Cucumber Caprese Quinoa Shells

I would be lying if I said I haven't been eyeballing caprese recipes lately. To be honest, I have never tried a caprese salad. But I don't understand why... I love all of the basic ingredients!

Lucky for me, my coworker brought me a big bag of homegrown basil today. I searched through the last few recipes I starred, compared to what was in my kitchen and came up with this: a random, combination of these two recipes.

• Cucumber Avocado Caprese Salad
• Orzo Caprese Salad

I loved the idea of adding cucumbers to the caprese salad (since cucumber + tomato = legen... wait for it... dary! legendary!) and I liked the idea of the salad mixed with the orzo (or more specifically, any sort of grain... I was thinking quinoa, cous cous, brown rice... something along those lines to stretch the flavor and make it more filling). So I mixed and matched and made some changes based on what I had on hand, but I really want to try the originals someday!!

Cucumber Caprese Quinoa Pasta

Ingredients (my version):

• 1.5 cups uncooked quinoa pasta shells
• 3 cucumbers 
• 10.5 oz cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup fresh basil (firmly packed)
• 1 cup mozarella (the little balls)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• garlic, salt, and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Cook the pasta according to directions. Rinse with cold water and mix with a small amount of olive oil to prevent from sticking. Set aside.
2. Follow the directions from this site (excluding avocados because sadly I didn't have them on hand).
3. Eat. A lot.

Yum!

Disclaimer: I am not attempting to call this a recipe, or take any credit for it. I just wanted to share with you the goodness that was my dinner :) 

Easy Recipe: Gouda and Avocado Salad

i saw this recipe today and i had to have it 

i had all the ingredients already in my fridge

it was a match made in heaven

kinda

in truth, i had all the ingredients to make the lazy easy version

i didn't want to make the dressing 

and the dressing looked kinda like caeser to me

but what do i know? i have no clue what's in caesar dressing

either way, i decided to use some lite caesar dressing i already had

i also added some tomatoes, because who doesn't like tomatoes?

ingredients

• romaine lettuce
• smoked gouda 
• 1/2 of the worlds smallest avocado 
• 1 roma tomato
• caesar dressing

lets get real for a second. 
lets talk about this avocado. 

really?!?!? 

maybe i'm spoiled, being from california

but come on! 

you should also know that i have freakishly small baby hands

so while it fills my palm, that doesn't mean nothing

anyways

instructions

combine into salad form: wash and cut lettuce, cube gouda, slice the worlds smallest avocado, slice the tomato, drizzle with dressing. eat.

easy peasy lemon squeezy! 

size of the avocado aside, this salad was bomb.com

loved the flavor combo 

perfect for a night of packing and harry potter watching 

what do you do with your gouda? 

if its something with fruit, i don't wanna hear about it 

ok fine, i want to hear about it, but i won't make it 

i think i missed the fruit+savory gene when god was handing it out
but i'd love to hear any gouda suggestions!

Stuffed Artichokes

I made this recipe a few weeks ago, but I am finally getting around to posting this.
I had never cooked artichokes before, and this was a wild shot in the dark.
I think it turned out pretty, pretty, pretty good.

.........

STUFFED ARTICHOKES

Ingredients

• 2 artichokes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 4 cloves garlic, slivered
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 
• 1/4 teaspoon dried ground fennel
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Vegetable broth

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. In a skillet, saute the garlic and onions til soft. Stir in the thyme, fennel, breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast. Stir often and cook until the breadcrumbs start to brown. 

3. While the breadcrumbs are cooking (or after if you aren't the best at multitasking), prep the artichokes. Rinse them and pull off the outer layer of the leaves. Chop off the top and bottom of the artichoke... the bottom so that it will sit flat and the top inch or so to get rid of the sharp pointy thingies. Take some scissors and snip off any remaining pointys.

4. The original recipe has some crazy instructions here on removing the choke from the center of the artichoke... I didn't do this. I couldn't spread the leaves enough to get to the center... so I cooked it as a whole and just didn't eat the center... taadaaa! Lazy person instructions. 

5. Take the stuffing and start stuffin'! Starting from the outside in, gently pull back a leaf and put some stuffing inbetween the layers. Continue doing this to each leaf as far in as you can. My artichokes didn't want to let me into the middle too much... but such is life. 

6. Line a baking dish with foil (for easy clean up... read: lazy), place artichokes upright in said dish. Pour broth into the dish, about an inch or so high. Cook for 60 minutes.

7. Enjoy! 

Food & Beer Friday: Sonoran White Chocolate Ale

So there is this chick named Kristin. 

And she's pretty rad. 

She likes Law & Order and food and beer.
Three of my favorite things!!

And she started a "Food & Beer Friday" link up.

But no Law & Order link up?? Where's your priorities, girl??

So yeah - today I'm linking up with Skinny Jeans & a Chai Latte for Food & Beer Friday's. 

But, before we go any further, I must warn you: 

I am no beer sommelier, don't expect fancy words, 

I'm just gonna give you my uneducated opinion :)

First off, lemme say I'm a big fan of checking out local breweries. I love Four Peaks down in Tempe and might even rank Kiltlifter as one of my favorite beers. So when I walk through the aisles of the
grocery store/gas station/liquor store I love to see unique locally brewed beers.

The other night, I found this gem.

Lemme tell ya something, it was amazing. 

I'm not usually one to drink dessert beers, but I just had to try this one. 

It tasted very much like white chocolate. 

The bottle said to pair it with lobster or shrimp. 

