Sushi Bowl!

I'm a huge fan of fushi (aka vegetarian sushi = faux sushi = fushi),

yet I can't justify "going to sushi" every night.

And while I have a sushi making kit at home, 

I'm lazy and would like the flavor with out the mess/commitment.  

Enter Robin's Sushi Bowl

You may read this and think "well... duh." 

But, it only dawned on me a few months ago, so I'm sharing :)

It's not so much of a recipe, as an idea
to take the sushi ingredients that you love, and put them in bowl form. 

Portion control does not photograph well. Next time, I will choose a smaller bowl. 

  Ingredients (this time around)

• Rice - I used Seeds of Change Organic Quinoa and Brown Rice. I LOVE these rice packets. Throw them in the microwave for 90 seconds and you have perfect rice. I am oddly awful at cooking rice, I even have a rice cooker and always mess it up some how. 
• Seaweed snack
• Edamame 
• Low Sodium Soy Sauce 

Other nights I've thrown in some avocado and/or cucumber... but you could also throw in some tofu, teriyaki chicken, shrimp, crab, fish, carrots, cabbage...basically anything sushi-esque. I think the main trick to making this dish reminiscent of sushi is the seaweed. It takes it from being a rice bowl to a sushi bowl.  

Taa daaa! Magic!

Speaking of sushi... I am super excited to be meeting up with the ladies from the AZ Bloggers Network this Sunday for a sushi date. Can't wait to hang out with the ladies I met a few weeks ago as well as meet some new people.

Have you ever made a sushi bowl before? 

Do you have any other at-home-sushi tips for people like me (aka lazy)?

Juice Day #2

Day two of "jucing". I'm not even sure I can call it that, because I'm not drinking only juice during these five days. But its still some sort of reboot, and I'm loving the results.

{Juice 1}

purple cabage, cameo apples, lemon, rainbow chard and carrots

After I juiced those, I realized it did not make enough juice... 

Only half full! But it IS colorful

So I added another batch of goodies to the same cup:

spinach, more rainbow chard, another cameo apple, the other half of the lemon

{Juice 2} 

3 navel oranges, handful of strawberries

best juice I've made so far

Lucky for me, there were no speed bumps today. Everything went as planned. I was not hungry and had no headaches all day :) 

Today was an off day from bootcamp so I headed over to the gym to do just a little but of running. The gym was so crowded today! I wonder if everyone else in Arizona is participating in Healthy May as well? Haha.

{Dinner}

After the gym I headed home and made my dinner - sauteed spinach with garlic on raw zucchini noodles. 

I'm currently obsessed with zucchini noodles. They are delicious and healthy! 

Until tomorrow - have a great (healthy) day!! 

Juice Day #1

May day! May day! May is finally here :)

[source]

It's now one month closer to my birthday, one month closer to the wedding, one month closer to being healthier. I already had personal goals set for myself, but now I am excited to be linking up with Here Comes the Sun for Healthy May (you can see the rules/guidelines/suggestions for Health May here). This is just one more way to keep me accountable and excited about my continuing journey towards health.

I will be tracking my food and exercise on SparkPeople (we could be Sparkfriends if you also use it), tweeting about progress (Twitter: @lebonk) about progress and taking pics of stuff along the way (Instagram: @lebonk).

Anyways - on to Healthy May and recapping my first day of "juicing"... Yesterday morning I woke up bright and early to get my juice on. I made two juices, one for breakfast and one for lunch. I was ready to hit the ground running! 

{Juice 1}

4 celery stalks, 4 carrots, 2 cameo apples, 2 kale leaves, large handful of spinach

Green!

Now I'm not claiming to be any kind of juice recipe expert... so if you copy these recipes and you hate them, don't blame me. I'm just sharing what I did.

sidebar: I gave samples of this juice to my boyfriend and his roommate... boyfriend always loves my green juice, roommate politely tried a sip and then, when I wasn't looking, let boyfriend finish the rest. Moral of the story: not everyone likes to drink a garden.

{Juice 2}

1 cucumber, handful of strawberries, handful of blackberries, handful of spinach, 1 granny smith apple, 1 cameo apple

Now this is where I hit my first speed bump. I had an off-site client meeting at 9:30am, and was supposed
to be back to the office around 11:30am, so I did not bring any juice with me. The meeting ran long... and I kept looking at the clock, hoping that we could wrap it up soon... but I didn't get back to the office until almost 3pm. I was STARVING and had a massive headache!

