Yoga Fuel, Lazy Yogi Edition: H-E-B Sushi and Spring Rolls

Don't let my piece about fried zucchini blossoms fool you--I'm really a pretty lazy cook. My husband does most of the cooking and food shopping at our house, so when he's out of town on business I tend to do more "assembling" than "cooking" for my meals. It only takes a couple of days before I devolve further, from assembly to purchasing fully-assembled food on-the-go. The other day I was at H-E-B at Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet, and the pre-made sushi counter caught my eye. "Do I dare?" I mused. With a scant 90 minutes until my next yoga class, I voted "yes" to a tray of Brown Rice Spicy Tuna Rolls and Shrimp Spring Rolls. My thought process was, if the tuna rolls are terrible, at least the spring rolls will be good--how can you mess up a spring roll?

The results? Mixed, but not altogether horrific.

I chose the spring rolls because I was intrigued by the peanut sauce; usually rolls come with that honey-colored, hot-and-sweet sauce, right? Well, I love peanuts, and all sauces involving peanuts, so I was very hopeful that the shrimp spring roll with peanut sauce would prove delicious--just in case the tuna rolls were awful or slimy or rancid. Not only were the tuna rolls none of those things, it was the shrimp spring rolls that ended up being the big disappointment.

This wasn't my ultimate sushi roll experience, but the brown rice spicy tuna rolls were quite good. Am I going to start going to H-E-B to satisfy my intense sushi cravings? No. But I was happy to get fresh, well-made rolls (nine pieces) for less than $6, and that I could get a quick, light lunch before yoga class. The rolls were quite spicy, even without the wasabi paste, and the tuna was better quality than I expected. I ditched the included soy sauce packet in favor of my own low-sodium stuff and downed five rolls in a row, saving the other four for after class.

Unfortunately, the shrimp spring roll was a different story: The whole thing was bland, including the peanut sauce, which needed either a sweeter or a saltier element (or both) to make it even vaguely interesting. As a matter of fact, after a few bites the sauce began to taste medicinal and I skipped it altogether, even though this dry little spring roll desperately needs something to give it any textural or flavor interest. Next time I'll skip the shrimp spring roll and just kill all nine brown rice spicy tuna rolls in one sitting.

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