Tag: tasty

The Lazy Girl’s DIY Sushi

Do you ever get on kicks where you could eat the same food every day? Given how many times I’ve blogged either curry or oatmeal, it should not be a surprise that this happens to me fairly frequently. Currently, my food addiction is sushi. Specifically, sushi rolls. I know there are plenty of other kinds, which I also like, but give me a couple of maki rolls and I am good to go. The complimentary flavors, the mix of textures, the vast assortment of possibilities. YUM. I’m into it.

The good news is that it could be a lot worse, nutritionally speaking. But as foods go, it’s so elusive. It’s the kind of thing that is really better at a restaurant. A lot of the ingredients can be hard to find and it is a bit of a production to prepare. But then the restaurants have problems too. White rice. Lots of fried ingredients. Lots of sugar. Insane amounts of sodium. In and of itself that wouldn’t be a deal breaker because there are plenty of things on the menu to sustain a fairly healthy meal. The biggest problem is that it is expensive. It’s hard to get enough to eat at a sushi place for less than $25.

So I decided maybe I could figure out a way to make something at home. At first I thought about learning how to make actual rolls, but I ran into a couple of problems before I even got started. First, a lot of the ingredients are not the easiest to find around here. Let alone supplies like a bamboo mat. I’m sure I could find things at Whole Foods or similar places, but the weather is bad this week and it’s a little bit of a drive. Plus, if I’m going for cost-effectiveness, buying all kinds of exotic supplies kind of defeats the purpose. The second problem was that even if I did spend the time and effort getting everything I needed, I’d have to actually do the dicing and shaping and rolling and all that stuff. In the ever eloquent words of Sweet Brown, ain’t nobody got time for that. I’m not great at dicing, and my touch is not particularly delicate, so I just envision crafting the rolls really poorly.

But then it occurred to me, I probably had nearly all of the necessary basics, or acceptable substitutes, and if it’s really the ingredients I like the best, why not just throw them all into a dish together, burrito bowl style?

The result was a very lovely “sushi salad”.

Sushi Salad OR the Lazy Girl's DIY Sushi Roll
Sushi Salad OR the Lazy Girl’s DIY Sushi Roll in a Bowl

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Diversifying My Vegetable Repertoire

This week, as promised, has been a huge improvement! I’m finally getting over my passive attitude toward fitness. That means, in addition to more (and better) workouts, I am back on an active search for new vegetable-heavy recipes to try. Nutritionists suggest the majority of your calories should come from vegetables, but since vegetables have the least amount of calories of any food group, it is a bit of an algebraic conundrum. I mean, an ounce of spinach is 10 calories. That is hard to work with when I also should really not eat fewer than 1400-1500 calories per day after workout. So it’s a challenge! Find ways to incorporate more vegetables!

One way I incorporated more vegetables this week was with a super delicious Moroccan salad featuring harissa, a semi-spicy red pepper paste…it almost has the consistency of a red pepper pesto. I had it on a salad at a Moroccan restaurant a few months ago and have been meaning to buy a jar ever since. It’s available at higher end grocers like Fresh Market and I’ve also seen it at Crate & Barrel/Williams Sonoma sort of places. Maybe you have a more diversified local supermarket than me and it’s available there for you as well!

I have always liked Moroccan Carrot Salad, which usually features orange and raisins, and I thought it would be interesting to combine the two Moroccan food-things with which I am most familiar. I looked up some recipes for the carrot salad online and found a few that were all variations on a theme, and I went from there.

moroccan carrot salad

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Life’s Spice

If you read this blog regularly, then it should not surprise you that I sometimes get into ingredient ruts. Oh, she’s on a honey kick. Oh, now it’s Greek yogurt. Just be happy I wasn’t blogging during the great sauce-less stir-fry season of 2008. That was a hyphenated snooze fest. So lately, I’ve been trying to think of new things to make. If I’m hungry for something, instead of just wishing I could go out and then drinking my dissatisfaction down with a smoothie, I’m trying to branch out and expand my culinary wheelhouse. Thus far, there have been successes and …lesser successes. Example: I am determined that I will perfect a black bean burger if I have to make them once a week for a year. (Ok, a year from now I might be over it.)

