California rolls

 

 

Today I had a craving for sushi. I wasn't in the mood for raw fish - I was in the mood for California rolls.

Halfway through making them I realized I didn't have a cucumber in the fridge. No matter - I really just wanted crab and avocado.

And I did have a whole container of sweet pickled ginger in the fridge.

I tend to make sushi rolls a lot. Check out this post for a step by step walkthrough. 

I am happy to report that I did clean out my car. While it was not the pitch and toss task I had hoped for - 50% of it was easily tossed and the rest was a bunch of receipts and paperwork that just needed shredding.

And I did get some closet organizer items so my quest to become clutter free and organized is going well.

I would encourage everyone to try making sushi rolls at home. It is fairly easy (use half a nori sheet for small rolls) and much cheaper than going out to a restaurant. 

Oh, yeah, Connor got a few pieces of avocado and Abby enjoyed the left over crab.

A wonderful Saturday lunch for all:-)

Tasty hummus rolls

Today I had this to work with:

Cumin, limes, tahini, garbanzo beans, rice and nori.

I was pretty pleased with my efforts which resulted in this:

Tasty hummus rolls.

I put one cup of rice to simmer in a soup pot on the stove. Then I started to create my hummus.

The following ingredient went into a bowl:

1 15oz can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed.

3 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp. of cumin

1 tsp. of garlic powder

2 tsp. of tahini

2 tsp. of Miso Mayo

1/4 tsp. of olive oil

1/2 cup of water

2 pinches of salt

black pepper to taste

The juice of two limes

I used my immersion blender until the hummus was smooth.

Then came the assembly:

A line of hummus, a sprinkle of paprika and some spinach leaves.

If a little comes out the end that is OK!



I finished them off with a sprinkle of paprika. Don’t they look pretty?



These would be a great lunch to take to work. Just make two rolls and leave them whole. It is much less messy to just munch from one end to the other rather than having them cut up.

Peaches and roasted red peppers

I was up early writing (3am to be exact) and I realized I haven't cooked anything for the dogs in quite a while.

My breakfast started with a roasted red bell pepper.

A roasted red pepper ready to be put into a Ziplock bag to steam.

One cup of quinoa went into a sauce pan with water for 20 minutes.

I enjoyed the quinoa with roasted red peppers and peaches.

I made another attempt at the nutritional yeast 'cheese' sauce which included:

Unsweetened soymilk
Nutritional yeast
Yellow mustard
Garlic powder
Tumeric
Earth balance butter spread
Lemon juice

No recipe yet because it still needs some tweaking.

And I added some pea sprouts on top.

The dogs enjoyed a melange of quinoa, Udo's oil, apricots, peaches, seasoned nori, a drizzle of the sauce and some chopped pea sprouts.

Yes, they ate up every little bit. In fact, Connor stood waiting for Abby to finish her portion so he could check for any crumbs.

Sadly, there were none :-)

Pasta with bacon and onions

Orecchiette pasta with bacon and onions topped with shredded Parmesan.

Cleaning makes you hungry!! I crisped up some bacon and set it aside and discarded all of the bacon grease. I caramelized some onions in a skillet with a few drops of olive oil. Then tossed in 1/2 cup of cooked Orecchiette pasta. I added 2 Tbsp. of the pasta water to the pan and let the pasta get coated with the onions.

I separated the fatty part of the bacon from the meat - set the fatty parts aside for the dogs and chopped up the meat.


I shredded some Parmesan on top and sprinkled the bacon on top. This dish was rich but really delicious. The sweetness of the caramelized onions paired beautifully with the saltiness of the bacon.

And for my greens I tossed some frozen spinach and frozen peas with chopped garlic, shredded pieces of teryaki nori and 2 tsp. of mirin and soy sauce.

This dish turned out better than the pasta dish!

Now it's time to get back to cleaning, Ugh(((  I am looking forward to embracing an Amish-like aesthetic by the end of the day.

Protein and laver

Today I woke up craving protein and minerals. I did not want carbs at all.

For the protein, I scrambled 1 whole egg with 4 egg whites with 1 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast.

