Heather Balog's Blog, page 8

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Connecticut

Ah, Connecticut. Connecticut was another state that Hubby and I lived in pre-children, when I worked as a traveling nurse. Unlike Arizona, we enjoyed Connecticut a lot—probably because we were within driving distance from friends and family and were able to go home often. Connecticut was beautiful when we were there (fall and early winter)—the perfect time of year. There were great restaurants, a million places to shop, amazing foliage and nature, and Yale (I worked at Yale/New Haven Hospital…I enjoyed telling people I worked at Yale

I’m a Stalker Parent

I have a confession to make. I’m a stalker. No, I don’t peek in windows of celebrities or anything. I just stalk my kids. Not on social media or anything embarrassing like that…IRL. (In real life…for you un-hip parents out there.) No, that’s not right, either. I don’t drive around trailing after them with their friends or walk ten paces behind them at the mall—I’m not a nut job Helicopter Parent. But I do track them with the Find My Friends App and I’ll tell you why.

Parenting is Nerve Wracking

Remember last year when my son got his permit and I didn’t think anything could possibly be more nerve wracking than sitting in the passenger seat clutching the “oh $hit bar” while my teen drove? Guess what? I was wrong!

He got his license last week, and it turns out that letting them drive off completely on their own with no responsible adult in sight is the most nerve wracking day of your parenting life. (That is, of course, the most nerve wracking, right of passage, normal parenting life—I’m not talking about the day they take a nosedive down the staircase and break their arm or the day they faceplant into the window sill and cut their chin open.)

I swear, sending them off to kindergarten or a sleep over at a friend’s house is absolutely a walk in the park compared to the day your teen takes the car keys and drives off to God knows where. On their own. Without anyone to guide them. No one to help them make good choices. Without anyone to yell if they drive too fast or change lanes without looking in their rear-view mirror.

Hence, the stalking.

Stop Shaking your Head at Me

I know, I know. Some of you out there are shaking your head. Some of you think I’m overreacting…as usual. I bet you have younger kids. Or no kids. For those of you with younger kids, I’m sure you can imagine the terrifying feeling that you would get in the pit of your stomach the day your tiny baby is big enough to drive, but you don’t think it’s that big a deal. I assure you, you are wrong.

Remember the first time you brought your baby home from the hospital and you panicked every time the car hit a bump? Or when another car sped by at a lightening speed? And then when you finally got that precious baby in the house and stared at him or her because you had no clue what you were doing??? Remember that feeling of “oh my God why did the hospital let us take this baby home”???? Yeah, multiply that feeling times a hundred and you might understand how I felt watching my firstborn drive off on his own. I seriously dry heaved in the bathroom after he drove away. (I probably would have thrown up if I had been able to stomach any food that morning.)

So can you really blame me when I checked my phone five minutes later to make sure he was en route to his destination? Then again ten minutes after that to assure he got there? And then every twenty minutes later so I knew what time he would be leaving to drive again? Or when I cyber followed him all over town, nudging my Hubby and asking, “what the hell is he doing there?” and “how did he get on the other side of town so quickly?”

Side Note: This Doesn’t Just Affect Moms

I think Hubby would have liked everyone to think he was the more chill parent about this whole driving thing, but I caught him checking his own app several times during the day and making the same pained faces at his phone as I was making. I could see the wheels turning in his head as we wondered who our kid was with and what he was doing. At least we didn’t have to wonder where he was. We could see that.

So I’d like to think this “stalking” helps ease my parental anxiety a bit. Although it does open up our imaginations as we are forced to make up stories in our heads about what he could possibly be doing based on his location. Because we definitely don’t want to text him to ask him what he’s doing. That would be weird. We would look like stalker parents or something.

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Minnesota

It’s summer break and we’ve been a bit lax on the State Tour de Foods lately. The reasons vary, but it’s mainly because we haven’t been on our normal school year routine (see Am I Running a Diner Here?). We did have our Minnesota meal a few weeks ago, but I haven’t had a chance to actually write about it until now.

Minnesota, for all you geography challenged out there, is one of those “upper there” states. By “up there”, I mean near Canada. And cold. Like Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Montana. I can’t even fathom living where the temperature doesn’t usually crawl above the freezing mark until the beginning of April. I’m a warm weather Jersey girl myself—I look forward to beach days in the spring and not wearing a coat till Christmas. I’m not sure how I would fare in a foot of snow for Halloween.

