On a whim, yesterday I bought nori sheets. I hadn’t had sushi for a while, and, armed with my jicama, leeks, and various other Strip finds, I was ready to try again. Today, when I was at the co-op, I was intrigued by the only raw vegan dressing in the salad area. So I bought it, even though it had “live active cultures” and I’d tried one of the company’s kvass drinks before (my dad is the one with bad beverage judgements, not me). And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I wouldn’t have it all the time, of course, and it was only a little bit at a time, but it went pretty well with my sushi.

I tried the carrot ginger because I figured it’d go, but, disappointingly, it wasn’t very carroty or gingery. Mostly tangy. But in moderation, it wasn’t too bad.

But anyway, to the sushi!

Fill in the amounts yourself depending on how many people you’re serving; it’s really hard to get an exact measurement for each serving.

Nori sheets

Jicama

Leek/green onion

Zucchini

Cucumber

Mushroom

Tomato

Asian greens

Carrot

Celery

Really, any vegetable you want to put in here would probably be fine.

I used everything but the carrot and celery; the carrot because I forgot, and the celery because I had none. But they would work nicely in here, if you remember and have them. Avocado would work well, too.

Ideally, you’d want to pulse-chop the jicama until it was a rice-y texture, but since I’m cheap and don’t have a food processor, I did it the old-fashioned way: I grated it. If you’re doing it this way, I highly recommend using the biggest setting, even though it’s not going to look like rice. Jicama’s just too mushy to use a smaller setting, or at least mine was. Anyway, once you’re done, squeeze out the excess moisture.

Julienne all the vegetables you want, but make sure to cut less than you think you need. You’d be surprised how little of each ingredient you’re actually going to use. I ended up with lots of leftovers.

Put the jicama rice on first, covering maybe a third of the nori sheet, from one end to the other. Arrange the vegetables however you think looks nice, then wrap tightly. Usually nori sheets will have perforations to help give you an idea of where to cut, but sometimes they’re hard to see. It doesn’t really make that much of a difference how big or small you cut each sushi; they all taste the same, right?

You can dip with a tangy dressing, like I did, or a spicy one, if that’s your thing, or even a sweet mango sauce, if you so desire. Experiment. There’s more than one right answer here.