what a camera can see with a long exposure.

The next morning we had to get out of there pretty early since Matt had work. For breakfast we ate some delicious dense granola bars I had made. I was very proud of them. They would've been better with chocolate chips though. Oh well.

On the way home we stopped at a few yard sales but we found nothing good until we passed a family on the side of the road selling huge bags of cherries for cheap! That was a nice morning.