Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in vancouver, CN

Dinner Table Destinations: Making Your Own Maki and Rolls

August 03, 2009

While sushi is really cheap and good in Vancouver it might be fun to actually make your own sushi with your kids. The ingredients are simple and colourful and may be a neat way to make yur child eat more veggies than they might normally.

Ingredients and tools:

• Nori (the seaweed wrappers) can be purchased at the grocery store.

• Japanese Rice

• Rice Wine

• Sugar

• Wasabi

• vegetables (cucumber, avacado, carrots, lettuce, green onion etc.)

• salmon skin, or cooked salmon

• bamboo rolling mat (I use a $.79 place mat from Ikea.)

Cook the Japanese rice to these directions. I have used jasmine rice and also gotten good results from this recipe. The rice is sticky and handles well.

Kappa Maki:

Place a half sheet of nori on the bamboo mat. Press sushi rice evenly on the nori and then lay julienned cucumber and use the bamboo mat to roll together. Don't worry if it doesn't look quite right. You will get better with proportions as you go along.

Variations: add other vegetables like avocado and sprouts or julienned carrots.

If you want to try to make BC rolls there is a good recipe here from Tojos. I think I will attempt this for dinner one day this week so that I can practise for our trip back east. It is certainly easier to make sushi in NS than pay through the roof for it.

Gelato is a Great Treat!

by Gwendolyn Floyd

July 25, 2008

We are an ice cream loving family. In fact since I am pregnant in the summer, ice cream is what makes it bearable. One of our favourite ice cream places sells gelato. While gelato is technically an ice cream, the Italians make it a little differently by not freezing it as deeply and using less  Read more...

Travelling Around the World Without Leaving the City

by Gwendolyn Floyd

July 22, 2008

In Vancouver it is very easy to take the time to introduce your child to many different cultures. With so many different ethnicities in this city you can try food from all over the globe, many within a few feet of of each other. In this edition I will take you to China, Japan, India, Korea and the Middle East. Photo by: Gwen Floyd China is a huge country with many  Read more...