Sushi & Souffles

Last Friday night, Mike & I decided to each make something new that we hadn't ever made before. The result? A truly wonderful & fun date night in! The food was fantastic & we had fun making it together in our small little kitchen & dining room.

The Sushi came first. We made Sushi Rice per Alton Brown's recipe.

 It was perfectly sticky & tasted great just by itself.

We decided to make simple sushi for our first try. 

Our rolls consisted of ahi tuna, cucumber, avocado & toasted sesame seeds. Of course nori & sushi rice too. 

Mike did a great job rolling each one!

He even tried an inside-out roll! Fancy, fancy!

Here is our finished product. Just add soy sauce & wasabi! So yummy.

Next up... Chocolate Souffles!

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Souffles as our November 2010 Daring Cooks' Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate souffle recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsey's recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

I have never made a souffle and frankly, I was QUITE nervous about it. I know how sensitive they are and how quickly they can go terribly wrong! I was so focused that I had Mike take pictures as I went because I didn't want to stop for one moment in case the whites fell, or the yolks scrambled. I used a Chocolate Souffle recipe from the Food Network Kitchen. Since I had never made one before, I wanted to go with the most basic and well-known souffle.

I was most nervous about tempering the egg yolks, but they actually came out perfectly.

Next came the whipping of the egg whites until stiff peaks formed. I then added the chocolate that I had melted over a double broiler as well as the whipped egg yolks. I had to be very careful folding in the chocolate mixture as I didn't want the egg whites to fall.

I filled ramekins that I had previously buttered, sugared and frozen for an hour. The recipe said to fill them to the brim, then scrap off the excess.

After 18 minutes in the oven, with ABSOLUTELY NO PEEKING, I removed what I have to say was a pretty good first attempt at a souffle. I dusted the finished product with powdered sugar and we dug in! They were delicious!!! Thank you Daring Kitchen for challenging me to create something that scared me to even think about attempting.