hey everybody! let's get things going again, shall we?

[panda]

Life has been crazy for me for the past 3 months, and I obviously haven't been paying attention to this comm. But I'm realizing more and more that if I want to be healthy and successful in school, a good diet is a necessary foundation. I'm on spring break right now, so I'm using the extra time to give my diet a little jump start. Doing daily posts to this comm again will help, I think.

I wanted to get us started back up again in a fun way, so how about in the comments people recommend something tasty they've eaten recently? Give a recipe, if you want, or just wax poetic about some really delicious food ;)

Also thank you very much to those of you who did check in posts over the past couple months. I really appreciate it ♥

As always, please warn for triggers and be respectful of your fellow community members!

Comments

recipe: California sushi roll inspired easy "Asian" brown rice

[panda]

I've been doing a lot of easy cooking lately because I've been low on spoons, so here's another tasty, quick brown rice recipe.

The joy of this recipe is it doesn't require any cooking, not even microwaving, unless you pick a protein that needs to be cooked.

ingredients:
-cooked brown rice
-protein of your choice: canned black beans, diced tofu, canned tuna, cooked chicken/beef, etc
-sweet bell pepper, color of your choice
-ripe avocado
-soy sauce (I use gluten free tamari)
-pickled ginger
-wasabi (optional)

directions:
1. put some brown rice in a bowl. At least 1/2 a cup is a good amount, if you need measurements.
2. add your protein of choice. If it's canned beans or tuna, just open and drain the can and add some in. If it's tofu, drain and dice it. If you want chicken or beef or something, you'll need to cook it first. Again, if you need a measurement, 1/3-1/2 of a cup would be fine.
3. Take at least a quarter of your bell pepper, wash it, seed it, dice it up and add it to the bowl.
4. peel, dice and add the avocado. If you don't like avocado, you can skip it, but I'm aiming here for the flavor combination of a California sushi roll. In my opinion, avocado and rice go together really well.
5. take some pickled ginger from the jar, coarsely mince it, and add it too. Add some of the pickle juice from the jar as well, if you like the vinegar flavor. 1-2 tsps should be fine. Note: the rice they use to make sushi rolls has vinegar added to it, so this isn't as weird as it might seem.
6. add some soy sauce. Add as much as you want, but 1-3 tsps is a good starting place.
7. if you like wasabi, add some wasabi.
8. mix it all together, and you're done!

Again, like the "Mexican" brown rice, this recipe is infinitely customizable. If you don't like bell peppers, or don't have any on hand, substitute some other veggie. Diced cucumber would be a good choice, or diced carrot if you don't mind a stronger crunch. (Shredded carrot would also work well.) Frozen peas (heated up, of course) would probably even work alright. Some kinds of fruit would even been good, such as diced mango, peach, or orange. If you like canned baby corn or watercress, they are also good options. Chopped green onion would also go well, if you like green onion.

You can change up the flavors too. If you don't like pickled ginger, leave it out. There are lots of pre-made sauce options, such as teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce (I recommend Ty Ling Naturals sweet & sour sauce because it isn't made with HFCS), hosin sauce, etc. Or if you want a more Thai flavor, you can use peanut sauce and cilantro, plus bean sprouts. Adding 1-2 tsp of sesame seeds would also be nice.

You can pop leftovers in the fridge, and you don't even need to re-heat them. I just had this for dinner, and it was really good!