I’ve found I really like cooking. Just like I love writing, photography and Project Runway, I enjoy cooking because it involves creating something, and in order to have a successful result, you need to be patient and consider different angles. Creating things is the best way I know to combine puzzles and art, two of my favorite things. I have gone through minor cooking phases before, like the previously mentioned stir-fry craze, but the past few months have really been next level. Having this blog doesn’t hurt. Neither does the invention of Pinterest. But the more I learn about nutrition, the more I care about finding the best ways to marry good health and good flavor. Finding, tweaking and creating recipes is an exciting way to be actively involved in my personal health goals. Sure, going to the gym is also a hands-on approach, but that can feel more like a chore sometimes than cooking usually does.

So, last night, I was in the mood for something different. I was also in the mood for a challenge. I don’t mind cooking when it is just fixing some food, but I actually get invested in it as a pastime when I am developing the recipe and building it into something. This time, I thought I would try curry. I have used a packaged curry sauce before and added in ingredients, but this time I wanted to make the sauce as well. Especially because I think it is likely that my ingredients are at least marginally healthier than the ones I would find in the take-home foods section of the grocery store, and definitely healthier than in a restaurant. My favorite curry is Thai red curry, and I especially like it with fruit. So tonight, I went for a red mango curry that I am happy to say was a success! I was very proud of myself. I cooked for my parents this evening and my dad said this was his favorite of the things I’ve made for him so far.

Red Mango Curry

Full disclosure: this recipe is not as diet-friendly as most of the things on this blog. It contains a little bit of sugar (like, actual brown sugar) and quite a bit of fat. Additionally, my giant neighborhood supermarket does not carry unsweetened coconut flakes, unless you want to pick up a whole coconut, get out a hammer and shave the flakes out of the shell yourself. So, I used a sweetened Baker’s coconut. However, everything else I used was a fresh ingredient, and it was certainly healthier than it could have been! I used one can of coconut milk and one can of lite coconut milk because I wanted the curry to be a little thicker. However, I think it would work fine with two cans of lite, which I will try in the future. Still, a fourth of the full recipe is only 375 calories, and it’s very filling. Plus it has quite a few fruits and vegetables.

Curry vegetables, ready and waiting!

Red Mango Curry

Serves 4

Prep time: 5-10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes (approximately)

  • 1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil (or any good oil, really)
  • 1 Mango (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 1 Cup Shallots or Sweet Onion (or both…I ran out of shallots halfway through. oops!)
  • 1/2 Cup Red Bell Pepper
  • 1/2 Cup Sugar Snap Peas
  • 1/2 Cup Matchstick Carrots
  • 3 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
  • 1 Can Coconut Milk
  • 1 Can Lite Coconut Milk
  • 1 Tablespoon + 1 Teaspoon Low Sodium Soy Sauce**
  • 2 Teaspoons Worcester Sauce (I used an organic one to avoid the high fructose corn syrup)
  • 2 Teaspoons Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon Minced (or Finely Diced) Ginger
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Cumin
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Curry Powder
  • 1 Clove Garlic, Minced
  • 1/2 Lime
  • 2 Tablespoons Shaved Coconut
  • 5-6 Basil Leaves, Shredded

**Normal Thai curry calls for fish sauce, but since I don’t plan on making this all the time, I didn’t really want to spend the money on it. Luckily the good ole Internet told me that mixing Soy Sauce and Worcester Sauce would have basically the same effect. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, honestly, but they were good additions to this recipe anyway. Still, if you want to get authentic, you can use two tablespoons of fish sauce.

  1. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan on medium-high heat.
  2. Add the Curry Paste. Let it cook, stirring a little bit, until it mixes with the oil enough to become less pasty and more saucy, and becomes fragrant. (Just make sure it doesn’t burn.) This should take around 3 minutes.
  3. When the paste is melted down, add the Coconut Milk. Stirring frequently, let the milk and curry simmer together (still on medium-high) for 5 minutes. Throughout the entire process, use a rubber scraper to keep the coconut milk from sticking to the side of the pan.
  4. Add the soy sauce, Worcester, sugar, cumin, curry powder, garlic and ginger. Mix well, so that everything in the pan is one color. Let simmer, stirring pretty much continuously, another 5 minutes.
  5. Squeeze in most, but not all, of the juice of the lime half. (Set the rest aside.)
  6. Add onions, let cook until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  7. Add mango and vegetables, let cook 4 minutes (or until they reach the softness you prefer), stirring occasionally.
  8. Add the basil, shredded coconut and the rest of the lime juice. Mix well so that coconut is dispersed throughout the curry. Let simmer 3 minutes.

I developed this recipe by looking at a variety of red curry, coconut curry and mango curry recipes of both Thai and Indian origins, and took what I liked from them until I had the recipe that I wanted for myself. One of the recipes I found included avocado in the curry. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, so I served avocado slices on the side. They were a phenomenal compliment!

