Vegging out.

Tags

clean eating, delicious, detox, food, gluten-free, healthy living, pasta sauce, recipe, vegan, vegetables, zucchini

So this week continues my on-going quest to insert more vegetables into my life. Having recently passed the one year mark on this operation, it’s time to step up the game. My body understands the difference between healthy and unhealthy now, finally, and it’s time to escalate to the next level. I’m marking the occasion with a juice cleanse! 

Honestly part of it is to initiate next level status, but part of it is because I have been having frequent headaches and other illness-y symptoms recently and I want to get out whatever toxins are making me sick. To prep for a juice cleanse, the juice company recommends taking a few days to work your way into it, which means a mostly vegan, gluten-free, unprocessed diet. I’ll talk more about this later but I wanted to set the stage!

I don’t mind eating mostly produce at all, certainly not just for a couple of days, but my body gets annoyed if it doesn’t have what feels like a real meal. And, I figure three days of nothing but cold-pressed juice is coming up, so I don’t really want to eat a whole bunch of vegan soup leading up to that. So I thought about meals I’ve made in the past that are solid food, warm and almost entirely plant-based. I really love spaghetti squash so I decided to think about something like that.

Zucchini Marinara

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The Lazy Girl’s DIY Sushi

Tags

asian cuisine, avocado, cooking, delicious, fish, food, healthy living, made from scratch, nutrition, recipe, shellfish, sushi, tasty

Do you ever get on kicks where you could eat the same food every day? Given how many times I’ve blogged either curry or oatmeal, it should not be a surprise that this happens to me fairly frequently. Currently, my food addiction is sushi. Specifically, sushi rolls. I know there are plenty of other kinds, which I also like, but give me a couple of maki rolls and I am good to go. The complimentary flavors, the mix of textures, the vast assortment of possibilities. YUM. I’m into it.

The good news is that it could be a lot worse, nutritionally speaking. But as foods go, it’s so elusive. It’s the kind of thing that is really better at a restaurant. A lot of the ingredients can be hard to find and it is a bit of a production to prepare. But then the restaurants have problems too. White rice. Lots of fried ingredients. Lots of sugar. Insane amounts of sodium. In and of itself that wouldn’t be a deal breaker because there are plenty of things on the menu to sustain a fairly healthy meal. The biggest problem is that it is expensive. It’s hard to get enough to eat at a sushi place for less than $25.

So I decided maybe I could figure out a way to make something at home. At first I thought about learning how to make actual rolls, but I ran into a couple of problems before I even got started. First, a lot of the ingredients are not the easiest to find around here. Let alone supplies like a bamboo mat. I’m sure I could find things at Whole Foods or similar places, but the weather is bad this week and it’s a little bit of a drive. Plus, if I’m going for cost-effectiveness, buying all kinds of exotic supplies kind of defeats the purpose. The second problem was that even if I did spend the time and effort getting everything I needed, I’d have to actually do the dicing and shaping and rolling and all that stuff. In the ever eloquent words of Sweet Brown, ain’t nobody got time for that. I’m not great at dicing, and my touch is not particularly delicate, so I just envision crafting the rolls really poorly.

But then it occurred to me, I probably had nearly all of the necessary basics, or acceptable substitutes, and if it’s really the ingredients I like the best, why not just throw them all into a dish together, burrito bowl style?

The result was a very lovely “sushi salad”.

Sushi Salad OR the Lazy Girl’s DIY Sushi Roll in a Bowl

Yet another delicious fruity breakfast recipe.

Tags

almond milk, bananas, berries, clean eating, delicious, food, fruit, gluten-free, healthy, oatmeal, recipe, vegetarian

Well, getting back into clean eating mode has proven a little more difficult than I expected. Mostly because it’s freaking freezing outside and who wants to eat a cold salad when there’s a windchill of negative 10? Someone, maybe, but not me. Soup is a great alternative, but eating it every single day gets old real quick.

