Roasted Vegetable Medley

I've decided that since I do so much creating recipes at work, that I'm going to put all my creations on my blog! Granted, majority of them are not gluten free because they are on sandwich breads, but this one would be a perfect way to add vegetables as a side! Once again, for the portions, they're going to be off, since we make them in bulk. 

Roasted Vegetable Medley

glutenfree~vegan

serves 8

2 red onions, sliced

4 red bell peppers, ends cut and sliced into rings

6 carrots, sliced

3 zucchini, sliced

3 squash, sliced

1/4 cup herbes d' provence

1/8 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper, to taste

in all honesty, for this part I would eyeball it and do it to your taste preference- i love balsamic so I have more!

1. Preheat oven to 350 F

2. Put all your sliced vegetables in a large mixing bowl. Add in your olive oil, herbes d' provence, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix around with your hands

3. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the carrots are nice and tender. 

4. Use it as a side of vegetables, put it on a sandwich, or complement with a salad or starch!

Vegetarian Sushi Roll

 Random weekend, INDEED. Jubilee- didn't go there for the first time in a while. It was a strange incident. HOWEVER, my friend Steve and I did find ourselves at the casino...and we found...a club. Yes, Gypsies, we found a club. 

We also found ourselves playing penny slots for approximately 20-25 minutes-it didn't take us too long to lose all 10 dollars worth of free money that we got for going to the casino. One slot I played was "KITTY GLITTER"- like of course I'm going to post this one and take a picture of it! Scariest part? The cat on the kitty glitter slot machine looks exactly like my 17-year old cat JULIE! Can't you see the resemblence? #scary

At work today, my boss wanted something new. So what does he say? He wants sushi. So me and my friend from work decide that this will be easy. Love her to death, I probably wouldn't have said yes without her! Have I ever made sushi before? No, but I've watched my little sushi men make it in front of me. Did we say no to this challenge? Absolutely not. We took the challenge, and here it is, my version of a VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE SUSHIII ROLLLL. She made some with crab- and she taught me the techniques of assembly...and thank goodness for her!

Only thing here is the portions are going to be a little iffy- I had to make this in bulk at work so I'm guesstimating everything. Therefore, you might have extra of a lot of stuff- so why not use it to make more sushi or something else, ya know?

Vegetarian Sushi Roll with Spicy Veganaise 

glutenfree~vegan

For the sushi

1 package of sushi nori paper

4 cups sticky rice

2 avocados, pitted and sliced

 2 large carrots, julienned

2 cucumbers, peeled and julienned

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

For the Spicy Mayo

2 cups veganaise

1/4 cup sambal oelek (or sriracha works too)

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

if you want to make less- it is 1 tablespoon of mayo for 1 teaspoon of chili sauce

1. Cook the sticky rice according to your method of cooking. Make sure you clean the rice before you cook it! I used a rice cooker, sprayed the sides with oil, filled it with the amount of water specified, and let it cook. 

2. While rice is cooking, julienne your carrots and cucumbers and slice your avocados- they should be very fine any very thin. Once cut up, put in a dry paper towel (you want everything to be very dry, otherwise your nori paper will rip!)

3. For the spicy mayo, add all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir. Put in refrigerator until ready to use!

4. When rice is done, add in the sugar, sesame oil, and vinegar to your rice. Let the rice cool.

5. To assemble to sushi

          - lay out your nori roll

          - when the sticky rice is cool, take 1/2 cup and put it in the middle of your nori paper. Using dry hands, pat the rice on a little over THREE QUARTERS of the paper (so a little over 1/4 of the paper will not have rice on it)

          - take a handful of carrots, a handful of cucumber, and 3 slices of avocado and lay them on top of the rice. don't overlap them- each vegetable gets a portion of the rice!

          - take a tablespoon of spicy mayo and dollop it across the vegetables

          - now comes the wrapping part- take the end with the rice and start rolling it towards the end with no rice- be careful, this is where it gets tricky!

          -when you wrap it all the way, take your finger and carefully moisten it and dab the ends of the nori paper so it sticks.

           - cut it in half with a serrated knife, then cut the halves again. This will give you four big sushi rolls! Cut them again and you'll get 8..however you like them!

Energy Dense Lunch!

When you're a nutrition major, you are always hearing the importance of Energy Dense (ED) foods. vs "empty calories". ED foods are foods like your vegetables and fruits- these are very low in calories but high in nutrients- iron, calcium, vitamin C, b vitamins, etc! Empty calories are your processed foods- twinkies, hostess, white bread, all that nasty stuff; these foods are extremely high in calories and have slim to none nutritional value. These foods are obviously the foods you want to keep as your "cheats" and very limited. It's so hard to keep this out of your diet when you eliminate them because your body is so used to this sugar addiction, it kinda crashes in a way and your body begins to crave it. But you need to eliminate it and as much as it is gonna be hard, but the end results are gonna be awesome! 

Here's an awesome idea to substitute maybe a sandwich and it's sooo delicious!

Spinach salad with:

- 1/2 c Tuna salad

- 1/4c carrots

- 1/4 red bell peppers

- 1 cup sliced cherry tomatoes (I roast mine!)

- 2 T sesame seeds

- balsamic vinaigrette (I make my own- balsamic vinegar + EVOO)

Healthy snack idea?! Rice cake with BANANAS (yup, they're under what looks like a mound of chocolate) and melt a few pieces of dark chocolate in the microwave. Perfect snack to curb that little craving and it tastes s00o delicious :]

Now, if you're reading this right now, I advise you to immediately get off my site and go outside~ it's BEAUTIFFULLL :]