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Posts Tagged kabocha squash

Stuffed Kabocha Squash

Mar 19

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking, Recipes, vegan, Vegetarian | 6 Comments

Good morning friends!

I was a busy bee in the kitchen yesterday, trying some recipes that I want to freeze for later use.  One of the things I made I just couldn’t resist eating for dinner.

I roasted a kabocha squash then stuffed it with a revised version of my Indian Spiced Quinoa.  Because I was using what I had on hand, I substituted dried plums and basil for the dates and mint in the original version.

Stuffed Kabocha Squash with Indian Spiced Quinoa

Makes 2-4 servings (2 as a meal, 4 as a side dish)

  • 1/2 cup quinoa (measured dry)
  • 1 kabocha squash, halved and seeds removed
  • 3/4 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 small shallot, minced
  • 1 yellow pepper, chopped and seeds removed
  • 1 small finger of ginger, peeled and minced
  • ½  teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon garam masala
  • sprinkle of sea salt
  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • 3 dried plums, finely chopped
  • 3-5 fresh basil leaves, chopped
  • ½  teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Directions

Soak quinoa for 30-60 minutes prior to cooking.  Rinse well, drain and set aside.

After quinoa is done soaking, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place halved, deseeded kabocha squash face down on a lightly greased baking sheet.  Roast for 30-35 minutes or until flesh is fork tender.

While kabocha is roasting, melt coconut oil over medium heat.  Add shallots, pepper, garlic, ginger, garam masala and a pinch of sea salt, stirring often until peppers soften, about 5 minutes.

Add quinoa and stir well to coat with spice mixture.

Add vegetable broth.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until quinoa begins to look fluffy and liquid has absorbed into the grains.

Allow quinoa to sit uncovered for 3-5 minutes.  Using a fork, mix in plums and basil leaves.  Divide mixture in two and stuff into the kabocha cavities.  Drizzle each very lightly with balsamic vinegar to finish.

If you are serving the squash as the entree, serve the full half like this:

If you are using it as a side dish you can serve cut into quarters (or even slice through into half-circles):

I did put half in the freezer because I’m curious how the textures and flavors will react with freezing and thawing.  I’ll come back out and update this post when I take that one out of the freezer.

Enjoy your Saturday and the LAST DAY of WINTER!  It’s definitely going to feel like spring here this weekend!  In the 70s!  Nice!

– Shari B. =)

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The No-Slacker Tracker

Jan 19

Posted by Shari B. in FitFeature | 5 Comments

Hi friends!

Hope you had a great start to your week yesterday.  I have a feeling this one is going to fly by.  I have to show up tomorrow for that jury summons I mentioned a while back and knowing my luck I’ll get picked to sit for a trial.  Not that I mind serving my civic duty, I just think it’s a little lopsided seeing how MSP has never even received a summons.  :)   Actually the real reason I think I’ll get picked is because I’m totally slammed with things to accomplish this week at work and sitting on a jury will totally put me behind on my deadlines.  But I’m sure everyone feels that way when they get a jury summons in the mail, right?

Even though I was off work yesterday for MLK Day I still got up at the usual silly hour to get my workout in and get my day started.  First I did 30 minutes of yoga with Bob from the Biggest Loser (yes, I’m Team Bob.  You don’t even want to get me started on Jillian.  I have started writing many a post to discuss that particular issue of mine, but I figure I’ll get a lot of hate mail if I post it, so I always end up scrapping it! But I digress…)  So the yoga was actually pretty good – not terribly challenging though.  It is broken into different levels and since this was my first time using this particular DVD I decided to stick with level one.  I will need to try levels two and three to see if they are harder or more of the same just longer.

Since I didn’t feel like that was as much of a workout as I would normally do, I then did 20 minutes of the Exhale Core Fusion “Gluteal Toner” that I recorded from FitTV.  Similar to Physique 57, but actually a little too easy.

To wrap it all up, I added a few Tabata sets of thigh and hamstring moves to get a good burn going.

Afterward I had a terrific green smoothie.  I’ve been back to getting these in regularly again, and I can’t say enough how great I feel when I have one of these to start my day.