So the trick, which I am far from mastering, is eating clean, energy dense foods that are still warm and satisfying. Mac and Cheese only satisfies one of these goals it turns out. I’ve had a couple of successes though.

My greatest accomplishment so far this winter is definitely a Banana-Berry Baked Oatmeal, which has received rave reviews and requests for more. I’ve made it twice.

Here’s the first batch.

Bake me a cake

Tags

banana chocolate chip breakfast cake, breakfast, chocolate chips, clean eating, delicious, dessert, food, healthy, holiday recipe, oatmeal, recipe

So, I’m a terrible baker. I mean, it’s probably for the best, because if I loved baking I’d be in real trouble. But you know, it’s the holiday season and I’ve been in this weird domestic mood lately. So I’m baking.

I have big plans for my baked goods. I am not that much of a dessert person, I enjoy it but it’s not the highlight of a meal for me or anything. But I love cake balls. Maybe it’s the intrigue. Maybe it’s the adorable packaging. Maybe it’s that they are virtually the only interesting thing I know how to bake…and they come from a box but don’t seem like they come from a box. So I have all these plans for cake balls, and maybe some chocolate chip cookies, and all these plans are making me exceedingly guilty. Carbs and I seem to have rekindled our love affair in the worst way, but like any abusive relationship, I know this is just a honeymoon phase until the next time I weigh myself.

To counteract…or maybe mitigate is a better word…all this completely indulgent baking, I decided to try something healthy as well.

Banana Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cake

Life’s Spice

Tags

coconut milk, cooking, curry, delicious, diet, fish, food, fruits & vegetables, mango, nutrition, recipe, red mango curry, tasty, Thai food

If you read this blog regularly, then it should not surprise you that I sometimes get into ingredient ruts. Oh, she’s on a honey kick. Oh, now it’s Greek yogurt. Just be happy I wasn’t blogging during the great sauce-less stir-fry season of 2008. That was a hyphenated snooze fest. So lately, I’ve been trying to think of new things to make. If I’m hungry for something, instead of just wishing I could go out and then drinking my dissatisfaction down with a smoothie, I’m trying to branch out and expand my culinary wheelhouse. Thus far, there have been successes and …lesser successes. Example: I am determined that I will perfect a black bean burger if I have to make them once a week for a year. (Ok, a year from now I might be over it.)

I’ve found I really like cooking. Just like I love writing, photography and Project Runway, I enjoy cooking because it involves creating something, and in order to have a successful result, you need to be patient and consider different angles. Creating things is the best way I know to combine puzzles and art, two of my favorite things. I have gone through minor cooking phases before, like the previously mentioned stir-fry craze, but the past few months have really been next level. Having this blog doesn’t hurt. Neither does the invention of Pinterest. But the more I learn about nutrition, the more I care about finding the best ways to marry good health and good flavor. Finding, tweaking and creating recipes is an exciting way to be actively involved in my personal health goals. Sure, going to the gym is also a hands-on approach, but that can feel more like a chore sometimes than cooking usually does.

So, last night, I was in the mood for something different. I was also in the mood for a challenge. I don’t mind cooking when it is just fixing some food, but I actually get invested in it as a pastime when I am developing the recipe and building it into something. This time, I thought I would try curry. I have used a packaged curry sauce before and added in ingredients, but this time I wanted to make the sauce as well. Especially because I think it is likely that my ingredients are at least marginally healthier than the ones I would find in the take-home foods section of the grocery store, and definitely healthier than in a restaurant. My favorite curry is Thai red curry, and I especially like it with fruit. So tonight, I went for a red mango curry that I am happy to say was a success! I was very proud of myself. I cooked for my parents this evening and my dad said this was his favorite of the things I’ve made for him so far.

