Cleansing

After a long dark winter in Seattle, I cannot think of a better way to celebrate spring and taking a stand for my health than a cleanse.  I’m not using any sort of commercial or juicing cleanse.  It’s made up by me with a few suggestions from my yoga (and ayurvedic knowledgeable) friend.

My plan is to do it for a week, but depending on how I feel, I might do it longer.  The jist: I will be in-taking only fruits and vegetables, with small portions of lentils, turkey and possibly a little brown rice.  This may seem like a regular week for some, but recently I had the realization that my body is addicted to fatty, starchy foods.  When your body feels like it can digest macaroni and cheese everyday but gets easily upset by a light, kale salad; there’s something wrong.  Or at least that’s how I feel about my body.  Maybe what I’m doing isn’t even really a cleanse, but more of a time to really pay attention to what I am putting in my mouth and how it makes me feel.  The goal is that my body will start to feel the benefits of eating healthier and start to need more leafy greens, fruits, etc.  Feeling dependent on breads and fatty foods is bumming me & my body out.  Hence, the “cleanse”.

I will be journaling everyday throughout the day just to make sure I’m regularly checking-in with my body.  It does the double duty of giving me time to reflect on how my body feels as well as keeping me honest by talking about what I’m eating.

Anyways, a few things about the cleanse and my day so far…

While I’m starting this whole cleanse today I did begin my morning with the last 1.5 of these donuts.  I tried them for the first time this weekend after hearing so many Seattlites rave about them.  So. Freaking. Good.

I then made my way to the Ballard Farmer’s Market to pick up some fresh, local goods.  I didn’t take a photo of everything, but here’s more or less what I got: carrots, shallots, green onions, leafy green salad mix, lettuce, spinach, apples, pears, mint, and asparagus.  Then I made my way to the store and picked up the rest of my goods: cucumber, lemons, bananas, cilantro, a basil plant, oranges, strawberries, mushrooms, lentils, avocados, sunflower seeds, some turkey, tahini & some different sauces to make dressings.  This is actually a lot more food than I normally buy, so I’m interested to see how long everything lasts.  I figured I needed to be prepared!

I immediately went home and prepared one of my favorite and most refreshing drinks– water with cucumber & fresh mint.  Yum!

I then prepared a dip that I think will be a staple for this week.  It’s a raw carrot & sunflower seed dip.  It is sooo good.  I’m not a huge fan of hummus, but this dip is seriously amazing.  You can check out the recipe here.  I added extra cayenne, so it’s nice and spicy without taking away from any of the other flavors.

I then made this seriously delicious smoothie! It’s strawberries, spinach, water, ice & fresh mint (only about 3 leaves).  I think fresh herbs might just be my favorite things on the planet.

Here it is after it was blended.  I know it doesn’t look as appetizing, but what do you expect when you mix red and green together?  I highly recommend this combo for someone who is not quite sure about green smoothies.  The strawberries are nice & sweet, making it easier to consume.  I made a lettuce, apricot, & blueberry smoothie once and it was BITTER.  I could only stand to drink half of it before giving up.  I tried to add honey to take away a bit of the bitterness but then it just tasted fake sweet.  I am a huge fan of natural fruit sweetness.  If you need more than that, you can always add stevia, honey, etc.  but I personally do not like the added sugar flavors.

Currently, I am attempting to decide what I will eat for dinner and gather up the energy to do my workout for the night.  As it stands, day 1 feels good and I am way too excited about all the fresh food in this house!  It even inspired me to write the post (which is clearly something I haven’t felt motivated to do in a while).

I will leave you with super happy pictures of tulips!  I bought them with the remaining few dollars I had at the farmer’s market and they are beautiful!  Apparently there are some huge tulips fields about an hour north of Seattle and I’m hoping to go next weekend to check them out.  So now you know a bit of what I’m up to besides working full-time and taking down my thesis.  As such, I will also leave you with Evan and my new motto for life.  “I’m walkin and punchin.”  I hope you are too

 

What I Ate Wednesday

Today is a real big day.  February is already lining up to be one awesome and busy month!

You may ask why this is turning into such a special month and while there a lot of things going on, the most important one is that MY SISTER IS IN LABOR!!!!

She’s been in labor for a solid 17 hours.  There’s no telling when he’s going to pop out but my guess is sooner than later.  I CANNOT wait to meet the little guy when I’m there next week!

Breakfast 8:30 AM

This is a bowl of mom’s natural whole grain cereal.  Super tasty and has 5 grams of protein per serving.  Not too shabby cereal…

Lunch 12PM

Greek Yogurt is all that is awesome.  Lately I’ve been a fan of this combo:

• Fresh strawberries
• honey
• granola
• coconut
• slivered almonds
• chia seeds

I came home a tad bit early from work because of all the texts and phone calls I was getting from family.  It was hard to focus with all the excitement.  I decided to take advantage of the extra time at home to cook up some big meals to have left-overs for the rest of the week.

