Now I can make my own sushi rolls, and eat them, too! (eat them with better piece of mind, that is!) These are rolls made with quinoa, (a really healthy grain) instead of rice! It's a wonderful recipe I found on the very rockin' blog called My New Roots.
The quinoa seeds are treated as a grain- meaning you can steam/cook them like rice or oats. The plant itself is related to spinach, beets, and swiss chard. The grain-seeds have all 9 amino acids in their composition, making quinoa a complete protein, as well! Quinoa also is rich in magnesium, and is said to help reduce occurrence of migraine headaches for this reason. Also, quinoa has a glycemic index in the 50s, whereas rice can have a glycemic index in the 50s up past 100.
We made California rolls from rice and quinoa. We used avocado, celery, imitation crab, arugula, spinach, and radishes for filling. We made our pickled ginger from scratch (see the recipe link) and stirred up wasabi from the powder found in the Asian section of the grocery store.
We watched several videos on YouTube for tutorials on rolling the sushi rolls, before we started. It really isn't that difficult. One tip I came away with is to completely encase your sushi mat in plastic wrap, especially if you are rolling with the rice on the outside. There is no sticking this way, and your mat stays clean. (dried, sticky rice is no fun to wedge out of a sushi mat!)
Please go over to Sara Britton's amazing My New Roots Blog for the fabulous DIY quinoa sushi recipe, complete with pickled ginger:
