Salads and dressings!

I absolutely love salads! Unfortunately lately I haven't been eating many of them so when I did groceries yesterday, I decided to get a lot of different veggies to make some different salads, more specifically, Buddha bowls! This was my lunch today

So this Buddha bowl has a nice mix, there's lettuce, a mix of quinoa and lentils that I cooked up. I also added some orange pepper, alpha sprouts, pea sprouts, cucumber, kimchi, flax and pumpkin seeds. I added the Italian dressing I made, which I will share the recipe below. It was a nice mix, it was absolutely delicious!

I will be creating a lot more Buddha bowls this week. Other veggies I have on hand are radishes, fennel, which I have already sliced up so it's ready to add. I bought some spiraled beets, red onions, carrots, a mix of greens (kale, spinach and collard greens), not to mention my kale in my back yard, and I do have my herbs that I can add in as well. Don't think I forgot anything. I do have fruits as well that I can add for some sweetness. I got this yesterday as well

I tend to get a few baskets every year. I saw that they have been there for a while selling baskets but I haven't taken the time to stop but yesterday was a must! They are so good!! This was my breakfast this morning

My omelette has chopped red onions, mushrooms, the mix of greens, with 2 eggs, and I also added some goat cheese for creaminess, and had a few fresh strawberries along with that. It was a very tasty breakfast!!

Back to the Buddha bowls. So I do have the strawberries that I can add, I have nectarines, and apples that I can also add in. Of course there's always nuts and seeds for some nice crunch, and I have a variety of them so I plan to mix and match to make every bowl different. I also have some avocados for more creaminess, and I still have some goat cheese and some feta cheese as well. The cooking show I watched, she suggested adding some fermented foods to Buddha bowls, and it's a great idea since it's great for gut health. So that's why I added kimchi to my bowl. I bought more yesterday since I was almost out, and I also have some sauerkraut.

Now for some tasty homemade dressings that I made

These two I found the recipe online and they sounded delicious so I gave them a try, and they both turned out good!

First one is Greek Style Vinaigrette. In my Vitamix blender I added the following ingredients

3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh basil
1 tbsp green onion
3 tbsp Feta cheese
salt and pepper
1 tsp fresh oregano leaves (they didn't have any in store nor do I have it in my garden so I used dry)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

The other is an Italian dressing. Also all done in my blender, here are the ingredients

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp Fresh parsley or 2 tsp dried
1/4 medium onion (about 2 tbsp or 2 tsp onion powder)
Juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp fresh basil or 2 tsp dried
1 tbsp fresh oregano or 2 tsp dried
1 clove of garlic or 1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp honey
salt and pepper

I had everything fresh except the oregano. Also instead of using Parmesan cheese I used Pecorino Romano cheese, as it's sheep's milk instead of cow's milk for the parm cheese.

I'll be sure to take photo's of my other bowls I create this week. Have a great weekend everyone!

Platters!

I've been having some fun creating platters. Now that we can gather up to 10 people, we have had a few people come over for a visit. We kept it small, 2 people at a time, and it was nice to see family/friends. Here are my creations

Some similarities but I made sure to make each one a little different. They turned out delicious! We still have some left over so I created a bento box lunch today. I didn't think to take a picture but we had a little bit of macaroni salad that I made, 1 slice of ham each, 1 slice of kabasa each, 3 crackers with cheese (boursin and goat cheese) and I also included some kimchi. It was delicious!

Been watching a few videos on FMTV, now known as Gaia, and it's been all about salads, and she made a Buddha salad which one restaurant makes a really good one, and I haven't gone there in a long time, so I'm thinking next grocery trip I'll be buying ingredients to create different Buddha bowls. For those that don't know what that is, it's a salad, but you get to mix and match whatever you want. The one I have at the restaurant tends to be quinoa, mix of greens, strawberries, apple, goat cheese, chicken but I tend to ask for shrimp instead of chicken, spiced pecans, onions, and peppers. I think that's it. It's a delicious combination with a vinaigrette, so I'm thinking I need to create my own. The video I saw, she added herbs, and kimchi, and she did a rice and can't remember what else but it's all about mixing things up with veggies, fruit, nuts, seeds, grains, cheese, and protein. You don't have to include it all but you can, and even legumes would be good to add as well. It's a chance to just have fun in combining whatever you want. I love the idea of adding fresh herbs and fermented foods. The herbs would add a lot of fresh wonderful flavor, and to add fermented food, is really healthy for us. You can add in kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, or miso. With creating each one differently, it will be something new and delicious to put together and eat. You can also have fun with different dressings as well.

Supper tonight is left over fajitas! Mine is shrimp and he has chicken. It's going to be just as delicious!

Breakfast!

I love breakfast! With working from home, it's giving me the opportunity to vary my breakfast more. Normally when I go in to work, I keep it quick and simple with a smoothie. I do still make some smoothies, cause they are delicious but I'm having fun putting together a few other things to enjoy for breakfast

I had some delicious fresh strawberries on hand and decided instead of jam, why not fresh strawberries! I toasted my fermented grain bread from Silver Hills, and then added some almond butter, but I'm sure natural peanut butter would be just as good. I sprinkled on some chia seeds for extra nutrition, and then put sliced strawberries on top. It was so good!

I also decided one morning on another smoothie bowl

I put in some frozen bananas, some fermented vegan protein powder, frozen cherries and some almond milk to get everything to blend up in my Vitamix. The granola I made on the weekend, I used gluten free oats, 1 cup, with 1/2 cup of quinoa, 2 tbps of ground flax seeds, and some almonds and walnuts chopped up. In a pan I melted 2 tbps each of coconut oil, natural peanut butter, chocolate chips and maple syrup. I then I toasted the dry in a pan until lightly golden, then mixed in the wet ingredients to combine until everything was well toasted.

Another delicious breakfast is pancakes!

I like to make this version of pancake once in a while. All it is, is 1 banana with 2 eggs. You mash up the banana first, and then add in the eggs and whisk them up and then cook in a pan like you would pancakes. This makes more of a crepe, but it's still so delicious! I added chia seeds, they are just hiding under the pancake, and topped it with fresh berries and of course real maple syrup. Yum! The Eeyore mug you also see in the picture is a chai tea latte, my fav!

It's been a good week of breakfasts! This morning I had some cereal with brown rice puff, sliced almonds, remaining of the blueberries, and some chia seeds with almond milk and some maple syrup to sweeten it up a bit.

Another thing we tried this week is to make our own homemade shawarmas. A while back we had a pot luck at work and one of the girls I work with made these small shawarma bites and I asked her about it cause it was so good! She ended up giving me her recipe for the garlic sauce. Very easy to make, just takes a while to peel up the garlic cloves. It's 2 whole heads of garlic put into a food processor with a touch of lemon juice, touch of salt, and one small baked potato (for starch and to help cook up the garlic a little to tone it down). Turn on the food processor and slowly stream in some vegetable oil, although I used grapeseed oil instead, which is still mild like vegetable oil.

It turned out great. This picture I didn't add enough oil, so I put it in a bowl and whisked in more cause the garlic was way to powerful, like clear your sinus and feel it going down powerful! Once I added more oil, it was perfect! I got some whole wheat pitas, opened them up, added in some shredded lettuce, sliced tomato and onion, and some pickled turnips. The chicken we marinated with a lot of spices, and cooked it up on the BBQ. Hubby found a recipe online for a chicken shawarma marinate and it was a good one, very delicious!

Yesterday we had burger's, mine was a meat free burger, and I was still a bit hungry so decided to have some dessert

This is an "ice cream" type of dessert. It's all done in a food processor. I added 2 frozen bananas, with 2 heaping tsp of natural peanut butter, and about 2 tsp of dark chocolate chips and blend it up until smooth. You have to stop to scrap the sides here and there, but it's worth the effort, it's so good!

I didn't workout out yet today so time for me to go do that. Supper tonight is salmon with some salad!

Pie!

I decided to go through my Chocolate Covered Katie cookbook for some desert ideas and decided to try one of her pies, it's all raw

It turned out really good! I made the chocolate crust with lots of almonds and a bit of walnuts, using cacao powder for the chocolate and for sweetness some dates. Then on another page I saw this raspberry filling but since I didn't have any I chose to go with blueberries since I had a lot. This to had some cacao powder for more chocolatey goodness. This pie is delicious!! I do recommend her cookbook, it has a lot of great healthy deserts. She does have more recipes online as well, but she doesn't have the recipe for either of these online.

We also did some BBQ'ing and cooked up some shrimp and salmon skewers, along with some potatoes and asparagus

It was so good! For the shrimp I made the Epicure garlic aioli dip. Yum!!