So what is there to do when it’s so cold? Well, eat of course! And drink. There are a lot of bars in those cold states. Two in particular argue about who created the burger that we decided to make for our Minnesota state food.

The “Juicy Lucy” (or “Jucy Lucy” as Matt’s Bar has dubbed it) was without a doubt created in Minnesota. That’s not the controversy. What is controversial is WHERE it was created. Both Matt’s Bar and 5-8 Club in Minneapolis claim to have created this burger where the cheese is inside instead of on top. (These bars are a five minute drive from each other…unless you’re drunk…you should probably call an Uber. Or walk. You could definitely walk. Just wear lots of layers so you don’t get frostbite.) According to Wikipedia, this burger is so renowned that it has been featured on Man vs. Food and former President Obama has even requested Juicy Lucy burgers from both bars. Yet, the controversy still remains on its origin, enough to create a rivalry among the townspeople (much like the controversy of who created the Hot Brown Sandwich).

When I first searched for recipes for this burger, I was a little dismayed to see that it didn’t seem to involve any spices. Or egg. Or bread crumbs. How was this burger going to stay together? How could it possibly taste good with only salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce to flavor it? Hubby thinks I don’t put enough flavor in our foods already—he would lose his mind if I told him this didn’t have any spices to it.

Determined to discover a more “flavorful” version I searched a couple more recipes—they all were nearly identical. No spices. No breadcrumbs. I was starting to see whatever made this burger iconic would be a very bare bones recipe. So I proceeded to make the Juicy Lucy burgers…sans onion, sans garlic, sans breadcrumbs, sans BBQ sauce… (Okay, I did use garlic pepper instead of just plain black pepper…shhhh!)

I seasoned the ground beef (the recipe called for 1 lb of ground beef to make 2 burgers—I tripled it so I would have 6 burgers—with the Worcestershire sauce, salt and (garlic) pepper, and formed them into 12 balls. I flattened them into patties and made little wells in the bottom patties for the cheddar cheese to sit in:

 

 

Then I covered the bottom patty with the top patty, pinching the sides to ensure they stayed together and the cheese didn’t leak out. (A few of them still separated upon cooking, so you really need to make the seam…seamless.) The result were giant hamburger patties. They took FOREVER to cook. Hubby made them in his cast iron skillet—it might have been faster to grill, but if they had fallen apart, it might have been messier. Still, the burgers came out nice and juicy-looking:

 

 

Because I was skeptical about the Juicy Lucy’s taste, I wanted to ensure our meal would have something tried and true. I made air fried potato chips with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic as well:

[image error]

 

Throw in some coleslaw, you’ve got a meal.

 

[image error]

 

Surprisingly, the burgers were delicious and DEFINITELY juicy. The cheese can be very hot, so be careful. It didn’t even need more than a squirt of ketchup for flavor, either. We will certainly add The Juicy Lucy to our meal rotation in the future. We might experiment with other cheeses, and will make the burgers smaller for sure to cut down on cooking time. Try one yourself—I doubt you’ll be disappointed! (Nor will you care which bar created them!)

Print Yum

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Minnesota

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 6 burgers

Ingredients

3 lbs ground beef, 85% lean
8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
3 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
garlic pepper & salt to taste (A LOT of garlic pepper)
6 potato buns, toasted

Instructions

Mix ground beef with Worcestershire sauce, salt, and garlic pepper.
Form into 12 balls.
Create patties and make a "well" in 6 of them. Add cheddar cheese to the "well".
Top those 6 patties with the remaining 6, sealing the edges tightly so they don't come apart while cooking.
Use cast iron skillet or grill to cook. (About 7-8 minutes on each side)
Toast buns.
Add ketchup, mayo or whatever topping you'd like and serve!Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/the-bad-mommy-cooks-minnesota/[image error]

 

 

The post The Bad Mommy Cooks—Minnesota appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

Am I Running a Diner Here?

I love summer, but I’ve got to tell you, I think I may lose my mind with over a month left until school starts up again. The kids are killing me. According to them, every day in the summer is a party. All the rules of September through June seem to go out the window. Besides the endless activities and “can so-and-so sleep over?” and “can I go to so-and-so’s house?”, there’s the problem of our summer eating schedule. Which…is largely due to the activities and the sleepovers and the going to friends’ houses.

