Happy Things & Making Sushi! 👍🏻

hi everyone i would normally not assemble food in the bedroom which is where we are but our neighbors over there are pulling up scaffolding so i've pulled in this table from the kitchen and i mean look there are books behind me it looks better in here anyway i said i wanted to film a video where i talked to you about some of the things that have brought a smile to my face recently during lockdown and you can leave me comments down below telling me things that have helped you we can share resources and help each other out i said that i wanted to do something while talking to you multitasking i said would you like me to a do origami or b make homemade flatbread and homemade hummus it was a pretty even split but the majority of you voted for flatbread and hummus but jen you may say this does not look like flatbread and hummus and you would be right because i remembered as i was getting ready to film this that i'm making pizza for dinner tonight and i'm not sure double bread is something that i want to have today some days that would be fine because bread is great but not today so instead i am cooking and mixing a little bit of the japanese with the origami to make maki we're going to be making really straightforward sushi like the most basic sushi ever it's cucumber pretty sure this is vegan so if you want to try it out at home go for it as i said it is the most basic form of sushi but it still feels like an accomplishment and it's super tasty apologies to all of the japanese people out there who i may offend with my terrible technique i'm also working with what i have in the cupboards and the number of digits that i have as well which is always a fun game to play um so in case you want to make it at home i have sushi rice here sushi rice you wash thoroughly first and then you put in cold water in a pan for half an hour for every 190 grams of rice use 300 milliliters of water after it's sat in the pan for half an hour without the gas being on you bring it to the boil then simmer it for 12 minutes until all the water has gone and then let it cool i have the japanese sushi nuri which is the seaweed that we're going to roll the rice and the cucumber in because cucumber is not that exciting i have also mixed up some wasabi paste with mayonnaise and i'm gonna put that in two and i have cucumber here i was gonna do some avocado ones as well but when i cut into the avocado it had gone bad which was sad times so we have cucumber and this is actually one of my happy things organization wise that has brought a smile to my face this is beeswax wraps and they're great they're reusable you just wash them down use them again i will link them down below so i have my cucumber and i also have this matte which i'm not sure it's 100 necessary but it definitely makes the rolling bit easier so i'm going to assemble all of these things while talking to you about things that have made me happy i've got a list down here on the floor so that i remember and because i am assembling food with my hands i am going to be inserting lots of cutaways to show you the things that i'm talking about because i will not be able to hold them up as we go so before i assemble anything i need to cut up the cucumber i'm just going to do it into thin strips and cut out the really watery bit in the middle because you don't really want that in your sushi so list of favorites the first on my favorites um board games of course i really think that we have pretty much well definitely enough board games to be getting on with and it was mr m's birthday recently and he asked for some board games so i have massively benefited from his birthday which was great um and the three that i would say that we have played the most recently are castles of burgundy it's a game where you have to complete a kingdom and insert a cutaway here so you can see the boards you each have an individual board you're trying to complete which is a little bit like a jigsaw with different terrains and different colors and you can pick up different pieces to help complete your kingdom from the central board in the middle and a roll of the dice determines what you are allowed to pick up and what you are not allowed to pick up so it has that great balance of skill and luck as well and another game that we've loved recently is illimat i will admit the main reason in fact the only reason the only reason that i bought that game is because it is illustrated by carson ellis whose work i adore i've got i think all of her picture books i think that she is great so i thought the illustrations were superb beautiful bought it it's actually turned out to be one of our favorite games i would say it's the one we play the second most frequently and the most frequently one i'll speak about in a second but limit is a card game where it has an element of tarot so you have to collect cards from the board in front of you that equal the value of the cards in your hand and you have to clear certain areas which are called seasons if you clear a season you get to flip over a main card that changes the way the game is played so for instance there is a main card called the rake where you have to sacrifice a card to him every turn there is a main card called the changing which means you can exchange one of your cards for another card in that season every go it again has that great element of um skill and also chance gonna move these over here actually this one needs to be made a little bit thinner there we go i'm gonna eat this too which is great because you get to snack as you go when you take out the seaweed you want to put the shiny side down on your rolling mat the game that we've been playing most recently is very fitting to this because it is japanese themed and it's called hanumakoji where you've been to hanumakoji um it is a card game where you have to bluff and outwit the person who's sitting opposite you but you're not playing with a standard deck of cards so it's a customized deck of cards that you're playing with there are central big cards in the middle that have images on and a number so an image and then a number five i'll insert an image here so you can see and that number corresponds to how many of those cards are available in the deck so if it says five there are five of those available if it says four there are four of those available you play with the whole deck and in each go you have to do one of four things you have to save a card get rid of two cards offer three cards to your opponent and they'll take one or offer two sets of two to your opponent and they'll take one of those sets so you have to do each of those four things in four goes but you can do them in any order that you want the aim is to collect as many sets as possible so to win the five set you have to have at least three cards and you either have to