With more than 100 days of social distancing behind us, my kitchen table has put in a lot of hours.
It’s not only the three meals a day. It has also been host to home school — which has been set up there every week day. If it could talk, it would be pleading for time off.
I’m feeling it’s pain. We pop out for the occasional picnic, and treat ourselves to the odd takeaway sofa supper, but, even with restaurants reopening next week, I’m sure there will be quite a few more home meals on our menu.
Like the table, I’m weary. Anything that makes a mealtime more fun — and reduces the washing up, is a bonus.
Like the sushi-making kit we tried out last week by Jo Goodkind of Bamboo Sushi. You can read all about Jo here. This is what we thought about the kit.
What you get:
Vacuum packed, cooked rice
Seaweed sheets
Four strips of salmon
Three strips of tuna
Cucumber, cut into long matchsticks
Avocado, whole
Soy sauce
Ginger and wasabi
Spicy mayonnaise
Sesame seeds
Plus:
Bamboo mat for rolling
We were also sent a couple of videos recorded by Jo, showing what we needed to do before starting our sushi adventure. It was all pretty simple. You needed cling film, a microwave, sharp knife and chopping board.
The experience:
Even though my children are (to my eternal despair) averse to anything new, they were fully on board. This was as much a craft activity as it was a food tasting. Easy for them to get involved, and a great distraction.
Although they stuck to simple cucumber rolls (sigh) they each enjoyed the process. And they left us all the fish — result. We made simple Maki rolls and the more fancy inside out rolls, Jo showed us in her excellent instructions.
The hardest part was flattening the layer of rice on the seaweed sheet. It stuck relentlessly to our hands – which my son hated — but wetting our hands first helped.
The kit should make 60 pieces, but I’m not sure we managed that many. We ran out of rice before we ran out of fillings – but may have used too much rice per roll.
The verdict:
This was up there with fajita-making in terms of table entertainment. It made for a fun meal that was reasonably healthy and deliciously different from our norm.
At £29 (about £7.50 per head) it wasn’t bad value either. You may want to add some extras – edamame beans; rice crackers; chopped veggies; miso soup to pad it out a little.
