Banana Bread

Honestly, our favorite banana bread is the super simple and easy Chiquita banana bread mix, but you can't always find it, so I wanted to have a backup bread recipe that the boys enjoyed. So far, this recipe is the winner!

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 3 mashed bananas
• 1/3 cup (80g) plain Greek yogurt or full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3-1/2 a bag of mini chocolate chips, optional
• chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

1. Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 325°F. Lowering the oven rack prevents the top of your bread from browning too much, too soon. Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.
• I used my metal pans the first time I made this and decided that my glass pan offers better insulation and a more even cooking experience without the edges getting burnt.
• Make sure to bake at 325, not 350.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar together on medium-high speed until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. (Here’s a helpful tutorial if you need guidance on how to cream butter and sugar.) With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the mashed bananas, yogurt/sour cream, and vanilla until combined.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and beat on low speed just until combined. Do not over-mix. Fold in the nuts/chocolate chips, if using. The batter should be thick.
5. Pour and spread the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 60 minutes (in my oven 55 min. was not enough), making sure to loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil halfway through, to prevent the top from getting too brown. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with only a few small moist crumbs. Cool the bread in the pan set on a cooling rack for 1 hour. Remove the bread from the pan and place it directly on the rack to cool completely before slicing and serving.
6. Store wrapped tightly at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. 

Marsha's Notes:

The batter in this picture was REALLY thick, but would be slightly less so depending on the size and number of bananas you are using.

This is the banana bread mix that we really like.

I also had a friend recommend this recipe, which I might also try: https://tasty.co/recipe/one-bowl-chocolate-chip-banana-bread

For reference, this is what two loaves made from the Chiquita Mix looks like.

Churro Cheesecake Cookies

At Scott's work they do a cookie bake-off, and Scott's favorite cookie from this year were these. So he asked his co-worker for the recipe, and now I get the pleasure of trying them for myself at home too! And they are delicious! A little fiddle to make because they are a filled cookie, but worth the effort.

Churro Cheesecake Cookies

Ingredients: (makes about 3 dozen small cookies)

Cheesecake Center-

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 4 Tbl. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Cookie Base-

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Cinnamon Sugar Exterior- (combine these together in a small bowl)

• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 cup sugar

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling-

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla with a hand-mixer until smooth and creamy.
2. Portion out 1 tsp.-sized dollops onto a lined cookie sheet and freeze for 20-30 minutes. Make 36 dollops.
• I like to use my 1 tsp. cookie scoop for this.

Cookie Base-

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flout, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of stand-mixer, cream together butter, sugar, and brown sugar until smooth, fluffy, and the mixture has lightened in color (about 3-5 minutes beating on medium speed).
3. Add egg and vanilla to the creamed sugars and blend until just combined. 
4. A third at a time, combine your flour mixture into the creamed sugars just until the flour is mostly combined. Once your last portion of flour has been added, only mix the dough until a smooth, pliable dough forms.

Assembly-

1. Portion out your cookie dough into 1 tbl. portions. Make 36 portions, twelve per lined cookie sheet for a total of three trays.
• Dough can dry out as it sits on the trays waiting to be formed into the stuffed cookies, so cover your tray with plastic wrap or a towel to keep dough moist. Dry dough gets crumbly and can be harder to form around the cheesecake filling.
2. Roll each dough portion into a ball and flatten into a disc. Working one tray at a time, add a frozen portion of cream cheese to each dough disc, putting the rest of the cream cheese back into the freezer until needed.
• It is important to keep the cream cheese mixture frozen so it is easier to work with.
3. Fold the dough disc around the cream cheese to cover and roll back into a ball.
4. Once all the cream cheese portions have been covered in dough and rolled back into balls, roll each ball around in the cinnamon sugar mixture until evenly coated. 
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, or until edges are set and tops appear puffed without browning.
6. Allow cookies to rest on the hot trays for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Marsha's Notes:

Here are some pictures of the process.

Cream cheese filling portioned with my cookie scoop and ready to freeze.

Dough balls portioned with my Tbl cookie scoop, then flattened out and ready for cream cheese dollops.

Cream cheese added.

Cream cheese is now encased in the middle of the dough balls.

Rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Just out of the oven with domed tops that will fall when cooling.

All done.

Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

William requested these from our Magnolia Bakery cookbook, and they turned out pretty good. Auntie thought the marbling looked like leaves, so I thought it would be good to document the recipe here incase I get invited somewhere and want to bring a fall/Autumn inspired dessert. 

