I feel like if I had an unlimited supply of sushi, I'd most likely eat myself to death.

I really love sushi. A lot. Like a lot lot. If I could eat it every day, I would. But I don't get enough sushi coupons to afford that, and I think my husband likes to eat more than just fish. However, we did agree a few years ago that we would like to have sushi a little more often if we could learn to make it at home instead of paying for it at a restaurant. The best husband ever promptly surprised me with a sushi kit that Christmas and I found a fish market nearby where we used to live that sold sushi-grade fish. I had to practice a little and it didn't come out too pretty at first, but it's not near as hard as I expected. Look, I'm not coordinated. I run into walls and smack my head on cupboard doors while I'm opening them, but when I roll my own sushi it kind of looks like I know what I'm doing. 

And if I can do it, I know you can. Now I'm totally not an expert, and I am sure I have plenty to learn from a real sushi chef. But it looks alright, and it tastes delicious, so it's fine with me!

The word "sushi" is referring to rice prepared with vinegar, sugar, and salt. Often when people think sushi, they just think raw fish or rolls, but really there are many kinds of sushi, and the one thing they have in common is the seasoned rice. My sushi here is maki, or rolled, and that's really the only kind I'm good at, but the rice can be used for any of the different varieties.

Sushi is something that I never feel guilty about eating. I know the rice can be a lot of carbs if you aren't careful how much you eat, and there's some sugar added, but it's full of good protein, healthy fats, and just fresh, good ingredients. Plus it's delicious.

Sushi Rice: (for about 6 rolls)

• 2 cups short white grain rice (I always just buy the rice that says sushi rice so I know it will work)
• 2 1/3 cups water
• 1 small square kombu/dried kelp (optional)
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt

Start by putting the dry rice into a bowl, adding water, and stirring the rice with your hand to rinse it. Drain the water, swirl the rice, add more water, stir, and drain again. Do this about three times until your water is mostly clear. Add the rice to a large pot along with the water and kombu.

If you don't have kombu, you don't have to use it, but I think it adds a lot of flavor to the rice. You can find it at any Asian grocery store and sometimes just in the international aisle of your normal grocery store. Cover the pot and bring to a boil, turn down to medium and cook until you can see the surface of the rice. Turn pot to low and simmer until all water is absorbed, leaving the lid on the entire cooking time. Let rice sit in pot, covered, for 15 minutes, then discard kelp.

While rice is cooking, combine rice vinegar, sugar, and salt in small saucepan and heat on medium-low until sugar and salt are dissolved, then set aside to cool. Use rice vinegar that does not say "seasoned", because that means it already has salt and sugar added.

Once rice is done (and still warm), scoop it out onto a large, shallow surface. I just use a cookie sheet, but the super cool kids have a fancy wooden sushi rice bowl. It's a secret dream of mine to own one someday... *cough* MybirthdayisinSeptember *cough* Pour the cooled vinegar dressing over the rice. I usually use all of it for my rice, but you can add it to taste if you want.

Use slicing motions with a spatula or wooden spoon to thoroughly mix it in, making sure you are lifting the rice gently and not smashing it down. Keep running the spoon through so it coats all the grains of rice. As soon as rice starts to feel like it's sticking together, spread it out and fan it so it cools off a bit. Put it in a smaller container and cover with a damp towel until ready to use.

Making Sushi:

 Making sushi is the best because you can put only the stuff you want in it, instead of having to order something off a menu. I went simple this time, and besides the fish, we only used avocado, cucumber, and scallion, but add whatever you like! Other common ingredients include carrots, sprouts, crabstick, and cream cheese. Cut your veggies (and other things that aren't raw) into strips. I like to peel and seed my cucumbers first, and cut them into pretty thin slices. I make my avocado pieces bigger, mostly because of my own avocado obsession. If I lived on a desert island and could only grown one thing, it would probably be avocados. Oh, dice your scallions.

The trickiest part to sushi is finding the fresh sushi-grade fish, then going to get it and making it on the same day. There is nowhere that sells it very close to us, so this is the first time I've made sushi in over a year. I happened to find a place that was near somewhere we were already heading, so I added picking it up to our trip. I pretty much always use tuna and salmon when I make it myself, and they're the easiest to find fresh. Slice it into strips just like the vegetables on another cutting board. I minced some of each as well to make spicy versions.