Topped with a sprinkle of sweet paprika.

And since I had leftover miso soup in the fridge, I put some on the stove to warm up. 

I usually eat this breakfast with brown rice but since this morning's breakfast was going to be carb free I just added extra egg whites (4 instead of 2) when I scrambled the eggs.

Scrambled eggs, laver, miso soup and strong tea.

The laver (seasoned strips of nori in this case) did the job in satisfying my mineral craving. 


And since I am too lazy to insert a hyper link into the post today - here is a series of photos to show you how I eat this:

After I dip the nori in the miso soup, I lay the softened strip over the eggs.

I use chopsticks to pinch the ends of the nori together, scooping up a bit of the eggs.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Breakfast fried rice

I was running a good streak with having kibble in the house.

And then I woke up this morning - open the food bin and there are only 3 lonely pieces of kibble. I shake the bin because maybe more kibble will magically appear????

No such luck. So, this morning the dogs and I had the same thing for breakfast. Breakfast fried rice.

The title of fried rice is not really accurate since there was no frying involved and I did not add in any green onions which are typically included in fried rice. (Remember onions are bad, bad things for dogs 'cause anemia is kind of a bad thing - or so I hear...)

I started with 1 cup of rice in two cups of water, one cup of frozen peas and several pieces of seasoned nori torn into small pieces in a sauce pan. I set everything to simmer away.

While the rice cooked I scrambled 3 whole eggs, 2 egg whites and 1 Tbsp. of soy milk in a pan.

I had some defrosted pineapple so I gave that a rough chop.

I layered the pineapple in the bottom of the bowls.

After the rice finished cooking, I added in 1 Tbsp. of soy sauce and 1/2 Tbsp. of oyster sauce. Then I portioned out the rice mixture into the bowls.

The next layer was the scrambled eggs and I mixed everything together.

The sweet and saltiness of this dish was a great combination.


The dogs were great fans of this dish - they gobbled down everything including the pineapple.

I also had a cup of tea but per usual I forgot to take a picture of it - because some trends are too good to break :-)

Happy Friday!!

A breakfast present - salmon onigiri

In my usual trend of only occasionally eating breakfast foods for breakfast, I pulled out the one treat I had left over from my trip to Nijiya.

Salmon onigiri!

If you haven't eaten this before - I am going to give you the walkthrough.

The sheet of nori is actually packaged separately from the rice.

The rice ball is stuffed with delicious cooked salmon.

If your rice ball is cold from sitting in the fridge like mine was, you can pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to bring it up to room temperature. It is much tastier when it isn't cold IMO.

Then you need to take the nori out of the package.

And wrap up the rice ball with the nori - almost like you were wrapping a present.

Ta da! A lovely breakfast present:-)

I also had tea and a packet of blueberries. *warning* the picture came out blurry ((

Here is a better picture of the blueberries if you are curious.

Happy May Day everyone!

Feel free to frolic around the Maypole if you have one handy in your back yard :-)

Salmon and sweet potato fun

I had a great time making the treats for the dogs.

But it all started with my dinner:

Pan seared salmon over a bed of spinach.

I marinated the salmon fillet in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic.

Then the salmon went into a pan on medium heat - meat side down.

Six minutes later I slid the pan under the broiler (set on low). Another four minutes and the fish was done.

Then the I started on the dog's treat.

Sweet potatoes.

 They went into a pan of boiling water for 15 minutes.

Then I added 2 Tbsp. of greek yogurt and a tiny bit of water and pureed them smooth. 

Then came the fun part.

A dollop of pureed sweet potatoes with a topping of salmon on a small square of nori.

I wet the edges with some water and pressed them together like I would a potsticker. You might need to keep the seals pinched until it dries just a bit and hold well.

First wet one side and pinch the middle section to form a roll.

Then bring in one of the ends and fold it till it sticks together. Do the same with the remaining end.

The dogs loved, loved, LOVED these! 

I think it was a perfect combination of fish (for Abby) and a little bit of sweet (for Connor) so that it was a huge hit for both of them :-)

Yes, I did sacrifice a bit of my salmon fillet for the dog's treats but I think it was well worth it.