I served the red mango curry over brown basmati rice and baked salmon. (Bake the salmon at 425˚F with a light coat of olive oil, salt and pepper, if interested.) It would be just as good with chicken, tofu, tempeh or on its own, too. I was just in a salmon kind of mood, and I’ve had it with red curry before and always loved it.

All in all, this recipe is definitely a win. I usually like to have a little more balance, in terms of carbs-fats-proteins, so I am feeling a little guilty about all the coconut, but with fish, brown rice, and veggies, it evens out well enough. Plus, it was delicious, and not terribly difficult. It does require a lot of stirring in the first half, but that’s not so bad. So, now I have a go-to recipe whenever I’m craving Thai food in the future. And I can feel good about myself for finding another fun recipe to make!

-lj

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Restaurant Review: Seasons 52

Maybe this isn’t true everywhere, but in Indianapolis, where I live, there is a strong green/clean living movement that continues to grow and new restaurants are really reflecting that attitude change. That’s not such a new phenomenon, I guess. Businesses always want to accomodate the current needs of their customers and restaurants are the same. When I worked at TGI Fridays during the summers in college, I remember we had a “diet menu” that was Atkins certified. Have I mentioned I don’t believe in fad diets? I’m sorry but you’ll never convince me it is thebun that is the problem with your bacon cheeseburger.

But this time it feels different. Just like people are becoming more aware of what they put into their bodies, restaurants are becoming more aware of what they are serving. Granted I live in the most hippy-friendly neighborhood in town, but there are at least four restaurants within three blocks that serve food using local ingredients.

Seasons 52 is kind of like that. I say “kind of” because it is a chain, and it’s a little swanky, and I had no indication that anyone on staff smelled like patchouli. But, the menu has a similar appeal.

I went there for dinner last night with my mom who is in town visiting. She does Weight Watchers and is impressively skilled staying on point. So we both wanted somewhere that we could enjoy a nice meal out without any splurging or guilt. I had heard this place was good so we gave it a try.

It was amazing. Their schtick is that everything is seasonal, so the entire menu changes every few months. Additionally every plate on the menu is under 500 calories. My mom, who got a filet mignon with mashed potatoes, thought maybe they were cheating and really meant every piece of food, but the server said it really was per plate. That theory is corroborated by the nutritional chart.

I was so excited by what I was eating that I really wanted to share it on this blog. The whole meal seemed so decadent, but in terms of nutrition it really wasn’t. I was a little bit worried when we went that I would be happy with the healthy quality but sad about how bland and dull all the food was. I was really pleasantly surprised by the rich flavors in all the different things I got. Nothing tasted like “diet food,” which is big for me, because the disappointment of a bad cheat meal seriously bums me out! That was not a problem last night though because this was neither disappointing nor really even a cheat meal, though we certainly tried our best.

As I said, we wanted a nice night out, so we helped ourselves to all the courses. Yep, a four course meal. Generally not super diet-friendly! To start we had a tomato flatbread, which was basically like a margherita pizza with a really thin crust. Then I had a spinach salad with raspberries. I’d recommend getting the dressing on the side because there was too much on it, and in my mind that is just wasted calories. For my entree I had a kind of fish called cobia. I had never heard of it before, and since my animal protein almost always comes from fish I was surprised. Turns out it is a really delicious saltwater based whitefish, but not too flaky or fishy. I wish it was more readily available. It was prepared with a curry sauce, basmati rice and steamed carrots and green beans. And a grilled lemon that smelled so good I wish it was a candle. Then they had little single-serving desserts and I had raspberry-mango cheesecake.

Single-serving mini desserts…I really wanted two.

So, this whole thing sounds really indulgent, right? Well, it felt indulgent. But according to the nutritional chart my whole four course meal was only 1160 calories. Granted, that is way more than I normally eat in one sitting, but still way less than normal restaurants. Last weekend I went out to the old brewery where I used to work and in four hours ate (and drank) 2600 calories. So 1160 is really not so bad, considering.

I know this is different from my normal kind of blog post but I really recommend this place as a healthy alternative if you don’t feel like cooking and do feel like a nice meal out. I love the idea of clean living becoming mainstream enough to garner a chain restaurant. Seasons 52 is on the pricey side but not crazy outrageous. Considering how much organic groceries are, I think it’s okay. I read through the list of locations and they appear to be mostly in neighborhoods that cater wealthy old people. But if you live in Indy or happen to be somewhere near a different location I think it’s worth checking out.

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