To make the spicy fish, just mix the minced fish with a few drops of chili oil (mine is chili sesame oil so it has a great flavor) and the diced scallions. Add chili oil until it is spicy enough for you.



Now you just need a bamboo rolling mat, plastic wrap, seaweed (nori) sheets, and some imagination! Wrap your mat with plastic wrap so the rice doesn't get in between the slats. Put the seaweed sheet on it, shiny side down. If the rice sticks to your fingers, make a mixture of 10 parts water and 1 part rice vinegar to dip your hands in. Then press on desired amount of sushi rice, leaving a little room at the top and bottom for a seal.

Play around with this step. Sometimes you can cut a wrap in half If you are making simple rolls with only one or two things inside. Sometimes you have too much left at the end and need to cut a little off. And some people like different amounts of rice than others. But you will figure it out quickly as you start experimenting with different ingredients inside.

Now just add whatever you want in a line across the middle. If you want the roll to have the seaweed facing out, put the ingredients directly on the rice. If you want the roll to have rice on the outside, flip the wrap over after pressing on rice and add ingredients to seaweed side. 

Now just roll it up! Use your fingers to hold your ingredients in place and roll the mat up with your thumb until the roll meets itself. Squeeze it together, then pull the mat up and continue to roll to the end. Squeeze the mat to shape the roll, then take it off. This part will take some practicing, but it's just something you have to try a few times to get the hang of it.

With the rice on the outside, you can add toasted sesame seeds. Or, I added some of my spicy fish on top of two of them like this:

Have fun with it. For some reason I tried to use all the fish I bought (over a pound!) and ended up stuffing every roll full. For two people, 6 ounces of salmon and 6 ounces of tuna is more than enough. So here are the 6 rolls I made:

Wet your knife to cut them, and do this frequently in the cutting process as the rice will stick to your knife. Each of these were cut into 8 pieces. I really made way too much sushi for two of us. Who is coming to dinner next time?

And that's all I do. I don't think it really needs any sort of fancy sauces on top, though you may feel free to get creative. I know spicy mayo is popular at sushi restaurants, but neither of us eat mayo, so I don't have any recipes for that. I use sriracha sauce sometimes for heat, and other than that, we just dip it in soy sauce. Now I just need to learn to make that fire volcano out of an onion, and flip an empty eggshell into my chef's hat, and then I really won't have any reason to visit a Japanese steakhouse anymore.

"Money Mailer coupons are the highlight of my month." "...You might need a hobby."

So I promised a recipe for the open-faced turkey sandwiches that Mike requested of me the other day. I debated whether I should post it or not, because it needed some changes for me to really give it my stamp of approval. But I can say that it was an uber easy meal that came together in less than 15 minutes with no work on my end. On top of that, the ingredients for the entire meal cost a whopping $8.47 for the two of us, and that includes a whole loaf of bread. If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for savings. Coupons literally make me squeal like a baby. The more money I save, the nicer I am. If I'm being super nice to you, it's possible that I really think you're great, but it might be that I just bought a great groupon.

So this is everything I used:

Turkey Breast:                                             $3.59

  Loaf of Whole Wheat Bread:                       $2.99

Gravy:                                                         $0.89

Corn Cobs (2):                                       +  $1.00

                                                                  $8.47

Here is my disclaimer. This was way too salty for my tastes, and I love salt. I think it was mostly the carving board turkey. If you have any chicken or turkey breast leftovers, definitely warm it up and use that. I am such a red meat kind of girl, and I pretty much cook bird only when it is requested of me, so if you're the same, look for a low-sodium version of thick sliced turkey (or chicken) at the deli. Also, the gravy comes in a low-sodium version as well, but they didn't carry it in the store where we happened to be shopping. I'd recommend going low-sodium for both of them, and just adding your own salt if it's not enough, because packages products tend to be so overloaded with it to begin with. 

Other than that, this definitely does the job of open-faced turkey sandwich! I put the corn on the cob in a pot of water, boiled it for a few minutes, then turned it on low while I finished everything else. I cooked the gravy according to the package, toasted the bread, warmed the turkey up in the microwave, and threw it all together.

1...2...3. Seriously the easiest meal ever. I threw some butter buds and salt on the corn and called it good. And it's under 350 calories. Done.



