Sushi... That Seems A Bit Fishy To Me!

When I initially heard about and research what the meat industry was doing to the meat products I was consuming daily I was quite horrified and I cut out all meat products cold turkey.  Honestly the switch wasn't hard because I already loved a lot of vegetarian staples like grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches.  What was really hard for me was leaving sushi behind.  Although I live in a land locked state there are still some really good sushi places around and once trying it freshman year in college I was instantly hooked.  Going back to my favorite sushi place with my friends after deciding that I was eating strictly vegetarian was so hard for me.  I sadly ate my fried rice with some tofu and looked longly at my friends spicy salmon roll or the shrimp tempura.  I quickly decided that I was a happy vegetarian but I could live with being the occasional "pescaterian" (meaning I would eat fish but no other meat).  So to this day as an almost vegan I stay away from processed food and meats.  I enjoy my mostly vegan food and love cooking until Tuesday rolls around!

Almost every Tuesday I get together with two of my closest friends and we enjoy half price sushi at this swanky downtown restaurant! 620 State has some of the best sushi I have had! (except for the sushi I got in Washington State but it was fresh out of the ocean) So thinking last night as I had my two favorite rolls and chatted over an appetizer of crab ran goons, wow I am pretty far from vegan and vegetarian.

Some pretty strict vegans might really frown upon my eating habits but sushi might be one of the easiest dished to make vegan.  When I look up vegan recipes to cook for the week I often seen 'protein crumbles' and 'soy'.  I don't mind taking some of my favorite foods and making them vegan but some times its so much work to try to change key ingredients.  Sushi on the other hand really consist of 3 or 4 key things that are already vegan!

1. Rice -  white rice is vegan no doubt!
2. Seaweed wrap - its like eating the oceans own home grown herb!
3. Veggies -  most of the time its carrots or cucumber! 
4. Fish - Now clearly this is where you end up in trouble but this could be cut out all together.

Now I am not a sushi pro but when I end up at dinner on Tuesday I get a dynamite roll and a stir fry roll.  The dynamite roll contains imitation crab and cream cheese.  I  would need to look at the ingredients for the crab but it could be vegan! And the cream cheese could be a simple fix of just replacing it with Tofutti or another vegan cream cheese! What a simple fix!  The stir fry roll is a shrimp and cream cheese roll that is tempura fried (meaning it has a light batter on it and then flash fried) and then topped with a hot sauce.  Tempura batter is clearly not a vegan dish so when I can figure out how to make vegan tempura batter make sure to find me because I will be making my own vegan sushi and starting a swanky downtown restaurant!

One last note! Big thank you to all of you out there sharing my blog and keeping up with me! My blog is growing more and more every day and the more I cook and blog the more I love my healthy eating! The blog has been shared and I now have viewers in Germany and Russia! Wow :) Thanks everyone!
Later on tonight for dinner I am doing pineapple fried rice and I cant wait to share it!