In the original recipe, it tells you to make stripes with the cream cheese filling on the top and the bottom of the brownie, which didn't seem to make all that much difference to the final product, and most people didn't even notice that there was cream cheese marbling on the bottom, plus the recipe seemed to make twice as much cream cheese filling as you needed, so next time I think I would forgo the bottom stripes and maybe make only half as much filling, so that is how I will document the filling ingredients below (as a half recipe compared to the original).

Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (225g/8oz)
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup flour (68g/2.4oz)
• 2 Tbl unsweetened dark cocoa powder, sifted (22g/3oz)
• 4 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups sugar (350g/12.4oz)
• 4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt

For Cream Cheese Layer:

• 3 oz. softened cream cheese
• 1/8 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 of a beaten egg (about 2 Tbl egg whites or liquid eggs)
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbl sour cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray and then line with parchment paper, leaving sides of paper hanging over the outside of the pan for easy removal after baking.
2. Place the chocolate chips and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and heat at 15-30 second intervals until completely melted, stirring between intervals until fully combined. Set aside and cool to room temperature.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and cocoa.
4. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and sugar together on medium speed for 4 minutes until thick. Add the cooled chocolate and butter mixture, vanilla, and salt and mix on medium speed until combined, scraping down bowl as needed. Remove bowl from mixer stand and fold in flour mixture just until combine or a few tiny streaks of flour remain. Do not over mix.
5. Pour prepared batter into your prepared 9x13 pan and spread out evenly.
6. In a medium bowl, use a handheld mixer to beat together your cream cheese, sugar, salt, and vanilla on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light, fluffy and combined, scaping down bowl as needed. Add your egg, lemon juice and sour cream, mixing on medium for about 1 minute until combined, scraping down bowl as needed.
7. Place the cream cheese mixture into a piping bag and cut off the tip of the bag. Pipe even, straight lines of the cream cheese mixture the long way on the top of your brownie batter, in about 7 or 8 lines.
8. With a small knife (I used our ice pick), pull your knife through the brownie batter going the short way (opposite of the cream cheese lines) about every inch or so up the pan, alternating direction of each knife pull, to create the marbled or leaf pattern.
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake-tester inserted into the center comes out with thick. moist crumbs or is mostly clean. Let cool completely in the pan on a cooking rack, then refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.
10. Remove brownies by lifting the side of the parchment and cut brownies into your desired size. Keep refrigerated.

Cheeseburger Spring Rolls

This was William's special request for his birthday meal this year. Everyone agreed that it was a hit! Enjoy!

This recipe is listed under "Asian" and "Chinese" simply because you use egg roll wrappers and I wanted to make it easy for me to find in the future, but it is also listed under "hamburger" and "beef."

Also, see my recipe for "Pizza Spring Rolls" to see a picture of the assembly process: https://1brother2sisters.blogspot.com/2024/02/pizza-spring-rolls.html

Cheeseburger Spring Rolls

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• 2 lbs ground beef
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbl mustard
• 2 Tbl ketchup
• Worcestershire sauce
• hamburger seasoning
• shredded cheese
• 20 egg roll wrappers (i.e. one package worth)
• 1 egg, beaten
• oil, for frying

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, add your onion and ground beef and cook until beef and onions are browning. Drain any excess grease from pan. Add salt, pepper and garlic and sauté for the last couple minutes that the meat is cooking, being careful not to burn the garlic. Stir in ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and hamburger seasoning to taste. Set aside.
2. In a deep fryer or large heavy-bottomed pan, heat enough oil for it to be about an inch deep in the pan for frying. Line a large plate with paper towels for draining. 
3. Assemble your spring rolls by laying each sheet of dough out on your counter, add the desired amount of meat and cheese to each roll, brush the edges with your beaten egg, and fold up according to the egg roll package directions. Seems like you can fit about a 1/4 cup or more of filling per rolls.
• You can prep your rolls earlier in the day and place them on a baking sheet for storage, cover the uncooked rolls with plastic wrap so they don't dry out, and then store them in the fridge until you are ready to fry them.
4. Place your rolls in the hot oil, being careful not to over crowd the pan (I cooked my rolls in batches of five), until golden brown on all sides. Place on paper towel-lined plate for draining. Serve immediately with any dipping sauce you think goes well with cheeseburgers.

Marsha's Notes:

I currently don't have a thermometer that will tell me the temperature of hot oil on my stove, so here are some notes for me for the future: On my stove, you can fry things in oil with the heat set between 4-6, but if you heat up the oil with the stove set at 6 with nothing else in the pan, it gets way too hot. So I would recommend starting to heat the oil between 3 and 4, but when you actually start to cook, you can turn up the heat to 5 or 6 depending on how fast things are browning. If the stove is set to 2 or 3 for cooking, things brown too slowly and soak up too much oil.

Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made homemade ice cream sandwiches for the first time and they turned out really, really good. The sky is the limit on what flavor combinations you can come up with for the filling and the outside, but specifically, I wanted to document how to make the brownie cake for the outside and what tips and tricks I would use for making these in the future. Enjoy!

Note: You can try to make these in a single day, but there is a lot of freezing and cooling time involved, so I would recommend making and prepping the layers one day, letting it all freeze over night, and then assembling them early the next day. You then need to give them more time that same day to freeze again before serving.

Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 qt. ice cream (for filling, any flavor you like)
• 1 cup salted butter
• 6-7 oz bittersweet chocolate (chips or chopped bars)
• 2 Tbl Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar (265g)
• 1 cup flour (125g)

Directions:

1. For the filling, line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper, allowing the ends of the parchment to hang over the sides of the pan to make it easier to lift the ice cream out for cutting. Spread the slightly softened ice cream evenly into the pan and put in the freezer to re-firm. 
• Freeze for several hours or overnight. Even better if you can put things in the deep freeze.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Line TWO 9x13 pans with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray. Allow ends of parchment to hang over the sides of the pan to make it easier to lift the brownies out for cutting.
• You can also opt to use one large cookie sheet that has side walls instead of using two 9x13's.
4. Heat butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl in the microwave until melted. Immediately stir in chocolate pieces, cocoa powder and vanilla until smooth and shiny. Set aside and let cool for ten minutes.
5. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs and sugar on medium speed for 3 minutes (scraping the bowl if needed) until mixture is light and creamy.
6. Poor the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and continue to beat with the mixer for a few more seconds until combined. 
• You must make sure the chocolate is thoroughly cooled before adding it to the eggs so you don't prematurely cook the eggs.
7. Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer and stir in (by hand) the flour until just combined with even just a few tiny streaks of white flour remaining (do not over mix). 
• The tiny streaks of flour should get mixed into the batter as you pour it into the baking dish and spread it out, otherwise you left too much flour unincorporated.
8. Divide and pour the batter evenly into the two prepared baking pans.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are set and the middle no longer looks wet or underdone. 
• The middle does not need to be (or appear) completely cooked because that can cause the brownies to be overdone, dry, and they won't be as soft or chewy as they should be. They will continue to cook and set up for a bit as they cool in the pan.
10. Allow to cool completely in the pan before attempting to remove them from the baking dish.
• For easier cutting and assembling, place your cooled brownies into the freezer to firm up.
11. Cut your brownies and ice cream into the same sized pieces and assemble as sandwiches. Individually wrap each sandwich in some kind of paper or plastic wrap for storing in the freezer. Refreeze for at least two hours before serving.
• It is helpful to freeze the pan you are going to set the cut-out ice cream squares on because it can melt so fast, even on a room-temperature pan... and then they can slide around and stick together when you refreeze the squares before assembly.

Marsha's Notes:

• You can use binder clips to help hold the parchment paper in place in the baking dish. Once you pour the batter/ice cream onto the paper, it should hold itself and you can remove the clips, but it's okay to freeze or bake with them in place as well.
• Some ice cream when taken straight from the freezer can be soft and easy to scoop, others can be rock hard. To make these sandwiches, I would recommend the kind the freezes rock hard so it doesn't melt so much during assembly. I also recommend keeping your cut ice cream pieces in the freezer as much as possible when assembling, so only take one out at a time, quickly assemble and wrap, and then immediately put the completed sandwich back into the freezer.
• I would recommend using a cookie cutter in the same shape your want your sandwiches. Then, when you cut the brownies and ice cream, everything will be the same size and fit together nicely.  I bought these cutters and they work great. They are square, and the biggest size makes a perfect ice cream sandwich if you cut them in half: https://amzn.to/4jvXrCI
• You can also use the middle size to get sandwiches that are almost equally as big, but that give you a little more wiggle room if your ice cream frozen funny or you just don't want to be so precise in your cutting. This size also leaves more brownie remnants that I like to chop up and use as an ice cream topping or in the Ninja Creami recipes.

10-2025 Updated pictures:

This is a frozen 9x13 of ice cream I am cutting with the above cutters.

The size was perfect to have almost no leftover ends of ice cream scrap.

Using this cutter, this recipe only makes 6 VERY LARGE ice cream sandwiches, or 12 regular-sized ice cream sandwiches if you cut them all in half.

This is a large cookie sheet of brownie, which will make my needed 12 pieces for my 6 extra large sandwiches.