win four sets to win or have sets up to the value of 11 and it is so tactical and you can get really good at it and sneaky and it's really really fun so that's been our favorite game recently all right so i've rolled out the nori and then you want to i'm just going to use my hands i'm going to put the rice two grains deep across um the bottom three quarters of the nori i don't know why that was so difficult to say and articulate i know what i mean it's difficult to tell other people what you're doing as you're doing it apparently i'm finding that hard today you can use um and i do have a spreader i don't know what the the technical name for it is it's like a wooden spatula but i find it's just easier to use your fingers to be honest next favorite thing cheesy things we haven't been watching much at all and not really much tv um but when we have been watching tv or films we have been watching utter trash and delighting in it so we watched the eurovision film and the soundtrack is now our workout soundtrack because it is so great we have been loving canada drag race and um drag race all stars five both of which no one of them is on bbc iplayer and one of them is on netflix they are so good and recently what we've been enjoying has been flora's lava which is on netflix and ultimate beast master which is also on netflix they remind me of gladiators from the 90s which i used to love watching on a saturday night i don't know what it is about it i just find it hilarious i love that they have host presenters from all of the competing countries and they include their commentary in it it's just so entertaining if you haven't watched it check it out i'll link a trailer in the description box down below it's always fun to try and guess how far someone is going to get and honestly sometimes the people who you think are going to be the most talented make really ridiculous mistakes early on and then they just fall into the blood of the beast okay so i've put the sushi rice three quarters of the way up and then you want to put your cucumber half of the way up the amount of rice so not half the way up the seaweed half up the rice and i'm going to have to cut a little bit off so that it goes all the way to the end and then i'm also going to line a bit of the wasabi mayo next to it oh that's quite a lot actually i didn't mean to drop that much in oh it's fine oh i just realized i also need a little bit of water and a brush for the end so i'll get that now okay so we have to roll really tightly and i'm not sure that i'm doing this correctly but it has worked in the past when i have done it so you want to press it down as much as possible uh the next favorite actually can i talk and do this at the same time maybe not maybe i just need to roll and then come back to you [Music] take take take i always find that doing these i say that like i do all the time i've only done this once before and it was two days ago but i find that doing these is a little bit like doing pancakes it takes you a while to get into the rhythm of doing it so the first one is is not normally the best one but let's see so okay so i have rolled and then at the end the seaweed has stuck down a bit by itself but to help it along i'm just going to put a bit of water along the top okay there we go so we have our mackie roll and now we have to cut it into little well not little bits into smaller bits the next thing on my favorites list i'm just gonna cut off this because the ends are a bit raggedy this means that i can have this little bit as a snack right now it helps if your knife is a bit work as well for cutting and the next thing on my favorites list is bloom and wild so they are a flower delivery service not sponsored not gifted none of that i just really like them and i have been sending flowers to myself and to other people as well they've just really brightened my day and they fit through your letterbox and they're just a delight i line them up so that like this so that i'm always cutting the same size that they are uniform look little messy roll i'll do a close-up in a minute because that's probably easy to see i'm really pleased with those actually my aunt sent me some beautiful flowers this week which have sunflowers and lots of other things in and from some of the bouquets i've had in the past i've managed to dry some flowers as well so they will last not forever but for a really really really long time and i put those dried flowers in jam jars which i think looks super cute if you can't go outside bring the inside in and also dress like the outside this is a i think it was a limited edition lucy and yak from last year or the year before and i love them which is a great segue actually into clothes i find during lockdown we discover what we actually enjoy wearing and why and so i have been living pretty much in dungarees which is not anything new actually i lived in dungarees pretty much all the time pre-locked down as well but i have been living mostly in dungarees but also in my alexa trousers from lucy and yak they are the most comfortable trousers they have this elasticated waist i have them in gray and navy and yellow and i absolutely adore them luciniac are a sustainable clothing company they're wonderful i will link them in the description box down below if you would like some super comfy ethical clothes hooray speaking of clothing items i wanted to recommend an etsy shop called pretty robotnik she makes excuse me getting rice all over my fingers she makes face masks and they are the best face masks that i have tried and i think i've tried three different kinds she puts really long nose wires at the top of them so you can mold the masks to your face which is really great great if you wear glasses because it means that your glasses don't steam up and she has them in these beautiful patterns as well so i will link her in the description box down below i am not going outside much at all in the past few weeks the only places i've been to the post box at the end of our street and i think we've been on two walks at 5 a.m and that's it but i want to wear them when i go out even though i'm going out when there's no one else around because i want to get used to wearing them so that when i do go out more whenever that is um it will feel like a natural thing to do i think making food and um doing things where there is a product at the end has been really comforting so board games i guess is something you do and there's an end result cooking baking i've been doing so much baking i have made recently bagels and donuts and pineapple upside down cake um sushi i know that's not baking but cooking making pizza and pies and it's a great way not only to break up your day but to i don't know do something that as i said you follow a set of instructions and you get a result at the end and that is really satisfying