Sushi - Maki Rolls

Something Jean misses very much when she is away at school is sushi.  Grinnell has no restaurants or grocery stores that sell sushi, and it is not something the school dining services provides.  So she eats lots of sushi when she is home.  We don't usually make our own, but decided to serve homemade sushi at our Wednesday night dinner with company this week.

Our supplies included a bamboo mat, plastic wrap, a wooden bowl, a sharp knife, sushi rice, rice vinegar, toasted sesame seeds, nori sheets, and our ingredients for fillings - Imitation crab, avocado, carrots, cucumbers, sweet potato.  We also made a couple of sauces to use with our maki - one using coconut aminos (instead of soy sauce) and a sweet cooking wine (mirin or dry sherry), then reduced over heat to consistency desired; the other a spicy mayo sauce made by whisking together Vegenaise, siracha, and fresh lime juice.

Here are links to a couple of blogs I found helpful for the sauces, sweet potato sushi, and how to roll the sushi.  http://myfamilydish.com/sweet-potato-sushi/  and http://www.davesbigblueplate.com/2012/02/sweet-potato-sushi.html

Dinner was butternut squash soup, crusty bread, California rolls, sweet potato rolls, and some other sushi combos, steamed green beans, and Thai sweet sticky rice with mango for dessert (separate blog post).