Weekend with Sushi Rolls and finding Harp Seal on the beach!!!

In Japan, on Feb 3rd, we have "Setsubun" It is a day we throw beans outside the house to chase the devil away and throw beans inside to bring lucks to your life. And we eat our age's number of beans. So if you are 18, you eat 18 beans wishing your health.

Anyway, some region of Japan eat sushi roll on this day and many food bloggers in Japan were making beautiful sushi rolls and posted on their blog on this date. I was looking at all these sushi rolls and wanted to make on my own also. So I decided to make it on the weekend.

It is not easy to purchase sushi grade fresh fish so I used some ingredients which I have at home. I used following ingredients this time for inside of my sushi rolls.

Frozen Shrimp (I boiled them, chopped them and mixed them with mayonnaise)
Canned Tuna  (I drain the oil and mixed them with mayonnaise)
Egg  (Make sometimes like an omelet and cut into strips)
Salad leaves
Asparagus (I boiled them)
Smoked Salmon
Cucumber (sliced into strips)
Taramosalata spread (Greek fish roe spread)
Agedama (Deep fried batter) for decoration and crunch

I found this spread called taramosalata at a local supermarket. It looks like this.

It is kind of lemony and something like cream cheese with fish roe. I bought it because I thought I can use this for my sushi roll.

Agedata or Tenkasu is deep fried batter and you can purchase them in a Japanese grocery store. It looks like this. This is great for give them some crunchy feel to the sushi.

So here I go.

First, I cooked rice and mix them with some sushi vinegar.

Then, spread rice on top of seaweed paper, leaving about 1inch on your side. Add your ingredients in the middle or little bit closer to you.

Roll it half way and press it well to stick them together. 

Then roll it all the way. 

Cut them into pieces. This time I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I think I did a good job.

I also made inside out roll but these are more difficult I think.

Decorated with mayonnaise and agedama.

My husband was really impressed with my sushi roll skill and gave me lots of compliment which made me so happy. He really enjoyed these sushi. We had some left over next day so we ate them on our porch in front of the house. It was sunny but still cold so we were wearing heavy jacket and all. Someone who passed by joked "You guys are pushing it!" Yes, we were but we really enjoyed our little outside lunch!

Well, there was something really exciting this past weekend. We went for a walk to the beach which we do quite often. We were just walking and found this Hap Seal lying on the sand, sun bathing.

We couldn't believe our eyes. We have been living here for 4 years but we have never seen a seal before.
There was a sign close by from some kind of marine foundation and it said something like this. "I am a harp seal and I am molting my fur and resting. I will be gone by Monday. Please don't offend me by coming closer or feeding"

We did not disturb the seal or we took some picture from a far with zoom and looked at it for a little while and left. It was so cute. I don't know why it was here but when we went next day, it was already gone. We were so lucky to experience this. I hope it went back to the ocean and found other seals :-)