"Inspired by the beauty of the White Mountains; the Sonoran White Chocolate Ale is a light, refreshing and completely unique wheat beer. Like a fine chocolate, this brew has a delicate aroma and a subtle taste of white chocolate, which is truly astonishing! For the ultimate experience; pair it with coconut shrimp or lobster. Enjoy one with your meal and another for dessert."

But I was fresh outta lobster (who'da thunk?), so I just drank it AS my dessert.
Mmmmm. I wish I bought two bottles.
Drink it in... it always goes down smooth.

So if you are ever in Arizona, or have access to beer from the Sonoran Brewing Company,
please try this beer. You (and your taste buds) will thank me.

Also, please note this post maybe should probably be called "Beer Friday" since I didn't mention food. Whoops.
If you really need a foodie fix check out my Cauliflower Pizza Cups or Healthy Curly Fries.

Happy Weekend! I'm off to Flagstaff to hike relax and watch the solar eclipse.
Cheers! 

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 3 & 4

My recap for the past two days is essentially the same as days 1 and 2. Juice, bootcamp, veggie dinner.

Day 3: Juice 1

2 granny smith apples, 4 carrots, 1 cucumber, 2 handfuls spinach, 3 leaves rainbow chard, 1 inch ginger

 Day 2: Juice 2

2 cups blackberries, 6 strawberries, 1 cucumber
one of my favorite juices
tastes like springtime in your mouth 

Day 4: Juice 1

5 carrots, inch of ginger, 4 leaves purple cabbage, 3 leaves rainbow chard, 1 cucumber
I ran out of apples... so extra carrots for sweetness. 

From the top, this juice looks groovy...

...from the side, not so much.

 Day 4: Juice 2

1 navel orange, 2 tangelos, 2 mangos, 1 cup coconut water (not pictured)
this was amazing as well!! sooooo yummy!!

I highly recommend a juice reboot or even just adding juice and/or smoothies to your daily routine... so much vitamins packed into that little glass! And by golly are they delicious.

Tomorrow I have the day off (um, woohoo!!!) ... and I will be taking myself out for a day on the town. Shopping, eating and the meeting up with a few girl friends for the grand opening of El Santo Cantina (if anyone else in the area wants to go, let me know! I'd love to meet some local blogger and, of course, the more the merrier!). My Saturday and Sunday have not been set in stone yet, but I know there will be lots of fun, food and fiesta-ing. I feel like its Christmas... but maybe its just Cinco de Mayo. And maybe I'm just having an awesome week.

Hope you are all having an awesome week as well!!  

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?

Paul McCartney's Ob-La-Di Enchiladas

looking for a delicious and satisfying recipe for meatless mondays?

well look no further!

i've made this recipe a few times now

and it's always met with rave reviews!

(not to mention it's perfectly named)

rather than making individual enchiladas

i layered the ingredients like a casserole:

one layer tortillas

one layer tofu, spinach, and mushrooms

repeat

worth noting: i used two bunches of spinach

and two packs of mushrooms...

...and NO cornstarch (i've never had any complaints)

this recipe is also dairy-free making it a perfect choice for the vegan and plant-based crowd

enjoy!

(originally posted at House of Glass)

Banana Ice Cream

Ok... so it's not really banana ice cream.
My sister calls it banana nice cream.
I call it fanana fice fream.
You see, I have a habit of putting an 'f' in front of a word if its fake/faux...  
I've been known to eat fushi, wear fackets and play fribbage

Anywho, regardless of what you call it. 

This faux fanana fice fream is felicious! 

BANANA NICE  CREAM

Ingredients:

• Frozen bananas 
• A splash of almond milk (or liquid of your choosing, I use unsweetened original flavor almond milk)
• Vanilla extract (optional)
• Toppings (optional)
• Thats it! Simple, eh?

This dish does take a little bit of forethought... mainly you have to freeze the bananas ahead of time. I find this not to be a problem as I always have bananas on my counter, insisting on turning brown. When the bananas start to go to the "dark side", cut them up into slices, throw them into a ziploc bag and throw that bag into the freezer. 

Disclaimer: Since this "recipe" is super simple, I will elaborate un poco for your reading entertainment. 

Step 1: Gather ingredients: Open your freezer, grab and remove banana bag. Open your fridge, grab and remove liquid. Open your pantry/cupboard, grab and remove vanilla extract and/or toppings. Place on counter. 

Look, ma! I did it!

Step 2: Place ingredients in blender or food processor (all except the toppings, of course). The almond milk (or other liquid) is just to help in the blending process. I usually add a splash (descriptive, right?) and then after blending some have to add a splash more. Start off with a few tbsp and then add more if needed. 

I forgot to take a pic at this stage. Essentially, it would look like this. 

Please use your imagination to transport this blender into my kitchen. 

Then make the blender red. 

K, thanks!

Step 3:  Press the button that makes it work. Since I don't know what device you are using, I can't give you exact directions here. I personally use the "crush ice" button a few times, then maybe a little time on "blend", maybe some time on "puree" ... basically, do work on that banana until it resembles soft serve ice cream.

Step 4: Spoon fanana fice fream into a bowl. Top with toppings if desired (please note: it tastes wonderful with out toppings, we just decided we wanted to be fatties and splurge this time around). Add spoon.

The final product

His: a spoon full of brown sugar

Hers: Sixlets and gummy bears 

I love how gummy bears get hard in ice cream... yuummmmm

Step 5: Enjoy!