This beauty had banana, clementine, hemp protein, spinach, cucumber, a scoop of dried green superfoods, and a little bit of white chia seeds.  Lip smacking good!  Riley and Rascal thought so too… since they get a little bit of green smoothie in their bowl whenever I have one.  The pups need their greens too!

For an afternoon snack, I FINALLY ate some of that cute little kabocha squash that I bought recently.  I drizzled just a tiny bit of blackstrap molasses (a little goes a LONG way – it’s a STRONG flavor), and then sprinkled some cinnamon and some dried ginger on it.  (Yes I roasted the squash first!  Figured I bet put that out there, lest someone try this raw!)

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about with these.  Yes, there was a bit of a nuttier flavor than that of butternut squash but not different enough that I’ll drive all over town trying to track one of these down.  I think it was a fluke that I found it in the first place because when I went back to the store where I found it, they didn’t have any on the shelf.

Dinner was quick and easy, a usual requirement for my ‘cooking’.  Step one was opening a jar of 505 Green Chile:

(This one is even gluten-free, made with rice flour – which impressed me for some reason!)

Pour jar of chile into a small soup pan and heat over medium till bubbly.  Add egg(s) and ‘poach’ in the green chile.

I plated my egg on half of a whole wheat tortilla and then topped it with some nutritional yeast for ‘cheesy flavor’.

For extra cheese, eat while watching “The Bachelor” like we did.  ;)

***

As I mentioned yesterday, I thought I’d share with you my very simple method of keeping an eye on my level of exercise.  I have used other methods in the past, including spreadsheets and logging programs (like The Daily Plate).  However I like a very quick visual on whether I’m getting something done most days of the week.  Generally it’s pretty easy to keep track of in my head as well, but by that same token it’s also easy to “forget” some of those missed days here and there.

I print a blank calendar page and keep that page on my bulletin board just for this particular tracking.  This calendar doesn’t have anything else added to it: no appointments, birthdays, etc. For every day that I get in my exercise, I mark a star on that day, sometimes jotting a note about what I did that day.  If I don’t get a workout in, there is no star.

Now keep in mind that NOT having a star is not a bad thing, either.  I like to be sure I’m taking rest days when I need them, or at least active recovery days.  So this isn’t a matter of telling myself  “Uh oh, bad girl, no star for the day!”  This type of ‘dashboard view’ just lets me know at a glance if I’m slacking or if I’m overdoing it.

I took this picture on Friday and have since added my stars for Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  So 18 days into the new year, I’ve worked out 16 of the 18, averaging a rest day about every 9 days.

One could take this a step further and color-code their days, such as one color for cardio, one for strength, maybe another for yoga/flexibility.  Or if you are training for a marathon, you could mark one color for your speedwork/hill runs, one color for your tempo runs and a third for your long runs.  Or mark the days off as you do Cindy’s 30 Day Core Challenge. :)

No matter what goal you have or habit you might be trying to change, using this type of tracking can be a good tool to see quickly and easily how you’re doing on that journey.  For example, let’s say you wanted to increase your veggie intake.  You decide you want to eat veggies with at least 3 of your meals/snacks each day.  You could start a calendar with a marking system to show the days you met that goal, and the days you didn’t.  This might also show you some trending, such as not doing as well on Fridays as you do on Mondays, etc.

Are you a “tracker”?  How do you keep track of your workouts?  Or do you skip tracking/logging altogether?

***

OK, friends!  Off to train a client and then on to the other j-o-b.  Have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY!

– Shari B. =)

PS:  There is another Vitamix Giveaway going on in the blogosphere!  That is an AWESOME Giveaway!  Get yourself to Katie’s blog to enter!

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Review: The Kind Diet

Jan 9

Posted by Shari B. in Product Review | 10 Comments

As promised, I have finally finished reading The Kind Diet (Alicia Silverstone) and thought you might enjoy hearing a little about it, in case you are interested in her book or in moving to more plant-based nutrition.

***

The PROS:

The book is beautiful

Right off the bat you can tell that she cares how her message is presented.  The paper is thick and sturdy.  It has a very nice, easy-to-read layout with full-color photos throughout.  If you decide that you want to purchase this book, be sure to get the actual book and not the Kindle version.  You’ll really be missing out if you do.


