Kitchen Hacks: Carrots in Sushi

mmmm delicious!  carrots, imitation crab, bok choy and SPAM!

The problem with adding carrots to sushi is that it's usually too hard to put it in as carrot sticks. It's too crunchy-tough to chew compared to the rest of the stuff (rice, crab meat, cucumber, etc) and it throws off the texture of the sushi. Typically, you can get around this by manually cutting very thin carrots sticks yourself (time-consuming) or buying pre-shredded carrots (they look like match-sticks) which works but it's not ideal, they fall out easily after being cut because they're short pieces.

steamed carrots and bok choy

Here's the solution i figured out which allows you to use the carrots cut to the same size as the rest of the ingredients (size as in cross-sectional area). Steam them! If you have a steamer basket with your rice cooker you can steam them at the same time you cook the rice for the sushi! Here i tried it today, and it worked great! Interestingly the large, steamed carrots imparted a sweet flavor to the sushi.

Kitchen Hacks: Pickled Carrots

Finished a jar of pickles and don't feel like wasting the juice? Try this! Reuse the pickle jar juice for carrots! Cut up a bunch of carrot sticks and let them soak in the pickle jar! After a few days you've got pickled carrots! I find it's usually good for 2x batches of carrots.

Kitchen Hacks: Banana Hanger

I don't know why i didn't think about doing this earlier!

For anyone who eats banana's, banana stands are awesome. It hangs the banana like nature intended, so you don't get the brusing you normally get when you keep them in a bowl or on the counter. However, they cost ~$10-20 and they take up valuable counter-top space. For a small apt like mine, you need all the kitchen prep surface you can get! Here's an easy <$1 solution, a mug hook (package of 4 for $0.97) from Walmart! Drilled a hole into the cupboard above my sink, screw it in and ta-ta! done!

tip: don't get the cup hooks, they're too small.