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Stop throwing your Salad leaves away| Repurpose your salad ingredients | Asian inspired Sweet Potato Noodle Salad
Last week I wanted salad, which is a rare thing, but I purchased arugula and tomato and such for said salad! Well a week later (not even a week really) and I noticed my salad leaves were started to go bad; you know how they start to get wet and slimy and such (real gross)!
However today, I thought, why not repurpose my salad ingredients so I can stop throwing away my yummy salad leaves.
This meal is vegan-friendly, so no meat involved. So here we go with my tasty warm Asian inspired noodle salad. Everything is leftover and sitting in my fridge, looking sad.
I boiled and drained my sweet potato noodles, cut them into smaller piece and rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking and set to the side.
1 package of baby bella mushrooms quarter and about 7 baby bell peppers sliced.
3 roma tomatoes. I had a half bag of each of the following: spinach, arugula, and broccoli slaw.
In my big wok pan which I love sooooo much is olive oil, heated. Add mushrooms and peppers and garlic and stir-fry for 4 minutes or so. Then add in the broccoli slaw and cook for another 4 minutes.
Add in the salad leaves
Let them cook just until wilted then add in tomatoes and I had some alfalfa sprouts
Mix and cook for 1 minute; I just let my tomatoes get warm.
Now the last steps are adding in the noodles and sauce. The salad dressing I used was an Asian sesame dressing, but you can use what you want, this is what I had 
Mix and serve. You can eat hot, cold or room temp. I will never again throw away my salad leaves or other salad ingredients. 
After heating all the veggies, I could have added them to rice, or other noodles or even potatoes. Better yet, I could eat them without a carb!!! I just wanted to share with you guys. Until next time remember to Cook, Eat and Enjoy!!!
Mommy Monday | What I eat when I’m Sick | Savory Oatmeal | Potatoes | Farro
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Favorite Snacks while driving for Lyft
Some of you may know that one of my hustles is driving for Lyft, which I actually enjoy quite a bit. I have met some really awesome people and had some very enlightening conversations with people from all over the world. Sometimes I drive really long hours, 8 plus. And of course driving that long, I have to have snacks to keep my energy up and sometimes to keep me occupied and awake. So my snacks change all the time, but as of right now, these are my favorite go to snacks.
Because I am an avid shopper at the Asian grocery stores in my area, I am always finding new foods to try out that I have never even imagine. One of these would be dried or dehydrated sweet potatoes. Now sweet potatoes is one of my top favorite foods and to have it in a dehydrated form, I wasn’t to sure about. But I found this Asian brand and the only ingredient is sweet potatoes.
That is important to note because I found some other brands that had preservatives and such in them.
Of course when I find something I really like, it seems everyone around here stopped selling it, so I found another brand which ingredients are sweet potatoes and honey;
although a bit sweeter than first brand, it is still very tasty.
These dehydrated veggies are not only good, but they are good for you, loaded with lots of vitamins and minerals, and they last along time.
Another snack I have really been favoriting is Pocky, Chocolate Almond Crush flavor.
These little yummy are dangerous, because I find myself not being able to eat just two or three. This box comes with two plastic packs inside with 6 stick per pack. They are like a cookie or biscuit that is dipped in milk chocolate and real crushed almonds. So very good. When I can not find this brand, I also get the Pepero brand which is a Korean brand.
Same exact thing just made in a different country, and still tastes just as good.
Next is another Asian favorite of mine and it is Sangaria natural flavor Ramu, grape flavor.
This is just a grape soda made with real sugar and natural flavor. Definitely taste the difference between this and grape Fanta or Crush.
Again I love sweet potatoes, so when I found this at my local Grocery Outlet, I was eager to try them.
Simple and addictive, these sweet potato crisp are light and easy to eat a lot of. They have a very authentic sweet potato taste with a hint of salt. Additionally, If you have ever eaten Quaker brand rice cakes and liked them, that is what these are, but very very thin.
The last snack food that I have been keeping with me while driving are these Good Health Veggie Chips that I found at Dollar Tree.
At first, they didn’t have much flavor, but that is because they are not extremely salty, just very lightly salted. These chips have tomatoes, spinach, beets, broccoli and carrots in them, not that they have a strong flavor. Might be a good way to sneak some veggies in your kids diet.
Overall, I try to eat healthy while I am driving because there are so many options and opportunities for me to eat not so healthy and sometimes I do partake in the unhealthy habits. However, I find that as long as I keep healthy options on my person, I am a lot less likely to do so.
