Sushi Bowls, Oh my!

Doing some reading, I found out that you can buy very decent precooked unagi frozen at Asian market. My husband and I both LOVE unagi, so I stopped by the little market in Petaluma called "New Asian Market" at the North end of McDowell (by the OSH hardware store).

I bought all sorts of stuff there, I always do, and came home to make sushi rolls.

I put the brown sushi rice (get that at Olivers! in Cotati) in the rice cooker, and started looking at what I had to work with. I had plenty of nori, vegetables and of course a big pack of unagi.

I had two problems though: 1- I was too tired to bother with rolls; 2- in rolls, it's hard to really taste the unagi enough to know if it's a keeper.

Instead I decided to make "sushi bowls". I've made sushi bowls before to treat myself for lunch, but my husband had never seen them so I thought I'd surprise him with it.

I seasoned the rice the same way you would for sushi, 1/3 cup of rice vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp miring and about 1-2 tsp salt for 3 cups of uncooked rice. I mixed the whole thing, and then was ready to start with my Sushi Bowls. Here's how I made them:

I measured 1 cup of rice in each bowl (using my measure-rite system from Weight Watchers, I'm such a nerd LOL).

I dumped the rice in there, but then I used my spatula to spread it gently in the bowl.

While the rice was cooking, I steamed thin carrot sticks and edamame (Trader Joes)I had leftover. I added a little mirin to the water to give the vegetable some taste. I added cucumber sticks after I was done steaming.

I spread the vegetable on the rice trying to spread the colors.

I added nori strips mainly for color, but also because I like the "fishy" taste of nori.

See? That in itself could be a very nice vegetarian Sushi Bowl wouldn't it?

But I had something else to add: Unagi! I bought it cooked but frozen, cut the pack in 2 and put one part back in the freezer for another time. I put this half in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 350 F to thaw it out.

I put it on the rack so that it wouldn't get "soggy" at the bottom. I HATE soggy fish, eeeewww.

I put the unagi on the cutting board and cut it in pieces.

I am very neurotic about both portions being the same. I grew up with 2 brothers and to this day I expect my husband to say "You got more than me!!!". He would never I'm sure, but...

So I cut it in half lengthwise, and then made the pieces the other way. That way each gets half.


I placed each piece in the bowls and tried to spread them in a pretty manner. I was getting hungry though, so it got less "fuffy" as I went.

Here's what it ended up looking like. Cute huh? It was just delicious! Honestly, it was also easy. I have a Zojirushi fuzzy logic rice cooker, so it's pretty much "put the rice the water and forget it". The unagi was precooked, and the rest is just cutting and steaming veggies!

If you clean your rice cooker right away, the rest is nothing really.

I had leftover rice, so I made onigiri that I broiled and frozen for bento use later on. Here they are:



So that's today's adventure, it was easy, it was interesting and it was just delicious! I love when it works!

Be good n stuff!

A good start to 2009

Happy New Year!

If I have one "motto" for 2009, I think it will be "Keep it simple but effective". I'm tired of trying to do everything all at once and ending up doing nothing. Ever feel that way?

So, no big challenges, no grand plan to reinvent the wheel. We have a new plan at Weight Watchers and I'm approaching it as a new member. I'm reading the plan, following the plan as written without any attempt to "better the plan".

I've also started a major decluttering of the house. It's the second time we do it, and this time it's for real. We plan on moving this year, so I'm pairing down what I own to the minimum. It's so refreshing to let go of stuff and just go back to the essential! I love it!

I'm also simplified my cooking a lot. I got to the point where cooking meant 2-3 hours in the kitchen, to the point where I wasn't enjoying cooking anymore.

I've been trying now to cook once for at least 2 days of food. This started with a need to save money, and now honestly, it makes my life much easier.

Here's a few sample of my "cook now eat a few meals":

Barley Pilaf:

Thursday night we had a vegetarian attack. I made a Spicy Barley Pilaf that I served with roasted asparagus and zucchini slices.

The following day we ate the leftover barley with sandwiches.

I know, barley with bread, carbs galore, but see? that's what I mean by keeping it simple. I wanted bread and barley, I had bread and barley. Counted it, end of the story.

Last summer I would have felt the need to cook something complicated because you just can't have bread with barley. Guess what? I did, and I survived!

Caribbean Drumsticks and Vegetable Rice:

Saturday we had a lot to do so early in the morning I prepared everything to make Caribbean Drumsticks in the crock pot. I went to Costco and put the chicken to cook when I came back.

It cooked all day smelling just heavenly.