September through June, our meal schedule goes something like this:

Between 7:00 am-8:00 am: Breakfast

Between 12:00 pm-1:00 pm: Lunch

After school: Snack

Between 5:00 pm-6:00 pm: Dinner

Loosely, of course. Weekends are a little different and it’s subject to change to depending on what we have going on at night, but still, everyone GENERALLY follows this plan. In the summer however, it seems “Everything Goes”. Apparently over the kitchen doorway is a sign that reads “Mom’s 24 Diner! Eat What You Want, When You Want!!!” (And pout when Mom gives you a hard time about it.)

I follow the September through June dining plan all year, including in the summer. I am hungry for breakfast by 8, lunch by 1, and dinner by 6. My body doesn’t say, “screw that, it’s summer”. My body like routine and normalcy. The rest of the house, however…

Here’s Child #1’s schedule:

8:00 am: Wake up. Have coffee. Lounge around. Ignore mother’s requests to eat breakfast.

10:00 am: Eat breakfast.

10:30 am: Eat breakfast again.

11:00 am: Ask what’s for lunch.

11:30 am: Eat lunch.

12:00 pm: Have snack.

12:30 pm: Ask what’s for dinner.

1:00 pm: Stare into the fridge and announce there is nothing to eat. Walk to McDonald’s.

1:30 pm: Work out.

2:00 pm: Go out with friends.

4:00 pm: Return. Ask about dinner again. Have a snack. (At no point is Child #1 using the paper plates, bowls or cups I have asked him to use because he makes too many dishes and he isn’t the one who washes them.)

4:30 pm-7:30 pm: SLEEP.

8:00 pm: Ask about the dinner he slept through. Offer Child leftovers from missed dinner. Child may or may not eat leftovers depending on mood.

8:30 pm: Go back out. Get food while out.

10:30 pm: Return. Make pasta.

11:00 pm: Have a bowl of cereal.

11:30 pm: Have ice cream.

12:00 am: Make more coffee. Immediately go back to sleep.

Child #2’s schedule varies greatly from Child #1:

11:00 am: Stumble out of bed and reject all breakfast choices.

12:00 pm: Lie around and moan and groan about being tired. Reject all lunch choices.

12:30 pm: Take a nap.

2:00 pm: Wake up and announce she’s STARVING and ask when is lunch? Reject lunch choices.

2:30 pm: Eat seven hundred and fifty two mini pretzels and ask about going to the movies/bowling/sleeping at a friends’ house, etc. etc. Clean room for the hundredth time this week when told that she cannot leave the house till said room is clean and laundry is put away.

4:00 pm: Go out with friends.

7:30 pm: Return and wonder where dinner is. Offer Child leftovers from dinner. Child refuses leftovers.

8:00 pm: Have a bowl of cereal.

8:30 pm: Whine about hunger pains and still refuse leftovers.

9:00 pm: Go back to sleep.

12:00 am: Wake up to the smell of coffee brewing and make a cup. Stay awake for the next 3 hours binge watching “The Office”.

And repeat. Add in Child #1’s work days and Hubby’s work days, it’s a wonder we ever get a normal meal in this house. Some nights Hubby and I shrug our shoulders and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for ourselves. A few weeks ago I ate an Eggo waffle for dinner. Last night I had a block of cheddar cheese for dinner. And I didn’t even have any good wine to go with it.

And you know what pisses me off? I’m following a normal eating schedule here and they’re the ones getting annoyed that they can’t eat at their leisure. Today I got a text in Target from Child #2 wanting to know when dinner would be because she was hungry. It was 4:00. And yesterday I got a “what’s for lunch” text…I was at the beach.

I’ve got to laugh at all my friends on social media posting all the fun things they do with their kids during the summer…hell, we can’t even get a meal together, let alone DO anything outside the house. I almost long for the days when it was just picky eating I had to worry about. Now I have one that is grazing 24/7 and the other I have to force-feed until she’s “starving” at the most inopportune times (kind of like when we were trying to potty train her all those years ago…). I guess that’s part of life when your kids are teenagers and doing their own thing with no regard for anyone else in their house (Pretty much the Teenage Mantra). Maybe next year I’ll install a vending machine in the kitchen and make some money off of them at least.