In the comments, let me know some of your favorite snack you are eating right now!!!
Until, next time; Remember to Cook, Eat and Enjoy!
My Daughters Made Thanksgiving Dinner
Happy Thanksgiving to my foodies and non-foodies alike. I hope you have had a great day, with great food and great company.
Typically for this holiday, I would have been working away since the wee hours of the morning, making the traditional Turkey-day spread. However, this year, I wanted to do something very different. This year, I gave my two daughters an assignment.
The Assignment…(which they had no choice but to accept it)
I assigned them to cook Thanksgiving day dinner; they each were responsible for finding two recipes online that they wanted to make and they had to work together to ensure that it was cohesive. Easy right…
Once they finally came up with two dishes, and write down the ingredients, I would take them to the store to get said ingredients, however, they had to check to see if we had any of said ingredients already. Easy right…
My daughters are 17 and 11. My oldest daughter Alexis had virtually no problem figuring out what she wanted to make. She picked, Tangy Honey Glazed Ham, Bacon Wrapped Carrots with Maple Glaze and Classic Deviled Eggs. My youngest daughter Amare on the other hand… She went back and forth and then some, finally deciding on Homemade Cornbread and Sweet Potatoes (this happens to be my favorite).
Shopping…(Never get a cavity filling the day before Thanksgiving. One has little patience)
Watching the girls shop for their ingredients, which Alexis took the lead, made me realize that when they do go grocery store with me (which is not very often. It takes far less time when I go alone) that they pay little to no attention to what I am doing, how I look at prices, select meat, look a quality, etc. Now, this may not be so bad for Amare, because she still has some years to learn, but Alexis is a senior in high school and will be going away to college and she needs to learn these things. Especially having a mother who is a Personal Chef and Foodie. So she has some learning to do in the new year. Oh and all this shopping did not happen until the day before Thanksgiving which I rarely ever do, but oh well.
Developing story…
Thanksgiving morning has arrived and I am up so I can film all the mayhem and such, so this story is developing. I am writing this as it happens. Alexis decided to make breakfast; me being the preparer and wanting to make it a little easier for the girls, purchase some just add milk muffin mix. Super easy and very tasty; a great way to start the day and have the house smell like the holiday. So she made me a nice quick breakfast of 3 egg whites and a muffin. Thanks, kid!!!
Preparation and Cooking…
There was not a lot to prepare, but for my daughters who are unaccustomed to making a full holiday meal, it might have felt like there were mountains of prep work. Alexis unpackaged her ham and put it in the oven to back and began on her glaze.
Then she began taking the shells off of her boiled eggs for the deviled eggs, which she had a bit of trouble, but she persevered. Then Amare started peeling her sweet potatoes,
while Alexis peeled and wrapped her carrots.
Next, it was Amare making the Cornbread
Followed by Alexis periodically glazing the baked ham and making a filling her eggs.
After reheating the Mac and Cheese that was made last week, it was time to sit down and eat and evaluate how the girls did.
And not being partial at all… but the did such an amazing job. The ham had great flavor and was very juicy. And the sweet potatoes and carrots we so goooooood! Those 3 were my favorites.
Now my kids know that they can prepare and cook a big meal, as I knew they could! I hope you all had an amazing day. If you would like to see the Thanksgiving video, click here.
Until next time, remember to Cook, Eat and Enjoy
Apple Cinnamon and Blueberry Almond Energy Balls
Hey my foodies and non-foodies alike. School is in full swing for my two daughters which means leaving early and coming home pretty late. And all though I like to think of my children as always being so full of energy, I know they need a little boost sometimes. I had been hunting for a snack idea for them that would give them energy and have healthy ingredients minus the chocolate and peanuts since they are allergic. I came across the energy balls or bites. These were perfect because I could tailor them to each of my kids. So I ended up making apple cinnamon balls and blueberry almond balls, each with different type of butters. And better still, there was no bake involved. So here is what I used:
4 cups of rolled oats (2 cups each batch)
2 cups ground flaxseed (1 cup each batch)
2 cups sweetened shredded coconut (1 cup each batch)
1 cup of honey ( half cup each)
1 teaspoon salt (half teaspoon each)
1 cup of almond butter
1 cup of sunflower seed butter
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (1 teaspoon each batch)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground cloves
1 cup of dried blueberries
1 cup of sliced almonds
1 cup of dried apple rings cut into bite sizes
1 baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment
2 large mixing bowls
For all the oatmeal, I warmed in a frying pan to make the oats a bit easier to incorporate. I used my favorite Red Cooper Frying. If you want to go and get it, her is my Amazon Affiliate link. I love this pan so much!!!
https://amzn.to/2CTvSSY
So to each mixing bowl add in 1 cup of ground flaxseed, 2 cups of oats, 1 cup coconut, half cup of honey, teaspoon of vanilla extract and half teaspoon of salt.