When we started getting hungry, I threw chopped onion, carrots, celery and red bell pepper in the chopper attachment of my immersion blender. Minced all that and sauteed it a few minutes in a pan.

In the meantime, I microwaved Trader Joes frozen brown rice. Once the vegetables were softened (2-3 minutes of cooking) I added the rice, a little bit of broth, salt and pepper.

Dinner! With about 10 minutes (or less) of preparation.

I had leftovers of both the chicken and the rice. I also saved the cooking juice from the chicken. With that and the jalapeno chicken sausages I bought today at Trader Joes I was planning on making a soup later this week, but my husband had a great idea:

I sauteed 2 sliced sausages in my pan, added the cooking juices from the chicken last night, the rest of the chicken and 1/3 cup of edamame. I cooked that covered for about 2 minutes, added the rice, mixing well, a little broth, covered again and cooked for another 2 minutes.

I served that with green salad and baby carrots:


The chicken and rice mixture was pretty spicy, so the simple cold vegetables were a good "neutral" to eat with it.

We still have half left for lunch tomorrow. So with 1 crock pot recipe, we have 3 meals!

So simple and uncomplicated is the rule, and so far we're enjoying it!!

Be good n stuff!

Motivation is weird

This fall I found my "groove". I was swimming regularly and loving it, doing my thing... Then my brother stopped by, and everything got out of sync. I couldn't get started.

Of course I'm not blaming him, I'm just very much influenced by the inertia law, when I'm moving I keep moving. When I'm stopped... it'd take a tow truck to get me started.

Yesterday I was playing around on Facebook, and I came across somebody I know. He's not close enough to be called a "friend", he's more like "a friend of my ex". I like him though, and always wondered what happened to him. Is he still performing? Did his back ever heal...

The point is though, he's a athlete, an acrobat in fact. I was looking at picture and a lifetime of training as done wonders to him. His body is finely tuned, finely toned.

I will never have an acrobat's body, and it's not my goal, but all of a sudden, I feel the need to move, to get stronger, better. I'm tired of being just "OK". I want to go back to being tuned, toned, I want to be in perfect control of my body.

I won't join any circus, but I'll get myself MOVIN' Darn it!

Thanks Damien for the motivation! hehe

See him at work here: Duo Voltart

Be good n stuff!

OMG what a day!

Do you ever have one of those days that start as a slow lazy day, with "I have plenty of time to do plenty of things". As the day goes on, things are sort of piling up, but that's OK cause I'll have tomorrow and Friday to get everything done.

Then the phone rings, we need you to work Thursday and Friday. No problem, I need to work, I need the money.

Then you think about it and realize that your mostly short to do list just got a few items added, and your time to do it went from 3 days to a few hours.

I had one of those day.

I spend a big part of the day playing around on Facebook (whoever got me on there should be punished! it's addictive!). Then i had an ingenious idea for a Christmas gift for a loved one, worked on that for a while. Then I got that phone call... By then it was too late to catch up.

I spent the evening working my meeting in Cotati and then stayed around to take out all the 2008 material, and put in, organize the material for 2009.

Food today was horrendous. I ate too many Weight Watchers snacks. I was at the traveler, that's all there was.

Finally my husband brought dinner for me and Cheri (thank god she was there to help me out!) and I had a sandwich, not haute cuisine, but better than a chocolate bar. I like the snacks but really...

I didn't work out, thought I did carry all the boxes by myself.

After everything was said and done, I was ready to go home and crash... I still had to stop by a friend's house in Sebastopol to bring back her keys I had used Monday.

You know when you're so tired that you know you need to go home and crash, but you simply can't move? We talked for a while, I played with the dog, ran around the kitchen island... finally at 10pm, I headed home. 10pm, I usually am ready for bed by 9:30pm, how did I end up on the road that late?

Then of course I think about Facebook and all the old friends I've found on there.

All those people who knew me in my other life. When 10 pm is when I left home to start finding people to go out with. When 5:30 am was the time I would go home, not get up to work out.

Am I who I am now because that's the "real me" that I was avoiding for whatever reason when I was younger? Or am I playing a role because I think that's how I should be?

Maybe as you get older you just change and that's just how it is.

I know people older than me who are still spending the nights out and walking home at 5:30 am slightly offbeat and knowing that they have to get up in 2 hours. Are they still having as much fun as I did at 20 years old? Or are they just caught in a loop?

I don't care really, honestly, I'd rather go to bed early, get up early and not have a hangover. Ah!

Food food food foooooooooooooood!

Hi there!

I'm alive! So, it's blogging day, been almost 2 months. Busy months too! I've had ups and downs (literally) but now I'm on a good trend. I've been "testing" the new Weight Watchers program and am loving it!

