Sushi for beginners

We were supposed to go to The Front Room for dinner, but that fell through and if I think about it, I get grumpy, so I won't. A long story short, Jim, his younger sister J, and I ended up by ourselves going out to sushi at Matsuri's, so really, it wasn't a bad deal at all. And for once, it was Jim's idea to go for sushi. J is moving back to Tennessee next week, and Jim thought it would be a good idea to hit up places that she won't be able to eat at once she's living in the sticks. And for once, Jim was the adventurous one, which was very, very cool.

Matsuri's is a pretty decent sushi restaurant that's overpriced, but the restaurant space itself is so nice that I don't mind going once in a while. We sat at the bar tonight, which is a must at this place, since they don't serve edamame when you sit at a table. I got an entire tray to myself, and Jim and J shared the other one. I love edamame so much. I swear I could just eat that for dinner every once in a while. Jim isn't so crazy about it, but because it's healthy, he'll choke down a bit.

The biggest problem I have with Matsuri's is that there isn't a whole lot of vegetarian sushi on the menu. In fact, even the Futo Maki roll contains crab, which is crazy. The veggie roll is really, really good, but it's the only option I have, other than a cucumber roll. Actually, tonight I added two veggie hand rolls, which Jim has never seen before. He thought it was crazy looking, but I think hand rolls are beautiful.



The veggie roll is equally beautiful in my opinion. I love that they drizzle the sushi with teriyaki sauce.



Jim and his sister shared. Jim did the ordering and got a seared scallop roll, Lion King, and Pink Lady. J wasn't too impressed with sushi, which was a little disappointing. Most of the time I consider Jim pretty unadventurous when it comes to food. He likes steak and potatoes, hamburgers, and chain restaurants. But he's made such an effort over the years to humor me, since I love trying new foods and restaurants and somewhere along the lines, he's learned to like it. I guess I didn't realize how far he's come until tonight. I tease him about being picky, but he's really not. He'll try just about anything. He just isn't too keen on expanding the type of food that he eats. But he can now add sushi, Indian, and Vietnamese to the types of food he likes. I don't think he's sold on Greek yet.

But back to tonight's meal, I thought their sushi looked amazing. Unfortunately, I don't think there was a single thing about it that appealed to J. She didn't like the way it looked, tasted, or the texture of the food. She didn't refuse to eat it, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't digging it too much. So we ended the meal with tempura, the one universal food at sushi restaurants.



Afterwards, we head to Cold Stone. Jim got some sort of cookie dough vanilla ice cream concoction. It also had chocolate chips and chocolate syrup mixed in. For the first time ever, I was actually a little disappointed in Cold Stone. The vanilla ice cream didn't have much flavor to it. Don't get me wrong--ice cream is ice cream, and Cold Stone is some of the best. But usually it's better. J got Strawberry Blonde, which is one of my faves. I was jealous.

Before going out for sushi, I cooked dinner for the fam, since it is Sunday night. I wanted to do something eggplant-based, but my mom doesn't seem to have gone shopping recently for produce, so there wasn't much fresh stuff going on. I ended up making a Rachael Ray recipe from her Express Lane Meals book. I've read the ceci pasta recipe at least a dozen times, but I never actually looked at the instructions themselves. I had always skipped it because the thought of spaghetti and garbanzo beans just is not appealing to me. Garbanzos have only grown on me in the past few years. While I never hated them, they've never been my favorite. But ever since I started eating hummus (in 2005 I had a hummus sandwich at the Pacific Masters short course championships and fell in love with the stuff), I've grown to like them more and more and now borderline love them. But still, pasta and garbanzos? Ick. However, for whatever reason, I actually read the directions, which had you throw the beans into the food processor. Once I read that, I happily tried the recipe. And I'm really glad that I did, because it was surprisingly tasty. The ground garbanzos added a nice texture to the spaghetti sauce. By the way, did I mention how freaking easy the recipe was? All I did was pulse the garbanzos finely and then pan fry them a bit with garlic and olive oil. I added some vegetable broth until the mixture because creamy, stirred in thyme, salt, and freshly ground black pepper and then combine it was the spaghetti sauce. I'm definitely going to tinker more with this recipe. I think I could really make it a delicious meal. Plus it was even LESS than a 30 minute meal!