Sushi ... just a little bit healthier

So I have been eating clean (ish) for a while now, with some occasional fast food & crap food slumps in between, but over all I´ve kinda good, and I have to say that it does some good stuff for you. My stomach problems have subsided severely and overall I feel a lot better I would say. Needless to say you do discover a few things -food vise- that you had not heard of/tried before and that is so great about this thing, you get to know new things in the kitchen.

I have tried this Quinoa Sushi three times now, one of which with my brother and sister in law, and I think they liked it equally as much as we did ... it´s super easy to make, I had never made sushi before and I even managed to make an ok roll :)
There are a few things that I have found to make the procedure a little bit easier, like draining the quinoa very well before putting it on the Nori and also allowing it to cool completely.

So I guess the procedure is quite straight forward and i´m not even going to try to sound "sushi pro" since i´m soooo far away from being one. but in stead i´ll just list the things I use to make my rolls.

Nori paper - approx 4 is enough for 2 ppl
Quinoa - I didn´t mesure exactly how much I used but usually I start out with something around a cup and just boil more if needed.
Soy sauce, ginger & Wasabi  if prefered
Rice seasoned vinegar (thats what I think it´s called)
Fish -  I used salmon and surimi this time
spring onion
cucumber
sweet pepper
avocado
and all the vegetables you like :)

All I do is boil the quinoa as instructed - drain for a while after boiling and stir in maldon salt and rice vinegar to taste.
Take out the Nori, I use a bamboo mat to roll the sushi, makes it quite easy, evenly spread the quinoa over the nori. What I have found is the thinner you can spread the Quinoa the better, other wise you are basically just eating Quinoa and nori :/ and leave a 2cm "gap" of clean nori on the end furthest from you. Put in as much vegetables and fish as you want - wrap the nori over the fish/veg and pull a little bit to tighten up the roll and then just keep rolling until you reach the end then dab the clean nori with water and keep rolling and your done !!  easy peasy, go eat :D

Have a nice weekend

Apple - beet root juice

I love fresh juice, with all kinds of vegetables in it, and I´m always trying something new with the juicer. This juice I got addicted to last summer after a friend suggested i´d try beet root, it´s so nice in a juice. this one is quite simple and you can leave out anything you don´t like or add anything you love :)

2 green apples
1 lemon (peeled)
2cm ginger (peeled)
1 orange (peeled)
1/2 small beet root (peeled)

I usually don´t use oranges but ofcourse they are always nice - more often then not I use carrots as well (did not have them)

 

I put half the juice in the blender with a handful of frozen mango, spinach and two spoonfuls of greek yogurt ... yumm yumm, bottle the rest and enjoy later :D

Pear up side down cake with choc cream

I have a little problem with my love of baking, 1. I can´t possibly eat everything I want to bake and 2. my boyfriend is kinda "picky" of the sweets that he eats. He loves the things that he loves and he wants me to make those things preferably all the time :), but I get bored of making the same thing all of the time so, once in a while I try something new to try and find a new "love" for him !! so this is one of those tries and it scored good :) jibbyyy

It´s a very simple easy to make cake, and I suppose you can use any fruit you want like pineapple or apples etc.

50g butter, plus extra for greasing
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
165ml milk
3 large pears
240g caster sugar
2 large eggs
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bi carbonated soda
160g sour cream
1 tsp cinnamon (the next time I will make this I will probably skip or at least reduce the cinnamon)
150g soft light brown sugar

-Heat the oven to 170C/ 335F / gas mark 4.
-Lightly butter a 20cm cake tin  ( preferably not a loose bottom one since it might leak) and line the sides so they reach higher than the tin with greaseproof paper.
-Stir the milk and essence together, Stir well and set aside to infuse.
-Peel and quarter the pears, remove the cores and cut each quarter in half length ways, or any other way that you feel is aesthetically appealing.
-For the cake, whisk the caster sugar and eggs in a bowl until light and fluffy. Sieve the flour and baking powder and soda into the bowl, then stir it in, along with the milk and cream.
- Gently melt the butter in a small pan, add the cinnamon (if you want the cinnamon) and brown sugar, and stir until it has formed a smooth paste. Spread this evenly around the bottom of the cake tin.
-Place the pear slices neatly over the sugary paste, then spread the cake mixture on top.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top of the cake turns a pale golden brown, and the cake has risen. Reduce the temperature to 160C /320F/gas mark 3 and bake for another 25 minutes (I actually had to bake it for 25 min longer than the required time), or until a sharp knife or skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, leave to rest for five minutes, or until cooled and invert to a serving plate.

As it´s got cinnamon in it, it probably tastes fantastic with vanilla ice cream, but I have someone I was going to serve this to who happens to love chocolate whipped cream so thats what I made. I´ts really easy just sieve cocoa and powdered sugar to heavy cream and leave in the fridge for about ten minutes and then whip it like usual.
This is a really dense cake so you can´t eat a lot of it but it´s really good, I recommend you have a go!

And hopefully I will share my new chair with all of you soon, it´s been so dreary and gray here lately that I haven´t really had good lighting in the house, here is hoping for some sun :D
Until next time xx...