If you don't like this salad, I will come to your house and eat it myself.

Alternate title consideration for this post:

• My basil plant has an enemy.

I was originally planning to use basil on my salmon tonight from my basil plant in my window.

(I think buying the plant versus just a package is totally worth the couple bucks it costs, and it is not hard to keep alive. And trust me, I'm good at killing plants. If you use a lot of basil, you should definitely grow it yourself.)

But my poor basil plant has had a rough time lately. It has a natural enemy in our apartment. A fuzzy, four-legged enemy....

and she likes to knock it over every chance she gets. Apparently ferrets hate when you grow basil. Who knew? So I decided to leave the basil alone today because it's looking pretty beat up. But the salmon was still delicious without it. I think you'll like it.

So, enough chit chat! Tonight I made citrus-herb salmon, super lowfat shrimp scampi, and israeli couscous salad. It was delicious. Low carb and low fat, with tons of protein, flavor and good stuff. My kind of meal! When I bought a pound of salmon last, they gave me three pieces, which is a really annoying number when there are only two of us. The last piece wasn't enough on it's own to make a meal for two, so I split it between us and made shrimp scampi as the rest of our protein. The salad turned out delicious. I ended up making enough for four servings at least, and I am thrilled to have leftovers, because I will definitely want to eat it again. 

Citrus-herb salmon:

• 4.5 ounces wild-caught salmon
• 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 lime
• 4 sprigs dill - ends finely chopped
• 8 chives - diced
• Salt and pepper

This salmon is super simple. Take a cookie sheet, line it with foil, spray it with cooking spray, and put salmon on skin down. Squeeze enough lemon juice and lime juice on to cover fish generously. For me, it was about half the juice from each. Add the dill and the scallions. Salt and pepper to your liking.

Broil until fish flakes with a fork and is cooked through. This took about 8 minutes for this piece, but it depends on the thickness. Add fresh squeezed lemon at the end if desired.

Lowfat shrimp scampi: (Serves 2)

• 28 small shrimp, raw, frozen, cleaned and deveined
• 1/2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 green onion - diced
• 1 large garlic clove - minced
• 1 stalk lemongrass sliced lengthwise
• 1/4 tsp. garlic salt
• 3 tbsp. low sodium chicken broth
• 1 tbsp. butter buds (you can find these in the spice aisle at the grocery store)
• 1/4 tsp. cornstarch
• fresh lemon juice (as desired)

Thaw the shrimp in cold water and remove shells from shrimp. Heat oil in skillet on stove over medium heat. Add green onion and saute until opaque. Add garlic and lemongrass and cook for 1 minute. Add shrimp and garlic salt, and cook just until shrimp is pink. Don't overcook or it will get rubbery. (If liquid dries up when cooking shrimp, add lemon juice, broth, or white wine to keep moist.) As soon as shrimp is cooked, turn heat to low and add chicken broth, butter buds, and cornstarch. Simmer 3-4 minutes until sauce thickens. Remove lemongrass before serving. Squeeze fresh lemon juice on after plating as desired.

 Israeli-couscous salad: (Serves 4)

• 7/8 cup low sodium-chicken broth
• 2/3 cup Israeli couscous
• 3-4 drops olive oil
• 1 cup curly parsley - chopped
• 1 cup cucumber - diced
• 1 cup tomatoes (I used one red tomato and one heirloom tomato for color) - diced
• 1/2 cup avocado - diced
• 1 green onion (green only) - chopped
• 1 1/2 tbsp. fresh mint leaves - chopped
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat crumbled blue cheese
• juice from 1/4 navel orange
• juice from 1/4 lemon
• Salt (to taste)

You can also use traditional couscous or quinoa if you prefer, but to me the texture of israeli couscous really works perfectly in this salad. Cook 2 servings of the couscous according to package label, but using chicken broth in place of water. I boiled 7/8 cup chicken broth, added 2/3 cup israeli couscous, turned to low heat, and simmered, covered for 10 minutes.

Once it is cooked, let it cool to room temperature. Add a few drops of olive oil so when it cools it doesn't stick together. You can also make this ahead of time and keep it in the fridge to make prep time of the salad much quicker.

Cut up all veggies and put them in a large bowl.