I chugged a boatload of water and downed my second juice but it wasn't helping. I had some cucumber slices and carrot sticks in the fridge from last week so I went ahead and ate those. The headache eventually subsided and I was ready to roll.

Then I went to bootcamp... start of week two - woohoo! 
Bootcamp was great, but when I got home I needed more than just juice to munch on. I knew this was going to be a possibility, so I went to my backup plan: I will be juicing during the day and then eating some healthy plant-based dinner after my workouts.

Monday's dinner ended up being kale chips (recipe to be posted at some future date) and some delicious coconut water. Coconut water is delicious and GREAT for after a workout. 

Do you guys have any health/diet/exercise plans for May? 

Anyone else interested in joining in Healthy May? 

Anyone have a good juice recipe for me to try this week?

Healthy Curly Fries

before you read the title/ingredients below and decide it sounds "gross", 

take a sneak peek at the end product 

Mmmmm... so delish!

ok, so now for the secret ingredient

this was another experiment with yet another random vegetable 

that arrived in my weekly box o' organic goodies...

....

turnips!! 

they don't look yummy yet, but they will, just wait

to be honest, i don't think i have ever had turnips before this

and i had no idea what they would taste like 

or how to cook them 

and they sounded gross to me at first 

i mean, just say the word aloud.... turnips... tuuurnippss (see?)

but i feel bad wasting food, and i already had them in my fridge 

so i started trying to brainstorm how i would cook em

then my handy dandy veggie spiralizer arrived on my doorstep

and i just had to use it on something

oh the possibilities! 

soooo spiral somethings?

curly somethings? turnip somethings?

curly fries? turnip fries? 

sure, lets go with all of the above

OVEN BAKED TURNIP FRIES

Ingredients

• 3 turnips
• 1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp onion salt 
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• parsley (to make it look pretty at the end)

 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray (makes for easy clean up - i use organic olive oil spray).

2. Wash and peel the turnips. Cut into fry-size sticks (the thinner you cut them, the crispier they will be - so you choose between steak fries or shoestring fries). If you are lucky enough to own a spiralizer... spiralize those bad boys.

seriously, i love this thing
wheeeeee!

 3. In a large ziploc bag, combine cheese and seasoning. Add turnips and shake to coat (you may dance while shaking if you want, i've found it adds to the flavor as well as the experience).

4. Place turnips on baking sheet and back for 15-20 minutes (or until turnips are tender and golden).

 

before the cookin'

 after!

 5. Enjoy!

taa daaa!

if any of you are curious about what turnips taste like, because i know i was

i found them to taste similar to radishes (when raw) 

and kinda like a potato-onion hybrid (when cooked) 

they have a slight sweet flavor (like cooked onion)

but the overall dish was tasty

and apparently turnips are one of "The 150 Most Healthiest Foods on Earth"

win-win, eh?

have you ever tried turnips? how do you like to cook turnips?

My Box of Magic

Every other Friday I get a box of delicious magic delivered to my doorstep.... I wake up on those Fridays like a little kid on Christmas... I rush to the front porch to see what sort of goodies arrived during the night.

The magical goodies in the box are an random assorment of organic, locally grown, fruits and veggies.

I LOVE to be in the kitchen, Googling various recipes and concoctions to try. It's fun to be surprised with random produce that I've never cooked with before. And this produce is DELICIOUS.
A million times better than the grocery stores (even when you buy organic at the grocery store) AND it just shows up at my doorstep... how cool is that?!

This week's assortment:

Please ignore my reflection in the mirror... I promise 

I don't have a Santa belly... its just the shirt and the angle :) 

Veggies:

• 1 bunch of spinach
• 2 bunches of carrots
• 2 bunches of kale (with red stems? interesting....)
• 1 bunch of chard (rainbow? not sure... stems are lellow)
• 2 broccoli crowns
• 1 cucumber

Fruit:

• 5 bananas
• 3 fiji apples
• 3 braeburn apples
• 3 tangelos
• 5 kiwis
• 2 pears
• 1 avocado

I see lots of yummy juice, smoothies and salads in my future!!

LeBonk!
"Did you mean: 'clam bellies'?"