Dinner: 5:30 PM

I made a fillet of tilapia and a GIANT pot of red chard risotto.  I made this same risotto on Sunday and it was soo good.  The leftovers were seriously just as good.  I think this might be my favorite dish lately.  I should definitely write a post about this recipe, since I made it from scratch.  It’s very easy to make, it’s just the time in front of the stove stirring that takes a bit.  I also roasted some veggies I had laying around.

This included:

• broccoli
• cauliflower
• parsnip
• pumpkin seeds

Covered in olive oil, salt pepper and some crush red pepper.  I think the pumpkin seeds as a nice nutty and crunchiness to the veggies.  I enjoyed this combo.  Dinner was so filling tonight.  Normally, I like a smaller dinner but I enjoyed it all way too much.

Evening

My night was joined by these two lovelies.  A little bit of ice cream, a little bit of cat.  I can’t really asked for much more…except a brand new baby!

If he looks even remotely as cute as this guy (his cousin), I know he will be the cutest kid on the block.

 

I cannot wait til Tuesday where I get to be in the land of sun, palm trees, friends & family.

 

Roasted Cucumber & Smoked Salmon Sandwich.

So I had this epifany today…

I realized that we really did have it good in high school.  If I could spend my day compartmentalized into subjects, it would be way more entertaining.  While walking to work from the bus this morning, I remembered how I would start the days off in band.  Not talking, but creating something.  To be fair I was never very good at playing the french horn, but I enjoyed getting to a part of something every morning.  I miss those days.  Also, while we all hated gym in high school, I wish I had a 50 minute block every day just for that.  Anyways, these thoughts made me realize that I want to wake up in the morning and do something creative.  Not just roll out of bed, get ready for work and let the day take me.  Clearly this is easier said than done for me but I keep thinking that if I could have 50 minutes of high school band every morning, the days would be a little bit better.  Life is also better with the sandwich that this post is really about, so….

Are you prepared to read about the most amazing sandwich of my life?

I was perusing the usual blogs, when I saw a post about roasting veggies.  I have been doing this more recently and have really, I mean, really enjoyed the results.  Roasting is so simple, but easily forgotten when you’re thinking about a delicious, flavorful meal.  But roasting in and of itself is extremely delicious and flavorful.  So I headed to my refrigerator to see what I could possibly roast.

What I found was a miracle in waiting.  A cucumber.

I know what you’re thinking…. WHAT?! A CUCUMBER?  I say yes.

I immediately googled roasted cucumber to make sure I wasn’t crazy and that it could be done.  The results kept showing a roasted cucumber sandwich and one with salmon.  I knew exactly what I had to do.  I had purchased some smoked salmon last week at the Asian market and was waiting for the right meal to use it.  I followed all my impulses of what would make this epic and it did not disappoint.

Roasted Cucumber & Smoked Salmon Sandwich (with a side of potato rounds) -Print it here!

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 20 min

Ingredients:

1/2 cucumber

3 red potatoes

1/4 tsp. olive oil

2 slices wheat bread, toasted

2 oz. salmon

1 handful of lettuce or spinach

salt

pepper

dill

crushed red pepper

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375 (my oven is small and gets insanely hot, if you have a regular oven, I would try 425).

2. Cut cucumber into 1/2 inch slices and the potato to slim 1/4 slivers.

3. Lay out cucumber and potatoes in a single layer on cookie sheet. Cover with a light layer of olive oil.  On cucumber: sprinkle salt, pepper, dill, and crushed red pepper to your liking.  On potato: sprinkle salt, pepper, and red pepper.

4. Cook for 10 minutes, then take out of oven and flip.  Cook for another 10 minutes.

5.  When the veggies have 2 minutes left to roast, toast bread.  Wash and dry lettuce.

6.  Create sandwich.  I recommend lettuce on bottom, salmon in the middle and cucumber on top.  Place potato chips on the side.

The cucumber when roasted has a similar texture to cooked eggplant.  When combined with the smoky flavor of the salmon, the crunchiness of the lettuce, and the hint of dill and heat from the red pepper- perfection is abound.  I noticed that most roasted cucumber sandwiches include mayonnaise and kind of an egg salad sandwich effect.  Let me tell you simple is better.  This sandwich is better.  Do not trust the mayo.

I love heat in my food.  To me it makes flavor pop and your mouth feel full and happy.  This sandwich, especially with the warm side of homemade potatoes, felt like I was eating at a gourmet eatery.  This is what I’m saying about roasting.  The veggies, cooked to perfection with the right spice and heat is probably the tastiest thing ever.  The best part is that there is a limitless amount of ways to make them, all roasted, with different spices and combinations.