The post Am I Running a Diner Here? appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Florida

I’m just going to come out and lay it on the table right off the bat. I’m not a Florida fan. I’ve been there about a half dozen times and I’ve not been impressed with the place. I don’t like Disney (horrors!) and I’m not a fan of alligators or dying of heat stroke while I’m trying to tie my shoes.  Not trying to offend anyone since I know about 20% of my Facebook “friend” list are Florida transplants from. New Jersey. It’s just not the place for me. Still, I was hoping that Florida would still be a source of a good meal since there a lot of different cultures in Florida. And I’m sure it would have been. You know, if I wasn’t involved in cooking it.

I picked Cuban sandwiches since I’ve had them before and them I was a fan of. Since sandwiches are pretty easy, I decided to make key lime pie as well, one of Hubby’s favorite desserts. Besides ice cream, that is. Back in March for St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to make key lime pie, but I couldn’t find any key lime juice, so I ended up just making these cute little key lime pie jars using regular sweetened lime juice:

[image error]

But this time I wanted to make the pie. Once again, I scoured the store and could not find key lime juice anywhere. I did find a key lime pie mix though and although I wanted to make this pie from scratch, I knew when to give up. Good thing too because I managed to screw up the mix. Can you imagine what damage I could have done if I had tried to make the pie from scratch?

More on that later. First, the Cuban sandwiches. I found a recipe for a Cuban “style” panini. I love paninis. My daughter loves paninis. We’ve spent countless hours at our local sandwich shop waiting for paninis. Paninis can be quite inconvenient to wait for. So why not buy a panini  maker and make our own at home????

Good question. We hardly have room for any additional appliances in our kitchen and Scrooge McDuck wasn’t really on board with us getting a panini maker in the past. But once I presented the idea as part of our food tour, I was given the thumbs up to purchase one. (Like I need a thumbs up to go shopping

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Maryland

Print Yum

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Maryland

Ingredients

For the sliders:
16 oz lump crab meat
1 c. Panko bread crumbs
1/2 c. mayo
2 TBSP parsley, minced
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Slider buns
lettuce

For the Pimento cheese:
8 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
4 oz cream cheese, room temp
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 c. mayo
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/the-bad-mommy-cooks-maryland/[image error]

Like Virginia is for lovers, Maryland is for crab cakes. Who doesn’t like a nice crab cake to usher in the summer months? Well if you don’t, keep moving…nothing to see here.

We were lucky enough to pull Maryland from the hat the same week that we actually were going to Ocean City, Maryland. Since I’ve already started a blog about Places to Eat in OC, you could say that our family has become well versed in Maryland cuisine. This weekend we ate at some of our favorite places; Longboard Cafe, Higgins Crab House , and Uber Bagels, in addition to a new place, The Big Easy on 60.

Still, for the sake of our state blog, I felt I needed to give you all a recipe that we have personally made in our house—crab cake sliders. Maryland is to crab as Maine is to lobster—you can’t go 10 feet without seeing a sign advertising fresh Maryland crabs, like these All You Can Eat crab that we had at Higgins:

[image error]

Nice, huh? We had 13 dozen. It took almost two hours to eat (the quietest dinner we ever have is when we have crab…everyone is very focused on their work…except for my son who, without fail, will order something ridiculous from a crab house like ribs or wings…)

Anyway, these crab cake sliders are a house favorite. We got the recipe at the ONE cooking class Hubby and I attended together. Usually Hubby goes with his friend and they go out for drinks afterward and I’m never asked to tag along, but this one time I was allowed. Actually, I think I insisted on going cuz I wanted to see what the big fuss was all about. I haven’t been back since because, in case you didn’t know, cooking class is boring.

The Bad Mommy Eats OC—The Big Easy on 60

We’ve passed this restaurant a million times on our visits to Ocean City (mostly on our way to the Walmart in Berlin—it always seems like we forgot to bring something). I kept mentioning it to Hubby that I really wanted to eat there because it looked like a fun and hip place. Okay, maybe I’m not up on what’s “hip”, but the cool staircase in the front and the open patio caught my eye—kind of “Antebellum-ish”. Hubby ignored my demands until our most recent trip. He was tired of “the same old thing”, so I presented The Big Easy on 60 as an alternative to “the same old thing”.