um i've also bought mr m for his birthday i got him this i can't remember exactly what it's called but it's a company called sculpt and it's to make pottery at home so it's dry clay with acrylic paints and i think that's going to be really great i mean i feel like i'm being a cliche i'm ticking off stuff that everyone's been doing we haven't done tie-dye yet but it is on my list i've made sushi i've made lots of bread i'm doing at home clay making this most ridiculous list of stuff but i'm enjoying myself so what can i say i will report back on sculpt once we've used it to tell you if we enjoyed it but i'll also link it down below in the meantime in case you want to check it out for yourself some booktube channels that i have been enjoying recently none of these aren't new discoveries to me at all but they're just the channels that i found myself gravitating towards more because i find them comforting and also fun and um whenever they upload a video they're the people whose content i will watch immediately they don't get added to watch later i will stop what i'm doing and i will watch them so i have been loving seiji she is a dutch nigerian booktuber and she is ridiculously talented she speaks so many different languages she did a book review of a japanese book in japanese and i felt entirely inadequate she also paints and she writes poetry she is just an absolute joy and if you are not subscribed to her channel you absolutely should be emma at drinking by myself always an absolute pleasure i particularly enjoyed recently her bookshelf tool that is not boring video because it was not boring i enjoyed it it was like an episode of cribs but with with books i also love emma's 24-hour readathons they are brilliant and if you don't subscribe to her channel you should links in the description box down below i'm going to magically refill this bowl of rice i feel like i must apologize to any japanese people watching this video i'm really sorry and also thank you for your delicious food that i am probably absolutely destroying right now um i do not mean to offend though i offend i think i offended uh so many people in japan when we were there um we've been twice we went once in 2015 and then and then once on our honeymoon as well i made a video actually about time in japan the first time around that i look so young in it also have so much hair i'll link that down below if you want to go and look at a montage of our holiday but um yeah japanese people on the whole are so polite and want to help you fit in and be accommodating so in restaurants i would hold chopsticks and obviously i i mean i'm quite impressed that i can eat with chopsticks to be fair it takes me probably longer than other people but still um i can do it um but the way that i hold chopsticks looks like i am a westerner who's holding these chopsticks completely incorrectly and the amount of people not who worked at the restaurant but just you know who was sitting near us who would be like excuse me and then they would try and show me how i should be holding chopsticks only for me to hold up my hands and point out that i have several fingers missing and this is the only way that i can hold chopsticks and of course they are mortified at having caused defense to me even though they haven't caused offence to me but i worry that they've caused offence to me the amount of apologizing that ensues my god every meal time it became my party trick i think to unwittingly encourage people to come over and correct the way that i hold chopsticks i hold them like this which i recognize is actually really bad because it means at the top cross and you shouldn't cross your chopsticks because it's bad luck but you know i can pick things up so i try i try and my final two booktubers that i wanted to mention to you today actually one of them is not a booktuber one of them is a what do you call it it's an art tubo is that a thing she's an illustrator on youtube and i've mentioned it so many times before but it's fran over at fran nerd her videos are like a bomb they are so calming and likewise monica kim she is a booktuber and her videos are also so calming i would say actually they have quite a similar aesthetic and their color palettes are very similar and um monica also does some drawing herself as well but her videos are mostly about books um and i just i just love it i love how she talks about food i love how she talks about clothes i love her talks about illustration i love her relationship with her mum and it's just it's just the best if you're not subscribed to monica or to fran or to sagi or to emma then please go subscribe to them and they will be linked in the description box down below i realized making these that because i am cutting the cucumber up into two bits it's actually making it slightly harder so if you can cut the cucumber just one length it will make your life much much easier is it weird to have favorite mugs i mean i know it's not weird to have favorite mugs because i always have favorite mugs but i feel like i've had favorite quarantine mugs which weren't the mugs that i loved before but i've been loving using the penguin mugs which i bought ages ago and didn't use because normally i prefer these teacup style mugs i don't know what it is about these times maybe it's because they're bookish and that's comforting but they've been making the most perfect cup of tea and i adore them what i have decided to do for the flatbread and hummus video where i make homemade flatbread and homemade hummus is because you guys enjoyed the video that i put up on monday which i'll link down below where i was going through my currently reading pile and making bread at the same time so i was whenever the bread was rising i was going to another book and giving it a second chance by reading it for half an hour i'm gonna do that with some unsolicited books that i have been sent um books that i'm not sure i want to keep um so i will make homemade flatbreads and homemade hummus whilst also reading those unsolicited books kind of like a try a chapter tag i suppose and then i will report back and tell you which ones i'm gonna keep so my wonky hands made some wonky mackie rolls they are delicious because i've been sampling them as we went along i'm going to go eat them now and mr m and i are probably going to play a game of hanumakoji because we are predictable everything i mentioned that i can link i'll link in the description box down below i would love to know in a comment what has put a smile on your face recently what you have been enjoying doing and i will see you guys very soon bye [Music] you

Channel: Jen Campbell

Views: 6,667

Rating: 4.9681277 out of 5

Keywords: cucumber maki, making sushi, jen campbell, booktube

Id: 85pzobL120U

Length: 22min 12sec (1332 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020