Lemon Pepper Salmon

Here's a great recipe for salmon, that in my opinion, goes well with pretty much anything!

-Salmon (thawed, rinsed, and patted dry)
- lemon pepper
- garlic salt
- paprika
- lemon slices
- butter

Line a pan with foil and preheat toaster oven or oven to 350.  Put tiny pieces of butter where your salmon will be placed.  Use garlic salt and salt pan (foil).  Place salmon over butter pieces and sprinkle garlic salt over salmon.  Then shake lemon pepper over top of salmon.  If you like a more peppery taste, add more lemon pepper, if not, don't use too much.  Sprinkle paprika and top each salmon with a small piece of butter.  Cover seasoned salmon with lemon slices and stick in oven/toaster for 25-30 minutes.  Covering the salmon with lemon keeps the salmon moist and gives your salmon a wonderful flavor.  Right before eating, squeeze fresh lemon over salmon.  Enjoy with a salad, rice, quinoa, etc!

Fruit Infused Water

Fruit infused water is amazing!  In the pic above i put sliced oranges, strawberries, and cucumber!  Instead of cucumber, i recommend adding mint!  You can add whatever fruits you want to in your infused water.  Here's my fav one.  If you like stronger flavors, add more fruit.  If not, add less fruit.   

-pitcher of water

-sliced strawberries

- sliced lemon

- mint

Throw all ingredients in pitcher of water and put in fridge.  Drink with some ice!   

Eggplant and Kailan stir fry

Kailan (chinese broccoli) is one of my favorite vegetables!  It has similar texture as broccoli but a completely different taste.  It's a little bitter but is SO yummy!  It's a great source of vitamin E, B6, dietary fiber and a lot more vitamins!  Here's more information about the nutritional value of chinese broccoli.

http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-broccoli-chinese-cooked-i11969

What you'll need :)

- 1 pack of kailan

- 1 large japanese eggplant
- 3-4 cloves of garlic minced
- 2 T oil ( i used avocado oil)
- 2 T lee kum kee's no msg oyster sauce
- low sodium soy sauce

Heat wok on high.  You may need to lower your stove a notch depending on how hot your stove gets.  Add oil and garlic.  Mix till garlic is slightly browned.  Add kailan and eggplant and mix well.  Once mixed and heated evenly, add about 3T of water and mix well.  This will steam the veggies and prevent you from having to add more oil.  Continue to stir.  The amount of time you keep your stirfry on the stove depends on how crunchy or soft you like your veggies.  Once veggies are to your liking, throw in oyster sauce.  Mix and taste.  Add low sodium soy sauce to taste.  Mix well!  Enjoy this dish with some brown rice!!  If you feel like you are missing protein, you can make this same stirfry with some tofu!  Enjoy!

Vintage Floral Nails

Super cute nails for any occasion!  Best part about it is it's really easy to do :)  

What you'll need:

- buffer and nail file

- base coat and top coat

- your choice of nail polish color

- light pink polish

- darker shade of pink polish

- green polish

- 2 toothpicks

Step 1: smooth your nails with a buffer and file to desired shape

Step 2: wash your hands!  The particles from filing can leave bumps on your nails if not                     washed off.

Step 3: paint nails with base coat. Dry

Step 4: pain nails with desired color.  I used china glaze color: for audrey.  Dry

Step 5: repeat step 4

Step 6: paint random dots on your nail with a light colored pink.  I like to use 5 dots on my                thumb and 3 dots on my smaller nails.  (you do not have to wait for dots to dry,                    infact it's better not to)

Step 7: with a darker shade of pink, draw "U" shapes with a toothpick over the light pink                  dots.  I do 3-4  "U's" per dot.  

Step 8: with another toothpick, draw leaves where there are empty spots.  Dry

Step 9: Top coat. Dry

Step 10: admire your beautiful nails!

Remember, your roses do not have to be perfect! If you mess up, don't worry about it.  Chances are, no one will notice.  :)

the one i'm demonstrating on here are different color polishes from the pic above.

Deconstructed Sushi Bowls

I personally don't like California rolls but this recipe is actually pretty good!  My sister first tried it at UCLA and then made it for me and my fam bam a couple weeks ago.  

I believe you can buy all these ingredients at Ranch 99.  (May be different brand but that's fine)

- nori seaweed (cut into thin strips)                                       spicy mayo recipe

- tofu (cubed)                                                                 1 T mayo, 1 t siracha sauce (mix)

- cucumber (julliened)

- edamame (shelled)

- avocado (sliced into thin pieces)

- capelin roe (pic shown below)

- fish cake (artificial crab meat) (usually contains very small amount of MSG)

- sushi rice seasoning mix {optional, contains MSG :(   }

- wasabi mixed in low sodium soy sauce

- calrose rice

                                                   capelin roe

sushi rice seasoning

                                                                   artificial crab meat

Mix rice seasoning in freshly made pot of rice (follow instructions on seasoning packet).  Put seasoned rice in large bowl and top with seaweed, tofu, edamame, avocado, cucumber, roe,  and crab meat.  Add desired amount of wasabi soy sauce and spicy mayo sauce.  Mix well and enjoy!

Brown Rice Gluten Free Veggie Wrap!

1 brown rice tortilla (gluten free)

your fav. homemade guacamole recipe

5-6 sliced cucumber pieces

2 small sweet peppers (cut long ways)

1/4 cup sprouts

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes

3 pieces of romaine hearts

handful of spinach

salt and pepper to taste

Spread generous amount of guacamole over tortilla.  Add spinach over guac.  Add the rest of ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.  If you have a homemade vinaigrette dressing you like, you can add some in your wrap as well.  Wrap like fajita and cut in half at an angle.  Super filling and healthy!  Enjoy!

Juicing/Smoothie Experiment

As an experiment, i didn't juice or make smoothies for a week to see how i'd feel.  I noticed changes in my bowel movements by day 2 (sorry for tmi)  :P.  By day 3, my body felt really sluggish and i had a hard time waking up in the morning.  Each day, it got progressively worse.  My skin also started breaking out with a few zits by day 4.  I juiced for the first time yesterday and again this morning and i feel MUCH better!!  Juicing and making healthy smoothies DOES make a difference!!  Here's the juice i drank, along with mangoes for my dessert! 

3 stalks celery

3 large carrots (cut in half to fit juice feeder)

handful of parsley

1/2 apple

1 tomato  

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone!!  I tried to eat healthy reds, whites and blues to stay patriotic!  

Kimchi Jigae

2-3 heaping T of gochujang (depends on how spicy you want it)

2 heaping t of miso (japanese soybean paste)

2 pork chops (fat trimmed off and meat cut into bite size pieces)

1 pack enoki mushrooms

1 block tofu

3-4 large handfuls of kimchi

4 green onions chopped
3.5-4 T sesame oil
3 cloves garlic minced
water

Heat large pot on high.  Add sesame oil and garlic.  Stir and add cut pork.  Mix frequently so you don't burn the pork.  Once pork is fully cooked on the outside, add kimchi and stir.  Continue stirring every once in a while until heated throughout.  Add water until everything is completely submerged.  Let boil then lower heat to medium high.  Add gochujang and miso and stir.  Add tofu and enoki mushrooms.  Cover and let simmer on medium to medium low for 10 minutes.  Add green onions right before serving and enjoy!