Again, this cutter left very little scrap of brownie left, so it really feels like the perfect size.

Cut and ready to put back in the freezer.

William is sensitive to the taste and smell of things wrapped in plastic wrap, so I opted to use parchment paper this time.

Masking tape doesn't really stick to the parchment, so I had to wrap the tape all the way around the sandwich and have it overlap so it could stick to itself.

Here is one that I sliced in half to share with Scott, making it a more traditionally-sized ice cream sandwich. When fully frozen, you can cut through the sandwich pretty easily.

Marsha's Homemade Sushi

A few notes that might make you feel better about sushi, should you be nervous... along with a video tutorial link: First, for anyone not aware, just because it's called sushi, doesn't automatically mean that it has RAW fish in it. There are several kinds of sushi that don't even contain any fish at all (such as vegetarian options). That is something that I learned. 

While probably not 100% technically accurate, in my mind at least, if it has raw fish in it, it's called sashimi and usually located on a different part of the menu from your other traditional sushi rolls. 

My favorite rolls are the "crunchy" rolls where the outer layer of rice has been fried.

Since trying more sushi in recent years, I now think of sushi as basically a rice log/roll that has veggies, sometimes cream cheese, and often some kind of prepared fish inside. That being said, when you make it at home, you can put anything in it that you like. If you wanted to roll up pepperoni and mozzarella cheese in your rice log, dip it in pizza sauce and call it pizza sushi, you totally can.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine introduced me to sushi when we went out for her birthday and she selected some "safe" rolls for me to try with her. Yes, I was nervous, especially because I am not much of a fish person and sea weed sounds sketchy, but everything I tried was actually really, really good and you don't even notice the sea weed. Think of it, not as a weed, but as the "lettuce of the sea" because it's just a plant. It's super thin, barely noticeable, and does not have any kind of strong flavor that I can detect when eaten with all the other ingredients and sauces. I really feel like it's just there to help hold the entire thing together and not for flavor or texture.

After having a good experience, I was soon taking Scott out for sushi, then my Aunt, then my kids, etc. etc. etc. until I had the crazy thought, "I think I can make this at home." And I did! 

There is a little bit of a learning curve to making the perfectly proportioned and shaped rolls, but with the right ingredients, it's really not that hard. You just need good rice, a rolling mat, and a little patience.

Here is a video link to get you going...

https://www.tiktok.com/@nutrientmatters/video/7099170349438258438?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7343662037220722218

Here is another video for inspiration: 

https://www.tiktok.com/@chefchrischo/video/7102151797099334958?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7343662037220722218

Marsha's Homemade Sushi

Makes 5 rolls

You will need a sushi rolling mat (bamboo or plastic) for assembling and shaping your rolls.

Ingredients:

Seasoned Rice:

• 2 cups sushi rice
• 2 to 2 1/2 cups water
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 2 Tbl sugar

Sushi Filling: top/fill with your choice of anything, but I used...

• 2 1/2 sea weed sheets (to make five rolls total)
• black sesame seeds, optional
• cucumber, avocado, cream cheese, thinly sliced
• carrot peelings/ribbons
• prepared fish of your choice, cold (we used prepared imitation crab)
• drizzle rolls with yum-yum sauce and unagi/eel sauce
• serve with a side of soy sauce/teriyaki sauce

Directions:

For the rice:

1. It is important to use sushi rice (we found ours at Ocean Mart, but you can probably also order some online if you can't find it at your local markets). Measure out your rice into a mesh strainer and rinse with water until the water runs clean. I will catch the water in a bowl under the strainer, continually dumping as it gets full, until I can see that it is running through the rice clear. This can take a couple of minutes.
2. Once your rice is clean, add your washed rice, water and pinch of salt into a pot with a lid. Bring everything to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer, cover the pot, and let the rice sit cooking and simmering in the pot UNTOUCHED for 20 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed and the rice is tender (stirring the rice will make it mushy and gooey).
3. Once cooked, remove the pot from the heat and let sit for at least 10 minutes, or store until completely cooled and ready to handle.
4. When ready to make your sushi, gently toss the rice with your rice vinegar and sugar.

