Warm Rice Salad with Mango Dressing

I went to a BBQ this weekend and my friend, Alyssa, had made this recipe she found on Food Network. It looked so delicious bursting with tons of summer veggies that I decided to make a veg friendly version. Instead of Jasmine rice, I opted for brown rice and added in a 1/2 cup of Amaranth for an additional protein and iron kick. I recently bought some fresh corn so I tossed in an ear, switched out the chicken stock with veggie stock, and chicken with soy chicken. I love mango and would probably put up to two mangoes into this next time- this is a new favorite and a perfect summer treat!!

Here is RECIPE DISCOVERY #584


the rice gets tossed with fresh scallions, red pepper, cilantro, lime, corn, mangoes...


...black beans and avocados


tasty leftovers

Watercress Salad with Grilled Peaches

Watercress has many health benefits and is high in iron, calcium, folic acid, and vitamins A and C. Watercress has a nice peppery taste, add it to any salad!


I've been craving a Watercress salad lately after having a really simple delicious watercress salad from a pizza shop the other day! It was a mixture of watercress, arugula, a few strips of endive, some black olives, with a sweet vinaigrette.

So I wanted to recreate a version of this with the addition of grilled peaches on top to make a nice summery salad!


Watercress salad topped with Grilled Peaches and goat cheese

For the dressing:
1 T fresh lemon juice
3 T olive oil
3 T agave nectar
fresh ground salt & pepper

This salad was super tasty although the balsamic reduction for the peaches became a little tricky on the grill (i.e: sticky). Those general ingredients would probably taste fine just tossed in the peaches without taking the additional stove top directions, something to try next time! I heard blue cheese tastes good too with grilled peaches, I would try little dollops of greek yogurt too for some added creaminess...enjoy!

Stuffed Tofu!

Stuffed Tofu was one of my favorite meals growing up, my mom would make Yong Tau Foo which has endless varieties like this. The traditional version includes pork and shrimp that is stuffed into either tofu, peppers or bitter melon- pretty much anything you want. Essentially it's the Chinese version of an American Stuffed Pepper! So I decided to experiment on a vegetarian option...


and it came out well although there would be a few adjustments I'd make for the future!


Stuffed Tofu with Scallion Garlic Sauteed Asparagus

For the Tofu you will need:

2 pkgs. extra firm tofu, preferably removed from the package and drained in advance (i like to take mine out the night before, pat and drain with a paper towel and cover with a paper towel over night to make it extra extra firm)
6 oz. soy protein, (the non frozen variety)
1/4 C chopped red onion
1 garlic clove, smashed
2 T extra virgin olive oil
3 T tamari
2 T sesame oil
Fresh ground salt & pepper
A pinch of paprika
A sprinkling of your favorite herb (I used parsley for this)
1 t red pepper flakes or chili sauce
serves 4

Begin by taking the block of Tofu and cutting it into four triangles (or 8 to make bite size pieces), cut a wedge into each piece as shown in the first image above, set aside.
In a pan, saute the onion, garlic and olive oil until the onions become transparent.
** For the future, I would change the following steps by not cooking the soy protein first. Instead, I would mix all the remainder ingredients with the soy protein and cooked onion garlic mixture and pack it into the tofu to cook together **
For this round I had cooked the soy protein first which ended up being hard to keep molded in the tofu while grilling it (so they ended up more like tofu tacos). After packing all the tofu wedges, drizzle each side with a little bit of tamari sauce and roasted sesame oil. On a hot skillet, grill each side for 3-4 minutes and serve with brown rice or buckwheat noodles.


Pockets of protein with flavor to savor

Carmelita Cookies

possibly my new favorite cookie

You all remember my post on Nick Malgieri's deliciously chewy oatmeal raisin cookies a month ago? This is it's guilty indulgent cousin. I love the Carmelita Bars they sell at Whole Foods (if you haven't tried one yet you may not want to, you'll be addicted to them). I was looking up recipes the other day on how to make my own at home and instead opted to make an abstracted cookie version instead. I used the same oatmeal cookie recipe sans the raisins, and instead inserted one ROLO into each cookie, 1/2 Cup of mixed peanut butter and chocolate chips- because why not?, and a 1/2 Cup of toasted walnuts finely ground to top each cookie generously. When I followed the same oatmeal cookie recipe, it only made 1 dozen cookies probably from using more dough to wrap the rolos, so you could increase the recipe to your desired amount. The oatmeal cookie dough will be a little runny, don't worry they will bake out fine- 375 degrees for 10 minutes.


chewy with some gooey- heaven!

TOMS

These are a pair of TOMS vegan eco-shoes currently only available at Whole Foods Markets

So you all have seen TOMS around everywhere. I didn't know the story behind these shoes though, did you? Pretty much, for every pair purchased, a pair is given to a child in need (in 2006 10,000 pairs were given to Argentinian children, this year 50,000 pairs were donated to South African children). ALSO, this pair is made of something like 67% hemp and 33% recycled plastic bottles. The shoes are super comfy and I can't take them off, I only wish I knew about the exclusive online selection, I would've picked up the egg yellow striped ones!