The message comes through in a friendly way

One of my favorite quotes from this book is:

“When you make this journey in your own way, there’s no such thing as failure.”

That seems to sum up her attitude throughout the book.  I was welcomed in by her conversational writing style and felt like a friend was educating me on a topic for which she has a lot of passion.

She offers many facts and informational sidebars, without coming across as overly “preachy” about a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.

It is applicable to various levels of eating styles

She divides it into three eating plans of  Flirting, Vegan and Superhero.  People who are Flirting are learning about the lifestyle and aiming to cut down on their animal-product consumption (but not necessarily intending to go veggie) and she gives you a long list of ‘transitional’ foods that will help you switch out some of your favorites with something similar as you are getting started.  Her Vegan section includes rich and flavorful foods to show that you can still have things like cupcakes and tacos while enjoying a vegan lifestyle.  She also takes it one step further into what she calls the Superhero plan, where one learns to let their palate begin to appreciate the natural essence of vegan foods without many added spice or condiments.

I was pleasantly surprised to catch myself going “Huh… I didn’t know that” as I read along.  I learned a few new things, which is I appreciate. For example, I’d already been looking for miso that was NOT powdered and learned she recommends BARLEY miso (aged for at least two years).  Supposedly that has the highest level of “medicinal properties” when compared to other types of miso.  Additionally she taught me that you never want to add miso to the water or broth when it’s boiling or it can kill the enzymes so you want to add it at the end of cooking and simmer it for 2-3 minutes.

Chewing and digestion are important points in this book

And you know that makes me happy, because I am a stickler for wanting peeps to CHEW THEIR FOOD!  Myself included, because it’s easy to forget.  But good digestion starts in the mouth and I was tickled to see that Alicia touched on this a few times.

***

The Not-So-PROS
(I didn’t want to call them full-fledged “CONS”)


Many recipes call for Exotic Ingredients

She does have quite a few ingredients listed throughout that won’t be found at a ‘regular’ grocery store, so if you intend to use the book for recipes, hopefully you have a specialty healthfood store nearby.  Our local Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocer does now carry Umeboshi Plums (salt plums) and I just found them the other night.

Overuse of Two Obnoxious Words

“Yummy” and “sexy” were used all too often throughout.  I don’t really think of my food as sexy.  And I know foods needs to taste good and be yummy.   But those two words appeared a lot more than they needed to and it started to become distracting to me.

***

Recipe Tests:

Azuki Beans with Kabocha Squash:

This recipe was chosen from the Superhero recipe section of the book, so that means not a lot of spice action.  And to be honest you could tell.  As I had not yet found a Kabocha Squash at the time of making this recipe I subbed in Butternut (which the recipe mentioned would be fine.)

I made my beans from SCRATCH instead of relying on canned for probably the first time ever – and even soaked them with some Kombu seaweed as per the recipe:

It made a very hearty dish that provided me with plenty of easily reheatable lunches to-go for the week.  But I did have to add a few pinches of sea salt and nutritional yeast for some flavor each day because apparently I have not yet earned a Superhero’s taste buds.

Quinoa with Basil and Pine Nuts:

Again, I had to make a substitution because the pine nuts at Whole Foods were ridiculously expensive.  So MSP and I looked at each and said, “Who needs pine nuts??” and decided to use some sunflower seeds that we had on hand instead.  Wow was this dish aromatic.  I LOVE to use fresh basil in recipes – it smells amazing in the kitchen.  Because this was also a Superhero recipe, it too was a little bland so we had so give it some S&P the first night.  But the leftovers were REALLY flavorful because the basil had time to infuse with the rest of the dish.  So my tip would be to make this the day before you want to eat it.

***

Overall I have to say I really loved this book.  I want to go have tea with Alicia – she seems very fun to be around!  She is so passionate about animals and health that it’s hard not to get excited along with her.  This will be a book that will have a place in my kitchen, that I will refer to often, and will be all marked up with sticky notes.

Alicia has started a website (The Kind Life) which includes her blog as well.  I noticed yesterday she posted one of her recipes from the book, Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil, for you pizza lovers out there.