This restaurant boasts a New Orleans flare

The Bad Mommy Eats OC—Higgins Crab House North

We went back to OC this past weekend and I realized that I haven’t really been blogging much about the places we’ve eaten there in the off-season. It almost seemed unfair to rate places that weren’t running at full capacity. But now it’s beach season and everyone is firing on all cylinders, so back to the reviews.

Higgins Crab House is a family favorite. We first ate at this establishment in 2015—Higgins Crab House South, though. They have a great outdoor deck on top of the building fully equipped with handwashing stations where you can get glimpses of the ocean. This is where my son decided his best course of action at a crab house was to order the ribs.

The Bad Mommy Cooks—California

Yes! We’ve been waiting for this state ever since we came back from this state…ironically, 1 year ago. We discovered some of the best food on our 2017 California trip—Carnitas, guacamole, Mexican street corn, churros, and a Mexican breakfast buffet that nearly made Hubby wept tears of joy.

But like I mentioned in my Sushi blog…this makes things difficult when choosing what to make for that state. With all those choices, how do we pick just one? Well, you spend endless hours on Pinterest while calling suggestions to your family who are too busy watching You Tube videos and playing Song Pop to answer you, so you just choose the first recipe you pinned and pray that it’s a hit.

Spoiler alert: it actual was.

I am just as surprised as you are…believe me. Especially since the theme of most of the California recipes (besides “avocado”) seemed to be “healthy”. And members of my family are not big fans of “healthy” food. I’m sure they were afraid I was going to pick one of the many recipes with “Tofu” in the title. I didn’t, of course (who likes tofu????), but I really didn’t think they would like Veggie Avocado Chicken Bowls, either.

This recipe was somewhat of a twist on the Cuban beef bowls we got from Plated. Except there was no beef. And no pineapple. And it wasn’t Cuban. Okay, so the similarities are there was rice and we ate it out of bowls…

Anyhoo…Hubby and I went to the store for the ingredients. I hadn’t really read the recipe thoroughly at that point in time, which I was chastised by Hubby for. (Sometimes he studies recipes like there’s going to be a quiz or something…) So at that juncture, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the chicken. When he asked me how I planned to make the chicken, I dismissed the thought with a wave of my hand and told him I would just grill it. Plain. Without seasoning. I thought I saw his brain explode. There are three things about me that Hubby cannot stand. #1. My inability to record checks properly and balance a checkbook. #2. My refusal to change a light bulb. #3. My lack of sufficient seasoning when I cook.

(Here’s a secret: sometimes I just do all of the above to irk the ever-loving crap out of him. Hey, after 21 years of marriage without anything “real” to fight about, sometimes you have to push some buttons for your own personal amusement.)

So the suggestion that I wasn’t planning to season the chicken was nearly enough to give him a stroke. (Sometimes I have to pull back on the teasing…I guess.) He spent the entire ride home from the store making suggestions on how I might season the chicken. He disappeared for a few minutes after we got home (most likely because I was unpacking the groceries…one of my pet peeves) and in that time I managed to read the recipe properly and season the chicken. Once he popped back into the kitchen and gathered his various herbs and spices in order to instruct me on my seasoning deficiency, I was able to smugly tell him that it was already done.

And boy was it done. There is a $hit-ton of spices in this chicken recipe: garlic, basil, parsley, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, onion powder, red pepper, black pepper, and of course, salt. I combined the spices with olive oil and stirred it up before marinating it for a half an hour and then putting the cubes of chicken on skewers. (P.S. if you use wooden skewers you need to soak them in water for about a half hour before using so they don’t burn on the grill.)

 

 

 

While the chicken was  marinating, I started the rice. You can use basmati or Jasmine rice. I opted for basmati rice—the few times I have made it in the past it has come out perfect. This time was no exception—yah, me!

As the rice simmered on the stove, I cut the zucchini and prepared it for grilling. Meaning, I put it in a Ziploc baggie with olive oil and salt and pepper and shook it up. Unfortunately, the grill basket that I used took way too long to grill it (the chicken was done before the zucchini), so I got a chance to use the air fryer that had been neglected for the better part of two weeks. I also cut up the grape tomatoes…the recipe left them plain, but I tossed them in a little balsamic vinaigratte dressing. How’s that for seasoning things up, Hubs?

