Squishi vs. sushi?

Ok.....contender #1 sushi...my good 'ol standard favorite food. It lives in little Japanese restaurants, covered in fish eggs, seaweed, sesame seeds, masked with pickled ginger and wasabi. We eat it with soy sauce and edamame, we drink saki and green tea. Sipping slowly waiting for the perfect rolls to arrive. Then once they come, we wolf them down, barely chewing the giant rice stuffed and nori wrapped assortment. Raw fish, and Japanese oddities like "Buddha Balls", lotus root go down without much question. We sit and wipe our mouths while the rice slowly expands inside, swelling our guts until suddenly we all say "Ok, I think this will be the last one." Then we pack up the leftovers...which there always are and eat our little orange slices, or chocolate mint, say "Arigato!" or the like and head out the door ducking under indigo dyed curtains, escaping back out into the street, glazed and over stuffed.

Contender #2 squshi...."what?" you say. Well in my house the recently coined name comes from combining the squishi innards of the nori and the name the vegan delights resemble....sushi. We wrap other oddities, like kombocha sqaush, sprouted sunflower seeds which were blended up with avocado and cilantro, hemp seeds, ginger, and other veggies. This time we sit, accompanied by salad, nama shoyu, and water. They say "Yuuuuummmm, what is in this?" and I respond "Rabbit food", we all laugh and then eat until we are perfectly full, the overstuffed feeling never comes. Satisfyingly vegan....this is a hard balance. How to eat grain free, and vegan and get full and feel like we ate well and had plenty of flavors in the mix.

Squishi Recipes

avocadoes
nori
carrots-grated
cabbage sliced thin
cilantro
pickled ginger
sauteed shitakes
sauteed zuchinni
sliced cucumber
steamed squash if desired
hemp seeds


For the "rice"
soak almonds or sunflower seeds for a few hours or overnight to begin the sprouting process
blend in cuisinart for a few minutes
mix with a bit of olive oil, salt, wasabi powder, chopped cilantro, avocado rice wine vinnegar or whatever you like really.

Another "rice" variation is to chop jicama and cucumbers and hemp seeds up real fine with some salt and spread out on the nori.

Add in your favorite veggies from above and roll up. Slice and serve with pickled ginger and nama shoyu- a raw variety of soy sauce. A little saki never hurts. Peace and squshi.

Chiah