Add room temperature couscous, blue cheese, orange juice, and lemon juice. Salt as desired. 

This made four good servings for us. It is a low-carb and low-fat side with tons of veggies. And it's super yummy.

So this was everything! This meal had tons of great flavors. I hope you like it! :)

Do these nachos make me look thinner?

You probably don't need a recipe for nachos. And I don't do anything super special when I make them myself. But I wanted to post this for all those people who think you have to take things out of your diet to eat healthier. Well I like nachos. And I eat nachos. All the time. When Mike and I did P90X, people would always ask if it was hard to cut so much out of our diet. And I told them we still ate everything we wanted. These nachos have 551 calories in this whole plate...

On top of that, on P90X, it only counts as just over a half serving of carbs, 2 servings of protein, 1 of dairy, 1 of veggies, and a half of fat, which rocks. Most of the fats in here are good ones - you have the heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids from the grass-fed beef and the cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fats in avocado. The cheese is made with 2% milk, because I will never give up cheese, and I just can't do the fat free. It doesn't melt...and I'm not ok with that. The meal is hundreds of calories less than Nachos BellGrande, plus it tastes better and your heart will most likely last longer. And I'd like that. Because I probably like you.

Nachos: (serves 2)

• 1/2 pound 93/7 organic grass-fed ground beef
• 1/2 package reduced-sodium taco seasoning
• 2 ounces Baked Tostitos Scoops
• 2 ounces shredded mexican cheese made with 2% milk
• 6 black olives - sliced
• 3 mini bell peppers - julienned
• jalapeno slices - diced
• 1 medium tomato - diced
• 1 ounce avocado - diced
• 1 green onion - diced
• 4 tbsp. salsa
• 2 tbsp. fat-free sour cream

Assembling these is pretty self-explanatory. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the meat according to the directions on the taco seasoning. If you're cooking a half pound, use half the package of seasoning. About 3 years ago we purchased a kitchen scale for about $10, and it was the best decision we ever made. If you don't have one, get one.

This is the best way of learning portion sizes and being able to eyeball how much you should eat. I measure everything I cook, and that keeps my calorie counts super accurate so I know exactly what I'm eating. My 8 ounces of beef cooked up to be about 3.75 ounces (200 calories) each.


Cut up the peppers, olives, and jalapenos while the beef cooks.

I spray my baking pan with cooking spray so the clean-up is easy. I weight out 1 ounce of chips for each of us (120 calories). I keep our portions seperate on the pan so we both get the same amount of everything.

Put cooked seasoned meat onto chips. Like I said, I weighed ours out for calorie count, but you can just split it equally. Then add the peppers, olives, and jalapenos. Put 1 ounce of cheese on each serving. 

Bake 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted and heated to your liking. While it's baking, cut up your tomatoes, avocados, and green onion.

Now just put plate the nachos, add the above veggies, and put on salsa and sour cream if you want it. The calculations include 2 tbsp. salsa and 1 tbsp. fat-free sour cream for each serving. I am not a huge salsa fan, but I always add hot sauce. I love spicy food. So that's it! Now go eat.



My cauliflower can kick your mashed potato's butt.

I have been desperately searching for ways to substitute more vegetables for the carbs I love oh-so-much and I have to say this cauliflower mash does the trick. Mike and I both found it be just as good as mashed potatoes, so I'll be using it again. Plus, if you read about all the benefits of cauliflower (detox, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory), it makes you feel plain good about eating it.

Tonight I made:

• Ginger-Soy Marinated Sirloin Steak
• Cauliflower Mash
• Sauteed vegetables with lemon

Before we headed out the door to go for a hike today, I threw the steak in a quick marinade so it would have about two hours to soak up some flavor. We bought organic grass-fed sirloin steak from Wegmans...I think everything we've been reading about the nutritional benefits of eating grass-fed meat has finally converted us. Plus it's less calories and tastes great. Poke holes in it before you put it in the bag with the marinade.

Ginger-Soy Marinated Sirloin Steak:

• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/8 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tsp. sesame flavored chili oil
• 1 scallion - diced
• 1 inch fresh ginger - minced
• 1 large garlic clove - minced
• 1 pinch truvia (or any sweetener, sugar, brown sugar, etc.)

Marinate steak for at least an hour...I recommend overnight for best flavor.

