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Making passable veggie maki isn't very difficult if you can get all the bits together. Finding the ingredients is the tricky bit. The essential stuff is the nori seaweed. It grows in the seas around Japan and is dried and roasted before use, a complex procedure which I don't know how to do. Luckily, it also comes in packets, ready prepared. You can find it in delicatessens and health food shops - maybe even supermarkets. I got mine in a health food shop in Lisbon the last time I was there.
So, if you have the seaweed, you can do the sushi, but when you've made it, you'll probably want to dip the pieces in a mixture of soy sauce and wassabe paste and maybe munch on a bit of palate-cleansing pickled ginger in between. Wassabe is made from Japanese horseradish and you might find it and the ginger in the same place as you get the nori. I picked up my wassabe in Devon. By time I got round to trying to make sushi, I hadn't yet acquired the ginger, so I did without.
One carrot will provide enough material for a whole bunch of sushi; likewise one cucumber, one avocado or one courgette. You might want to use just one or two of the suggested fillings, or if you do use all - and that would be a nice thing to do, remember you wont need much of each.
Cucumber and avocado just require peeling and cutting into strips. Courgettes and carrots need the same treatment and then they have to be dropped into boiling salted water for a couple of minutes (carrots need a little longer than courgettes) and then refreshed in cold water. Cut the various vegetable strips about 1cm thick or less.
There are various ways of wrapping up the ingredients but my preference is to make thin sushi. I bought sheets of seaweed 8 inches by 7 inches and cut them in half so I had pieces 8 ins x 3.5. Three and a half inches is about 9 cm. You can use a little bamboo sushi mat to help you make the rolls (a bamboo place mat will do), but I used a stiff linen tea towel doubled over and it worked well. I aligned the edge of the seaweed with the nearest edge of the towel and rolled the sushis away from me. I found that it's best to roll the sushi quite firmly. It sticks together better. Each of the rolls will make 8 pieces of sushi, which is a a standard portion (but I usually order two portions).
But I'm making it all sound more complicated than it really is, so let's just get on with it and Shut up, Macbean! You'll find you're own way of doing it.
Ingredients
1 packet of roasted nori
1 mug of short-grain rice
Carrot/cucumber/avocado/courgette
A little vinegar
A little tahini
Salt
Steam the rice in the usual way and when it is ready you can start the rest of the business. Lay our piece of seaweed on the mat (or towel) and spread a loose layer of rice on it (about half an inch thick). Leave about half an inch clear along each long edge. Drizzle a little tahini along the centre of the rice and then sprinkle on some vinegar (about 1 teaspoon of each should suffice. Next, lay a strip of vegetable along the centre (add extra pieces to make the full length) and then roll the sushi into a tight tube. Wet the edge of the seaweed to stick it down and lay the roll on a plate with the cut edge downwards. Repeat the process until you've done as many rolls as you need.
Use a very sharp knife to cut each roll into eight pieces. Wet the knife before starting and clean it and re wet after cutting each roll.
Serve on neat little plates with a blob of wassabe and a pile of pickled ginger and small bowl or saucer on the side for mixing up soy sauce and wassabe.