I have also been on a little Soul Surfer kick lately. I have seen the movie many times, it's so inspiring! I finally got the book and I started to read it Thursday and finished it up last night (Friday). It's not like the movie, but a very good read! I actually got curious to see what she's up to now so I did a search online and found out that she has another movie she came out with called Bethany Hamilton Unstoppable and saw it was available on Netflix so that's what I did today, and it was really good. It's her actual story from when she was a kid to fairly recent (4 years ago) of her life. This one is also very inspiring! When I need some motivation, I'm sure I'll watch one of them for some inspiration.

Today I did some speed walking for 5 km, and yesterday I did another 5 km but a mix of running and speed walking with different inclines.

Supper tonight I'll be trying out this chicken recipe with a basil sauce that I found on Facebook. My herb garden is really growing and we do have a lot of basil so I'm looking forward to trying it out

Fresh Herbs!

It's finally that time of year! I have my herb garden all set up!

So this year's herbs are parsley, curly and leafy, some rosemary, thyme, basil, dill, chives, and cilantro. I also decided to get some Kale. I already dove into the dill yesterday, I put some in our salad. I will wait till my Kale gets bigger before I start grabbing some of it.

About a week ago, I decided to make some bruchetta and put it on some Naan bread

It was so good!! I toasted up my whole wheat Naan bread in the oven to get it crispy, and sliced it up and then topped it with the bruchetta I made. It's so simple to make! I used 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped it up, added about 1/4 cup of fresh basil (chopped), 1 clove of garlic (minced), with 2 tbsp of olive oil, but I think 1 tbsp would be enough, and then 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar,with a touch of salt and some pepper. I let it sit for at least an hour and then I added some feta cheese. This photo is missing the balsamic glaze that I drizzled on top.

We have been keeping busy as well, we did some yard work, and vacuumed up the car, and I also went for a nice run, 6 km

Weather here has been so beautiful! Today's workout I did some fast walking on my treadmill with different inclines, and also did some upper body weights. Tomorrow is suppose to be another nice day so I'm thinking another run outside.

Smoothie bowl

I have been seeing a lot of posts of the kitchen twins on Facebook and they have been making quite a few smoothie bowls and it got me hungry for one yesterday so I created my own

I had some extra coconut milk in the fridge from making almond flour chocolate chip cookies so I used 3 tbsp of that, some flax seeds, 1 frozen banana, 2 handful of frozen kale, some fermented protein powder and some maca. I had to add more liquid so I added a good splash of kombucha. I then topped it with fresh blueberries and sliced almonds. It turned out really good.

I have also been craving an egg salad sandwich so I made that for our lunch today and it was delicious! I boiled my eggs, added in a touch of salt, and lots of pepper, some paprika, a bit of Dijon mustard and some mayo. I also chopped up some fresh chives and added it in. Simple yet so delicious!

I'm thinking I should make a new batch of granola so I can make more smoothie bowls. I'll see when I get the chance to make some.

Today's workout was weights, and I want to walk shortly to get more steps in. I didn't work out yesterday but I was gone for a while doing groceries so quite a bit of walking there.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and have a wonderful week. I'm looking forward to this long weekend, a friend reminded me that we have Monday off! Yay!!

Chocolate Chip cookies!!

Before I did groceries last week I needed some ideas on what I can make, and decided to take out a cookbook that I haven't looked at in a while

I was able to find 3 recipes I wanted to try out. The first that we had was the salmon cakes

I used fresh salmon, I baked it in the oven for about 20 minutes and let it cool a bit and then flaked it all in a bowl and added the rest of the ingredients. These turned out really good! I made some aioli using the spice from Epicure. Her recipe did include aioli but I decided to use Epicure since we both really love it. We had this with a salad.

Second recipe I made was these Best ever chocolate chip cookies that you can find on her website that I have linked.

These turned out really good! We both love them. This is what's remaining from the few we have already eaten, which this made 18 cookies. I'm thinking I'll be making more soon. They are healthy and a great treat.

The third recipe I haven't made yet. I want to try the scallops with this orange glaze to it. The picture she shows in her book looks delicious and again healthy ingredients which I love.

I'll have to get groceries again later on this week, and I plan to check out what other new recipes I can try out. We had a lazy weekend, but we did take advantage of the beautiful weather and fired up our BBQ. We had burgers, mine being a veggie patty. I tried this new one with healthy ingredients and it was ok. Today I did hit my basement gym and did some running on the treadmill along with some walking on inclines as well.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!