 

 

 

 

I also skinned and mashed up the avocado at that time. This is also where I deviated from the recipe. The recipe said to just add lemon juice to the avocado—I added lemon juice, lime juice, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic to make a quick and easy guacamole. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know Hubby will interject hereto mention his guac is the best and his guac takes hours to prepare. And it probably is the best, but this wasn’t bad for a three minute guac whipped up at the last minute.

The most difficult part of this whole meal was getting everything done at the same time, but eventually, we were ready to eat. I put out all the ingredients so everyone could assemble their own bowls. Oddly enough, the recipe calls for walnuts and blue cheese sprinkles for the top of the rice bowls. I laid them out, not sure if anyone would use them. It seemed like a weird combo.

[image error]

 

Yet, it was strangely delicious and received an enthusiastic 3 thumbs up. (Child #2 was in a cranky mood and recovering from strep throat so she wasn’t giving anything but an endless bowl of ice cream thumbs up that day.)

[image error]

 

I highly recommend this California meal. You can change up the veggie ingredients if you want, and I’m sure you could make it with beef (or tofu) if you wanted. Bon Appetite!

Print Yum

The Bad Mommy Cooks—California

Ingredients

1 lb of chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 c. basmati rice
2 c. water
1/2 c. olive oil
2 ripe avocados
1 medium zucchini
2 c. of grape tomatoes
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. onion powder
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lime juice
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
1/2 c. blue cheese
1/4 c. balsamic vinaigratte

Instructions

Soak wooden skewers for 1/2 hour.
Mix the garlic, smoked paprika, red pepper, black pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 tsp. onion powder, parsley, and basil with 1/4 c. of olive oil. Toss in cut up chicken. Marinate for 1/2 hour.
Cut up zucchini. Place in baggie with remainder of olive oil and salt and pepper. Shake and place on grill. (Or air fryer like I did.)
Make rice according to package directions.
Skewer chicken and cook on grill until middle is no longer pink.
Cut up grape tomatoes. (Feel free to toss in balsamic...or not.)
Peel avocados and mash. Add remainder of garlic, 1/2 tsp onion powder, lime juice, lemon juice, and salt & pepper to taste.
Assemble rice bowls and enjoy!
Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/the-bad-mommy-cooks-california/[image error]

The post The Bad Mommy Cooks—California appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Sushi

So I know it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me about my cooking endeavors. Well, the reason is…it has literally been two weeks since we actually cooked dinner at home to eat. Other than the bowls of cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, that is. It’s been two weeks of non-stop action—school events, baseball games, taxiing to friends’ houses. There’s been barely enough time to actually eat, let alone plan a meal and cook it. Heck, I haven’t been on Pinterest in days! We haven’t even been to the grocery store in almost two weeks either. But rest assured, the almighty Summer Break is upon us and we will finally have more Free Time…or so we hope.

I was finally scrolling through Pinterest the other day in search of our California meal since we picked California next. California is one of those states with so many choices that it is going to be difficult to decide. (More on that tomorrow.) But anyway, as I was perusing, I came across a recipe for California rolls…sushi. Now my daughter is a sushi junkie. She loves California rolls and she loves to go out for sushi. I’ll eat sushi, but no one else in the house will even touch the stuff, so her “going out for sushi” rarely happens. I buy it for her at the grocery store, but it’s one of those things that only stays fresh for a day, so she rarely gets the sushi she loves.

Anyway, I came across this recipe for sushi and I got a brilliant idea. Why not make our own sushi?

Of course, making sushi is not a simple task. (Is anything I do a simple task????) It starts with a sushi making kit which I promptly researched. The sushi making kit consists of a bamboo mat to roll the sushi and a wooden spoon. Oh and chopsticks. That’s it, but apparently it is impossible to make sushi without this bamboo mat. Side note: aforementioned bamboo mat is impossible to clean.

Also, every single person’s review on Amazon said you WILL mess up the first few pieces of sushi you make. NO ONE gets it right the first time. Of course, I would have loved to be the first person to get it right on the first try, but you guys know me.