Each cup of butters, you want to melt a bit in the microwave to make it easier to handle.
For the apple cinnamon batch: add in the tablespoon of cinnamon and ground cloves, the almond butter and the pieces of dried apple. Mix well
For the blueberry Almond batch: add in the dried blueberry and sliced almonds and the melted sunflower seed butter. Mix well.
Now the fun part for those who love to get there hands messy, so it is a great cooking activity for kids. Time to roll out the balls. If when you begin to roll the balls out and you find that they are breaking apart, this is because they are to dry and you need to add a few tablespoons of water to help them roll easier.
Make the balls as big or small as you like them. I used a healthy tablespoon size and formed a tight ball in my hand, then place them on the bake sheet.
Once everything is rolled out, place then in the fridge for 20 minutes so they can set, after which you want to store them in a airtight container. They should keep for over a week or so, however if you get the response that I received at my house, they will barely last 4 days or so.
If you would like to see the actually process, head over to my YouTube and checkout the video her at Energy Balls | Apple Cinnamon…
Until next time, Cook Eat Enjoy!!!!
Best Things I ate – Summer 2018
Hey foodies and non-foodies alike. I hope you had an awesome and tasty summer. So yes it is officially Autumn here in the U.S. and I just couldn’t let summer go without highlighting some of the best things I ate; some of these I cooked and others were had out and about. So in no particular order let’s get started.
I love Asian food of all kinds, and if there are noodles involved, I am sold from jump-street. I had these sweet potato noodles that I got from the Asian grocers. With them, I made Japchae, a typical cold veggie noodle dish. Mine had cabbage, shredded carrots, onion, mushrooms, garlic, and cilantro. This is so tasty and light and I like mine on the warmer side. But it is a great way to get your veggies in a meal. The great thing about this dish is that I ate it all times of day and night and it kept me full for some hours without feeling heavy.
Here in Portland Oregon where I reside, we have tons of food carts, pods, trucks, etc. Downtown Portland, the Alder Street Food Carts, there is a food cart called Bing Mi. It is located on 9th and Alder. The only thing they make is Chinese Crepes. I had heard a lot about this place before I ever ate one. I drive Lyft, and I had customers who were visiting tell me about this place. So I decided to give it a try. It was a phenomenal mix of Asian taste and American breakfast.
Oh, and I can not forget about fair food. I only go to county fairs to eat all the stuff I don’t eat on a regular. This fair, I had my eyes set on the huge smoked turkey leg and I made straight to the stand upon entering the fairgrounds. I felt like a Flintstone eating this big leg, and it’s not a cute food to eat. So if you are on a date or you are worried about how people look at you when eat, this might not be the food for you. But since none of these were the case for me, I chomped away.
Now I love corn on the cob and I have been eating my share this summer. Before this summer, I slightly remember seeing a lot of Latinos and Hispanics eating corn on the cob that had cheese on it. But it didn’t fully register until I started seeing this corn called Elotes on Youtube. Well… I finally got to have one this summer at the Portland Pride Parade. OMG, it was the best thing; the combination of the sweet corn, the tartness from the cotija cheese, the creaminess of the mayo and the very very light spice of the chili powder. My mouth and my stomach were beyond happy. I loved this so much, that for the next two weeks following this encounter with my dear Elotes, I made them at home at least 6 times within those weeks. This might be the top favorite thing I ate this summer.
These were just a few of the great foods I consumed this summer, the ones that come to my mind first. The lovely thing about food is that I can have them any time of year I want because I can cook them at home, so I don’t have to wait until summer. In the comments, let me know what were some of your favorite foods you had this summer and if you have pics, I would love to see.
If you want to keep up with what I eat or what I am doing, follow me on Instagram @Gloriousgal . I am typically very active there. Also if you want to see me cook different dishes or travel and eat, Follow my Youtube Channel @Cook Eat Enjoy.
And until Next time, Cook eat and Enjoy!!!