Next, I will have to explain to you my die-hard, relentless love for roasted mushrooms.

I miss market days

I miss delicious fresh fruit and vegetables full of potential.

Friday Love

Here is an accumulation of music, videos and randomness that I am loving.

I got a lot of these videos from Got a Girl Crush.  Check them out for sure.  Also, I recently joined pinterest and am obsessed.  I love being able to put all of my favorite things from the blogs I read in one place.  For all you non-Seattlite out there, the weather update is this:

5 snow days in a row.

 

currently raining buckets on top of the snow outside.  So now imagine this cover in water.

 

Santigold’s new single “Big Mouth” super fun and pumps you up!

This is: Nat Baldwin “weights”.  He is from the Dirty Projectors.  I recently bought his “Most Valuable Player album”.  I find his voice with the bass mesmerizing.

I recently heard Aimee Mann on the show Portlandia (a super hilarious episode by the way).  And I really appreciated her honest, 90s vocals.  I bought the soundtrack from “Magnolia” featuring Aimee almost completely.  Loving it so far.

MADE IN ICELAND from Klara Harden on Vimeo.  This girl trekked around Iceland on her own.  This is an amazingly beautiful representation of her trip.  Gotta love the girls doing kick ass things.

Zooey Dechanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt “What are you doing New Years Eve?”  I love this duo, it makes me so happy.

If you haven’t already checked it out, Zooey Deschanel has a youtube channel: hellogiggles.

Homemade Mocha

With all the snow days here in Seattle, I’ve been craving a tasty caffeinated drink but didn’t want to battle the weather to get it. That’s how the super easy homemade mocha was born.

I have tried making mochas before with a variety of ingredients, but when I saw this simple recipe for a white mocha, I figured I would take concoction making back a step and go for the easiest route.  It totally worked.

 

Ingredients (1 mug) -Print it here!

• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup milk of your preference
• 1/2 cup coffee

Instructions

• Make coffee dark, you can use more coffee beans with a smaller amount of water than normal.  As always, I highly recommend the chemex for all your coffee making needs.
• 

 

• Put chocolate chips and milk in a mug, microwave for 2 minutes.
• Stir until mixed together.
• Add in coffee.
• Use handheld electronic froth-maker (mine is $3 from Ikea) to make it like a coffee shop drink!
• 

 

• Enjoy

Roasted Veggie Fried Rice

So turns out Seattle can’t handle the snow too well.  I ended up going to work yesterday only to find out that everyone else had stayed home due to slippery road conditions.  Being from Iowa, the thought never even crossed my mind that it was a snow day.  Originally, it was supposed to snow all day today, so the plan was that we would all work from home today and wednesday.  Well, the snow is coming late (maybe at 4am tonight) and it looks like I might be home on thursday too. Who knew snow meant working from home almost the entire week?  I actually really like working from home.  If I could do it all the time, I would.  I think mostly because I get to wear comfy pants, have fresh brewed coffee from the chemex and make home cooked lunches.  I pretty much couldn’t ask for more.  Tonight’s dinner was all about simplicity.  Since we might be snowed in for a few days, I went to the store and picked up some fresh fruits and veggies.  I wanted to make sure I used some veggies and other food I still had lying around.  And thus, this meal was born.  Super easy and tasty.

I had some day-old rice and some cabbage that needed to be eaten today.  And so it was.

Roasted Veggie Fried Rice  -Print it here!

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 cups cooked rice
• 1 egg
• 1/4 head of green cabbage
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 cup broccoli
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp braggs liquid aminos (or soy sauce)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Instructions

Veggies

• Preheat the oven to 375.
• Cut up into small pieces whatever veggies you have available. I used green cabbage, a carrot and some broccoli.
• Spray or cover pan with vegetable oil.
• Place veggies in a single layer on pan.
• Cover with olive oil, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper.
• Cook for 25 minutes, rotating them once about halfway through.

Rice

• Place 1 tsp vegetable oil in a large pan or wok and turn burner to a medium heat.
• Once warm, scramble egg in oil.
• Place 1 to 2 day-old rice (that you had leftover in the fridge) into pan with the egg.
• Add 1 tsp Bragg’s liquid aminos to rice and let cook, stirring occasionally.
• After a few minutes, throw veggies into the pan as well.
• Add 1 tsp more of Bragg’s and 1 tsp of sesame seed oil.
• Let cook until rice starts to brown, about 3-5 minutes.

• Scoop into bowl and serve!

And now the wait begins for more of this…

What’s your favorite thing about snow days?