It’s raining!!! Now I know that may not be all that exciting for most of you but when it’s February in Minnesota, rain is a very welcomed thing. It means the snow is melting and Spring is soon to show her beautiful face. It was SUCH a …
Adventures in landscaping part 1: discover that the former owners used a tarp-like building wrap under the mulch instead of proper landscape fabric. You know, this may seem like a resourceful, brilliant idea but I assure you, it is not. Building wrap (Tyvek style) is …
Funny story… this actually started as an attempt to make a vegetarian sushi roll but instead of nori, I was going to use nice big leaves of romaine lettuce. Mostly because I just don’t like the flavor of seaweed. Everything started out really well. I had my lettuce leaves and sushi rice all situated on a piece of plastic wrap overtop my bamboo placemat I was going to use to roll it up. I managed to get it flipped so I could roll it inside out and had all of the ingredients in the right places. It was looking great. And then I tried to roll it. The rice decided to not cooperate and I had sticky rice all over my kitchen. Okay fine… no problem, I’ll just reverse it and make it with the lettuce to the outside. Well that worked better. I could actually get it rolled up but when it came time for slicing, it fell apart. Major FAIL on both attempts. Maybe it was lack of sushi rolling experience or maybe something else. I may never know. I ended up eating the mess as it was and thus the salad idea was born.
Vegetarian sushi roll salad, I discovered, is also perfect as a make-ahead lunch idea. Since I had failed twice in my rolling attempts, I had essentially two salads to eat. So I saved one for the next day’s lunch to see how it would hold up. It was perfect! It’s also nice and filling with lots of veggie value, healthy fats from the avocado and a little starch from the rice to carry you through til dinnertime. Of course you can make this fresh and eat it right away but it works awesome made up the night before. To do so, make your rice and chop your veggies. Layer them in a lunch container with the lettuce on the bottom, then rice, and top with the rest of the veggies. Sprinkle a little lemon juice on top of the avocado so it doesn’t turn brown by tomorrow’s lunch and be sure to keep the dressing in a separate container until you’re ready to eat it or you’ll end up with soggy lettuce leaves.
For the soy ginger dressing, I like to use tamari which is similar to soy sauce (you can use soy sauce if you want) but tamari is slightly thicker, less salty and gluten free so it makes for a delish dressing. Yum, yum, yum!