This steak was pretty thick, so I broiled it for 5 minutes on either side, and it came out rare, but we like it that way.

Cauliflower Mash:

• 1/2 head cauliflower (about 4-5 cups chopped)
• Chicken bouillon/broth
• 2 tbsp. sour cream
• Cayenne pepper (to taste)
• Seasoned salt (to taste)

Cut up the head of cauliflower and break half of it into small pieces and cut off the length of the stems.

Put them in a pot and cover them with water. I added a chicken bouillon cube, but you could also use chicken broth instead of water. Cauliflower will soak up whatever flavor is in the water, so add whatever you want. Cook on Medium-High to boiling, and continue boiling for about 6 minutes until the cauliflower is tender and you can easily poke it with a fork, just like potatoes would feel that are ready to be mashed. (Note: Cauliflower texture is a little odd if you haven't worked with it, and the 6 minutes is just a rough number. The first time, I cooked it way too long. It was fine, just mashed really easily. If you don't cook it long enough, it might not come out as smooth. If that happens, just throw it in the blender or food processor to make it your desired consistency.)
Thoroughly drain cauliflower and pat dry with a paper towel to absorb as much water as possible. Return to pot and add 2 tbsp. sour cream. I usually use fat-free sour cream, but we recently bought a garlic/herb flavored sour cream and 2 tbsp. is only 60 calories. Split between the two of us it's minimal, and adds tons of flavor.

Add seasoned salt and cayenne pepper and mash with a potato masher. Just use seasonings to your taste. I made ours a little spicy and it was great. If it is too watery/thin, put the pot back on the stove on Medium-Low and until it thickens.

Sauteed vegetables with lemon:

• 1 Scallion - diced
• 1 garlic clove - minced
• 3 mini sweet peppers - julienned
• 4 mushrooms - sliced
• 4 sprigs cilantro - chopped
• 1 1/2 cups organic baby spinach
• 1/2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• Garlic salt (to taste)
• Sazon Tropical (to taste)

Add oil to pan and heat on medium until hot. Add scallion and cook until translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add peppers and cook 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and cilantro and continue cooking 3 more minutes. Add lemon juice and stir, then add spinach. Turn off heat and stir until spinach is wilted. Add garlic salt and sazon to taste. Sazon can be found in either in the spices section or the Latino foods setion. All the flavors are delicious, but right now I'm on a Sazon Tropical kick. You'll find you can add it to pretty much anything and it will taste delightful.

And that's everything! So here is what we ended up with...

It all came together in around a half hour, so it was pretty quick too! This is my first time sharing recipes so let me know if I left anything out or you have any questions. And let me know if you make it and how it turns out for you!



 

Who the heck is Joy and what does she know?

So this is my first attempt at a blog, and I sure hope someone reads it. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen creating and cooking food that not only tastes good, but makes me feel good about eating it. Like a lot of other people in this world, I'm concerned with eating healthy and taking care of my body. I've spent a lot of time not doing that, and I know what a difference it makes on how you feel, as well as how you look. I like to read about nutrition, food benefits, and styles of eating, as I think it is all very interesting. In the end, my food is an attempt to create relatively low-fat meals, in proper proportions, that look and taste good with no guilt about eating them afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I eat perfectly, and you better believe sometimes I just need to order a pizza or go out for ice cream. But I try to keep it occasional, and I try to eat well regularly to make those indulgences not seem so bad.

But why should you listen to me? I don't claim to know everything, and I'm sure there are countless other people out there who know way more. But I know a little. I have a bachelor's degree in communication and public relations from Michigan State University (Go Green!). Not much to do with food, but it does explain my attempt at blogging and connecting with others. I worked as a restaurant manager for a few years, so I have some experience with proper food handling procedures, and working in a kitchen in general. My husband and I have completely P90X together before, including following the food plan for the entire 90 days (and pretty much ever since), so we spent a lot of time researching nutrition, weight loss, building muscle, etc. In fact, I have lost almost 20 pounds in the last 6 months that I had gained as a side-effect of medication, simply through hard work and being aware of what I was eating. But I refuse to give up taste to eat healthy. Plain and simple: I don't eat anything I don't like. And you shouldn't either. Because it's just silly. And food should taste good, even when it's good for you. So, here's a glimpse into my kitchen!