Red Mango Curry

Full disclosure: this recipe is not as diet-friendly as most of the things on this blog. It contains a little bit of sugar (like, actual brown sugar) and quite a bit of fat. Additionally, my giant neighborhood supermarket does not carry unsweetened coconut flakes, unless you want to pick up a whole coconut, get out a hammer and shave the flakes out of the shell yourself. So, I used a sweetened Baker’s coconut. However, everything else I used was a fresh ingredient, and it was certainly healthier than it could have been! I used one can of coconut milk and one can of lite coconut milk because I wanted the curry to be a little thicker. However, I think it would work fine with two cans of lite, which I will try in the future. Still, a fourth of the full recipe is only 375 calories, and it’s very filling. Plus it has quite a few fruits and vegetables.

Curry vegetables, ready and waiting!

Red Mango Curry

Serves 4

Prep time: 5-10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes (approximately)

• 1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil (or any good oil, really)
• 1 Mango (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 Cup Shallots or Sweet Onion (or both…I ran out of shallots halfway through. oops!)
• 1/2 Cup Red Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Cup Sugar Snap Peas
• 1/2 Cup Matchstick Carrots
• 3 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
• 1 Can Coconut Milk
• 1 Can Lite Coconut Milk
• 1 Tablespoon + 1 Teaspoon Low Sodium Soy Sauce**
• 2 Teaspoons Worcester Sauce (I used an organic one to avoid the high fructose corn syrup)
• 2 Teaspoons Brown Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Minced (or Finely Diced) Ginger
• 1/4 Teaspoon Cumin
• 1/4 Teaspoon Curry Powder
• 1 Clove Garlic, Minced
• 1/2 Lime
• 2 Tablespoons Shaved Coconut
• 5-6 Basil Leaves, Shredded

**Normal Thai curry calls for fish sauce, but since I don’t plan on making this all the time, I didn’t really want to spend the money on it. Luckily the good ole Internet told me that mixing Soy Sauce and Worcester Sauce would have basically the same effect. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, honestly, but they were good additions to this recipe anyway. Still, if you want to get authentic, you can use two tablespoons of fish sauce.

1. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan on medium-high heat.
2. Add the Curry Paste. Let it cook, stirring a little bit, until it mixes with the oil enough to become less pasty and more saucy, and becomes fragrant. (Just make sure it doesn’t burn.) This should take around 3 minutes.
3. When the paste is melted down, add the Coconut Milk. Stirring frequently, let the milk and curry simmer together (still on medium-high) for 5 minutes. Throughout the entire process, use a rubber scraper to keep the coconut milk from sticking to the side of the pan.
4. Add the soy sauce, Worcester, sugar, cumin, curry powder, garlic and ginger. Mix well, so that everything in the pan is one color. Let simmer, stirring pretty much continuously, another 5 minutes.
5. Squeeze in most, but not all, of the juice of the lime half. (Set the rest aside.)
6. Add onions, let cook until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. Add mango and vegetables, let cook 4 minutes (or until they reach the softness you prefer), stirring occasionally.
8. Add the basil, shredded coconut and the rest of the lime juice. Mix well so that coconut is dispersed throughout the curry. Let simmer 3 minutes.

I developed this recipe by looking at a variety of red curry, coconut curry and mango curry recipes of both Thai and Indian origins, and took what I liked from them until I had the recipe that I wanted for myself. One of the recipes I found included avocado in the curry. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, so I served avocado slices on the side. They were a phenomenal compliment!

I served the red mango curry over brown basmati rice and baked salmon. (Bake the salmon at 425˚F with a light coat of olive oil, salt and pepper, if interested.) It would be just as good with chicken, tofu, tempeh or on its own, too. I was just in a salmon kind of mood, and I’ve had it with red curry before and always loved it.

All in all, this recipe is definitely a win. I usually like to have a little more balance, in terms of carbs-fats-proteins, so I am feeling a little guilty about all the coconut, but with fish, brown rice, and veggies, it evens out well enough. Plus, it was delicious, and not terribly difficult. It does require a lot of stirring in the first half, but that’s not so bad. So, now I have a go-to recipe whenever I’m craving Thai food in the future. And I can feel good about myself for finding another fun recipe to make!

-lj