I just stopped by to show off a few things that I've been up to. All of a sudden I miss cooking, so expect to see a lot more of it starting in January (after my vacation!).

For now I have a few things to show off:

I went to GNG and bought a pre-made Tandoori marinade. I wasn't too hopeful since I've had many disappointment with those, but that one was DELICIOUS!

I used my oven rack to cook it, so that the air could circulate all around the chicken pieces and the results were wonderful!

I served it with Garam Masala scented bulgur and sauteed red bell pepper and carrot sticks. Here's what my plate looked like:


Since I'm showing off anyway, here's my Thanksgiving table:


Would you believe that's all for just 2 people?

You can see the biscuits/rolls on the right. My husband made those and they were quite tasty. I had only 1 of them, maybe half another actually. hey, it's Thanksgiving!

The longish colorful platter is the roasted vegetables. Red onion, butternut squash, carrots cooked with thyme and rosemary sprigs, salt, pepper and garlic scented oil.

The white plate left of that is slice of turkey. We roasted a turkey breast, bone and all. Put it on a bed of onions, with thyme, rosemary, garlic oil, salt and pepper. Wrapped the whole thing in an aluminum foil. It turned out delicious. If you plan on eating the skin though, cook it unwrapped some, cause it wasn't "crispy".

Finally the glass bowl has mashed potatoes that my husband made with FF milk and a little butter. They were DELICIOUS.

We had plenty of leftovers, I made a soup the following day, and a curry with the rest of the turkey Saturday!

So that was Thanksgiving. I would have skipped the whole thing, but my dear American born husband looked so sad at the idea of just not having Thanksgiving that I couldn't do it.

Can't have Thanksgiving without dessert now can we?

This is the simplest thing!

Mix together 2 small pack of Jello sugar free vanilla pudding (1 big pack is only 1 1/2 small pack not 2!), 2 cups of Fat free milk, 1 cup of pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice mix (to taste, I put 1/2 tsp or so). Once that is well mixed, fold in 1 cup of Fat free Cool Whip.

Then, take a fuffy glass, and alternate a layer of Cool whip (not mixed with anything) and a layer of the pudding/pumpkin mix.

You could decorate with a cinnamon stick, a mint leaf... you know..

Delicious and good looking! AH!

After all that yummy food, and 2 weeks of eating out almost constantly while my brother visited, I was craving home cooked food. I was also sick of chicken!!!

Last night we had salmon thawed out, so I made our favorite salmon dish:

Basically, you season the salmon to taste (I use cumin, salt and pepper), heat up 1 tsp of oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Cook on medium high heat on one side 4 minutes (do not move it too much), then turn it and cook one minute, then lower the fire and cover, cook an additional 3 minutes or so (until done).

If you wait for your oil to heat up well, it makes a crispy layer on the salmon without overcooking the middle.

I roasted vegetables to go with it, and cooked some mushroom for myself (my husband won't touch those).

Last bragging subject for today (on here that is.. hehe) is this morning's breakfast:

I was hungry, but didn't want to use up my points, so I made myself one of my "Egg white pie":

Sauteed onions, bell pepper strips (had them frozen) and mushrooms. Added 3 egg whites, minced rosemary and thyme, salt pepper. Cooked in the non-stick pan until almost set. Put under the broiler to finish setting the top.

Et voila! Eating healthy delicious foods is so simple!

Find a restaurant that will serve those foods for cheap and have them taste half as good, AH! Good luck finding it!

Be good n stuff!

Overcoming an Emotional Binge

I'm not only a leader at Weight Watchers, first and foremost I'm a member.

I have struggled with my weight for several years, and have found the tools and the inspiration I needed at Weight Watchers.

Since I'm well known in my area, I find it difficult to attend meetings without feeling like a "leader". People look up to me as someone who's got it all figured out. If only it was always true!

Weight Watchers.com has free message boards where the members can exchange tips and ideas and support each others. I have found there a place where I can be a member. The fact that I am a leader is known, but irrelevant. I'm a member like everybody else.

I've found many things on the boards and a lot of inspiration. I wanted to share with you something I've found a while ago, but was re-posted this morning. I don't know who originally wrote it, for that I apologize, if you know, please let me know so I can note it in here!!



3 Minutes to Fight Off an Emotional Eating Binge Right Before it Happens
(Posted by EditorCarol)

Minute 1: Stay Grounded

Emotional eating happens when you lose your connection to your
grounded self. Stress itself is not what makes you reach for something
to eat. In fact, stress is often a good thing and your grounded self
knows this! We need the physical stress of exercise to keep our bodies
in good shape just as we need the stress of intellectual and emotional
challenges to keep our minds healthy.