To prepare the sushi rolls:

1. On your sushi mat, cover with a pieces of plastic wrap. (I find that it is easiest to lay out five pieces of plastic wrap and start preparing all five rolls at the same time so I can distribute my rice more evenly between the rolls.)
2. Take half of a sheet of sea weed and place it on the plastic wrap rough-side up. You can cut your sea weed sheets with kitchen sheers/scissors.
3. Place 1/5th of your rice on top of the sea weed and spread out evenly. If your sushi rice is REALLY sticky, you made need to oil your hands with some cooking oil. You can also wear a food-prep disposable glove, which you can also oil if  needed.
4. Sprinkle the rice evenly with black sesame seeds, if desired. Purely decorative.
5. Flip over your rice/sea weed and use the opposite side to layer your filling, being careful not to overstuff your rolls. Most of my filling was cut into long, skinny sticks, and when the finished roll was sliced, you would see one little piece of each ingredient. I used cucumber, avocado, cream cheese, carrot ribbons and finished it off by breaking up little pieces of imitation crab. You can also put a little of any desired sauces in the middle of your roll (such as yum-yum sauce, or bang-bang sauce if you like things spicy).
6. Using your sushi mat, begin rolling up the rice around the filling, tucking your filling in tightly so the rice can wrap all the way around your roll. If your roll is overstuffed, you won't be able to get the rice to make a complete circle around the outside. Be careful to not roll up your plastic wrap inside your sushi roll.
7. You can use the sushi mat to perfect the shape of your roll. Then, using a large sharp WET knife, slice your roll through the plastic wrap into 8 equal pieces. Remove the plastic wrap from each slice.
8. Plate your slices and then drizzle the entire thing with your desired sauces. Serve with dipping sauces such as soy sauce or teriyaki, if desired.

Marsha's Notes:

I started cutting my rolls into 8 equal pieces, but sometimes that makes for really wide/big bites, so in the future I might cut my rolls into thinner pieces to make it easier to eat. Usually, it is better/easier to eat sushi if you can just put the entire bite into your mouth all at once.

I made my carrot ribbons by taking a full-sized carrot, using a vegetable peeler to remove the undesired outer layer of the carrot, and then I kept using the peeler to remove thin ribbons of carrot to use for the sushi. You could also just cut your carrot into really small, thin sticks for the sushi, if you don't mind it's hard, crispy texture in your rolls. I prefer the softer, easier to bite ribbons.

We have used both cooked shrimp and cooked imitation crab, and I find the crab is much easier to work with and everyone didn't notice much difference in flavor, so I might just use crab in the future. You can also just make veggie rolls.

We bought Sukina sushi rice. You can find it on Amazon, but is probably cheaper if you can find it in the store. Here is an Amazon link: Click here

We also drizzled our rolls with yum-yum and unagi sauce (otherwise known as eel sauce, because it is typically served along side eel, not because it has eel in it). Our local grocery store carries yum-yum sauce all the time, but I had to get the unagi from Amazon. Click here

Here is my prep process:

These are the sea weed wraps I use. It is also called nori.

I have five pieces of plastic wrap spread out on the counter with my sea weed wraps placed on top so I can prep all five rolls at once.

Next, I portion out all of my rice into five portions and place it on top of the sea weed and then spread it out until it covers it evenly and nicely (I wear disposable food prep gloves for this).

Here is how I make my carrot ribbons.

Turn the rice-covered sea weed over so it's sea weed-side up... to do this, I take a second (new) piece of plastic wrap and place it on top of the rice, press everything down to make sure the rice is sticking to the wrap, and then flip everything over. The picture shows everything once flipped. I remove the plastic wrap that WAS on the bottom side of the sea weed and use it to help flip the next rice/sea weed wrap over until all five are flipped.

With the sea weed side now facing up, I start to add my toppings. Here I have added carrots and cucumber.

Now I have added cream cheese and avocado.

This time I used precooked shrimp. This is the shrimp I used. I sliced it very thinly to add it to our sushi rolls.

Shrimp added and rolls are complete.

Take two edges of the plastic wrap and bring them up together.

Start pushing your toppings down and into the inside of the roll, squeezing and trying to get the outer rice to start touching and surrounding the entire roll. (This is where you will discover if you overstuffed your rolls because the rice won't be able to surround the filling easily enough.) It's okay if you overfill... it just won't be a perfect presentation in the end and your rolls might fall apart a little bit easier when cut and plated... but it will still be delicious.

Once you get the roll basically closed up (make sure your plastic wrap is only on the outside of the roll and the edge didn't accidently get incorporated into the inside of the roll), use your sushi/bamboo mat to more firmly press and shape the roll.

As you can see, I like to twist the ends of my plastic wrap until it makes a tight seal on the ends of the roll to help me shape and form the ends uniformly.

Then take a clean, wet knife and slice your rolls into the desired amount/size of pieces. I like to clean off my knife with a damp rag every two or three cuts.

Look how nicely the rice encircles some of these pieces! I was super proud of this roll. But even the ones that were less "pretty" were still tasty!

Done!