I purchased the sushi making kit from Amazon on Sunday, resulting in yet ANOTHER package arriving to our house and Hubby’s eyebrows raising in fury. (Damn you, Prime! You make things too easy!) The sushi making kit sat on the kitchen table for four days until I had a spare minute for this project. That’s when I sent hubby to the store for cucumbers, avocado, seaweed papers, and imitation crab meat (which he said “you better not sneak into my food”—he hates the idea of imitation crab meat when the real thing is available…and ten times more expensive). The seaweed wrap can be found in the aisle with other Asian foods…no need to go to a special store for it.

I did not ask him to pick up sushi rice. I (wrongly) assumed I could use regular rice to make the sushi, but the recipe specifically called for sushi rice. Back to the store I went… (I proceeded to run into half the town while I was there, thus making the trip about a half hour longer than it needed to be.)

When I got home, my daughter had a friend over and they were incredibly enthusiastic about making sushi. They were also enthusiastic about FILMING the sushi making project and posting it on You Tube. Now, most people who know me understand that I hate pictures of myself. What I despise even more is VIDEO of myself. The idea of my sushi disaster being filmed for posterity was a little more than I could bear, but they were so excited about it…how could I say no?

Before they got to the rolling of the sushi, though, there was prep work to be done to the ingredients. The rice, first of all, needed to be made. I generally screw up rice left and right, but the sushi rice wasn’t too bad even though it was kind of mushy, but that was helpful later on. You need to mix rice vinegar (1 TBSP) and salt (1/4 tsp) and sugar (1/2 tsp) in a bowl. Once the sugar is dissolved, add to the rice. Stir to mix evenly. Then the crab needed to be chopped and mixed with 2 TBSP of mayo and a tsp of lemon juice.

[image error]

I stuck that in the fridge to chill a little while I peeled and sliced the avocado, and cut and seeded the cucumber. Full disclosure: I have no idea how to actually seed the cucumber, so I just sliced the middle out. I think it was a seedless cucumber anyway.

[image error]

As ready as I’ll ever be, I called the girls to assemble the sushi and roll it. It was at this point in time that I should have popped up to the bathroom to put my contacts in and put a little make-up on and brush my hair, but alas, I was too worried about the impending sushi disaster to think about what I looked like. Hopefully no one will ever watch the video. Chances of that are good considering my daughter still hasn’t edited the video yet.

So since I don’t have a video to show you guys, I will have to give step by step instructions. First you lay the bamboo mat down, place a piece of plastic wrap on top of it, and then a piece of the seaweed. You then spread the rice mixture over the top of the seaweed in a thin layer, patting it down with the bamboo spoon. When that is pressed into the seaweed, sprinkle sesame seeds on top and pat those down as well.

[image error]

(This is the girls’ sushi…you need to pat it down more than this as we soon learned.)

Then you flip the seaweed over (this is the reason the rice needs to be stuck well to the seaweed…otherwise it goes all over). At this point in time we thought we would be clever and put another piece of plastic wrap in order to flip the seaweed—but this just led to the problem of plastic wrap being rolled up INTO the sushi when we rolled up the bamboo mat. So…don’t do that.

On the empty side of the seaweed, you fill the sushi roll with the ingredients. DO NOT OVERFILL! This is where we also went wrong the first time. If you overfill, it is really hard to get a tight roll on the sushi and you end up with sushi that looks like this:

[image error]

Yeah…that was the first attempt.

Armed with knowledge from our failed first attempt, I tried a second attempt. This was much better, but still could use some work:

[image error]

Because the rice was still warmish, I stuck the roll in the fridge before cutting it.

 

The result was pretty decent tasting sushi—even though it was nowhere near as nice and compact as the sushi we get at restaurants. (Yeah that sushi at the top isn’t mine.) And we had quite a few laughs trying to make the sushi, so I think we’ll keep trying to get it right.

Print Yum

The Bad Mommy Cooks—Sushi

Ingredients

1 c. sushi rice
2 c. water
1 small cucumber, seeded and cut into strips
1 avocado, peeled and cut into strips
1 package of imitation crab meat
2 TBSP of mayo
1 tsp lemon juice
1 TBSP rice vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
sesame seeds
Nori (seaweed wrap)Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/the-bad-mommy-cooks-sushi/[image error]

 

 

The post The Bad Mommy Cooks—Sushi appeared first on Author Heather Balog.