Nine times out of ten, what really leads to emotional eating is
getting caught in a "mind storm" of worst-case scenarios, projections,
misinterpretations, and all the emotional overreactions that come with
these thoughts. This "storm" turns a manageable challenge into
something that makes you feel helpless, overwhelmed, ashamed or
afraid—and sends you to the kitchen to find something to stuff those
extreme feelings. When you can stay grounded in the moment of stress,
you have many more options.

Here are some simple ideas to keep you grounded when something (or
someone) pushes your buttons and your feelings start to spiral out of
control:

1. Take a few deep breaths. (You can also count to 10, if that helps.)
If the stressful situation involves someone else, take a timeout and
agree to continue the discussion in a few minutes.

2. Remind yourself where you are. Take a look around, noticing and
naming the colors and shapes in the space around you.
Notice the physical sensations you are experiencing. Whether it's a
sinking feeling, turmoil in your stomach, tension in your hands or
jaw, restricted breathing, or heat on the back of your neck, try to
name the feelings that go with the sensation. Is that sinking feeling
fear, or dread? Is the heat a symptom of anger?
The idea here is to stay in your body and in the moment—with what's
real—instead of going inside your mind where all those unreal
scenarios are just waiting to get spun out-of-control.

Minute 2: Reality Check
Once you're calm enough to start thinking productively, put all those
thoughts that are clamoring for attention inside your head through a
quick reality check. Here are several very common thought patterns
that have no place in reality. Do any of these apply to you?
1. All or nothing thinking
Example: You go over your calorie limit or eat something on your
"forbidden" list, and then decide to keep eating because you've
already "blown it" for today. Reality: Weight loss is not a one-day
event. If you stop overeating now, you'll gain less and have less to
re-lose later. That's something to feel good about!


2. Reading your own thoughts into someone else's words
Example: Someone made a mildly critical or unsupportive remark to you,
and you feel completely devastated. Reality: The more bothered you are
by such remarks, the more likely it is that you are being overly
critical of yourself. When you treat yourself with respect, what
others say won't matter nearly so much.


3. Either-Or thinking
Example: You make a mistake or have a bad day and feel like a complete
and hopeless failure. Reality: No one does well all the time. Mistakes
are a necessary and valuable opportunity to learn—if you don't waste
them by getting down on yourself.


4. Taking care of other people's business
Example: Something is going badly for someone you care about, and you
feel responsible, or pressured to fix it. Reality: People need to
learn from their own problems. You aren't doing anyone a favor by
trying to fix things just to make yourself feel better.

Minute 3: Putting Things in Perspective
Most common problems that you face in everyday life are much easier to
handle when you keep them in perspective and avoid making mountains
out of molehills. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to make
sure you aren't in the mountain-making business:

1. How big a deal is this, anyway? If I knew I was going to die in a
week, would this be something I would want to spend this minute of my
remaining time on?
Will any bad things happen if I postpone thinking about this until I
have more time to figure things out?

2. Do I have all the information I need to decide how to respond to
this? Do I really know what's going on here, or am I making
assumptions? Am I worrying about things that might not even happen?
What do I need to check out before taking action?

3. Is there anything I can do right now that will change or help this
situation?
Am I trying to control something I can't, like what other people
think, say, or do?
Have I really thought through this problem, and broken it down into
manageable pieces I can handle one-at-a-time?


Use this approach whenever your thoughts or situations begin to feel
overwhelming, and you'll quickly find that the mountains that seem
impossible at first can quickly morph into what they really
are—manageable hills that you DO have the ability to climb. All it
takes is three little minutes of your time.

So there you have it, in 3 minutes you can turn around a situation and make it work for you. Only 3 minutes!

Be good n stuff!

I'm an Auntie!

Would you look at this!!! Isn't it the cutest thing you've ever seen?

This little thing there is Baby H, the latest addition to the Clan. My little brother is a Daddy!

Look at him, Baby H also got something from his Auntie, he's working out already!

Here's another picture of him:

I'm in love!

Apparently so's the proud Daddy! Look at him!


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw I'm all melting all of a sudden. My little brother is all grown up!



Welcome to the world Baby H! You're one lucky little fellow. You're Mom and Dad are going to be such great parents.

One day, when you're a teenager, and get angry and frustrated, I'll be able to tell you about the joy and pride I heard in your Daddy's voice when he talked about you today.

Welcome to the world, welcome to our family. We love you to pieces already!

Auntie Will~