It retails for $29.99 but Amazon.com sells it for almost half that at $17.54.  I’ve added it to the FitFeat Faves Store, so if you want to check it out you can click HERE.

***

Have you read “The Kind Diet”?  If so, what were YOUR thoughts? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

Hope you are having a SUPER Saturday, friends!

– Shari B. =)

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Umeboshi, Kabocha, and Falafel .. Oh My!

Jan 8

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 2 Comments

Hello FitFeat Friends!  Welcome to the weekend!  Ahhh I’m so glad it’s Friday.

Thank you all for having fun with my “Twenty Questions” post from yesterday! I loved reading the replies, and Cindy I’m SO bummed your comment went “poof” off into a bloghole somewhere!

Oh my, where to start?  Guess we’ll start with the fact that I did NOT get a workout in yesterday.  :(   I was faced with working out or writing a blog post, and I just don’t like to let down my awesome readers!  To be fair, Tuesdays and Thursdays are tough days for me to get workouts in anyway, so it’s not biggie.  The weather will be above freezing this weekend so I know I’ll be outside making up for lost time.  Don’t go thinkin’ I’m slacking off or anything!

Yesterday’s eats were great!  I started with just a couple of bites of a Larabar before my first client.  Which held me over just fine for a bit.  Then I made a cinnamon raisin  Ezekial and almond butter sandwich to go, with a side of travel decaf.

For the record, I do not condone much eating while driving, because it’s ‘mindless munching’ where your brain is otherwise occupied and as such, not really registering all the face-stuffing going on.  But I am guilty of needing to do it on occasion and understand when clients need to as well.  Yesterday was the ridiculous snow day where people where driving like we got 2 feet of snow when in reality it was 2 inches — my 10 mile drive took AN HOUR on the interstate.

Lunch at my desk (lookout, blurry iPhone photos are running rampant in today’s post) consisted of a salad with mixed greens, dulse, grape tomatoes, broccoli, and sugar snap peas:

Along with a side of leftover Azuki & Squash dish from The Kind Diet:

(There WILL be a review.  I know I’ve been saying that all week – but I don’t want to rush it.  :)   It’s getting there, I promise!)

Midafternoon I had a BUBBLY!!!!  Mmmm you know that makes me happy!  I had a few bites of raw goat cheese along with it. Totally felt like I was at a wine tasting party.  Only better.

Dinner was at Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill with a very good friend.  We choose to do dinner since it’s been a bit too cold to SOCIALCIZE lately!  (Or as that particular friend calls it:  ChatterCize!  Love that!)  I had about half of this humongous falafel plate:

I think I’ll get at least three meals out of that one!  Yikes!  This time I asked for some extra pickled eggplant.  DEEE-VINE!

I went to the dinner location a bit early since there is a brand new Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocer nearby.  I’ve been skimping along this week at the end of my almond butter jar so I needed to make a stop.  In typical Shari style, leaving the store with the ONLY item I went in to get was not possible (because apparently I don’t have enough food in the house already):

First I finally found Umeboshi Plums!  During the course of reading and reviewing The Kind Diet I tried to find them at Whole Foods with no luck.  But they actually JUST got them in at VCNG.  Wahoo!  So excited to try one!

Next, I have been searching for a kabocha squash for a few months now.  I hear from everyone how great they are, how nutty they taste, and of course the recipe I made this week from Alicia’s book called for one (and I had to sub in butternut).  Finally found a little BABY KABOCHA to try!  Look how cute!

And last but not least, the almond butter I went in for in the first place.  I decided to splurge this time on the organic version.  Last time I just got the raw creamy Maranatha, because the organic version is DOUBLE the price of the non-organic jar.  But I thought for sure it tasted different and it was really bugging me.  So I got the organic and did a taste-test last night when I got home.

And it DOES taste different!  The raw is a more delicate, slightly sweeter flavor than the non-organic.  So I wasn’t crazy (well maybe crazy but for other reasons!) I will need to do further reading on whether I want to justify the cost of the organic.  I spent more than ONE HOUR of PAY on that jar!  I’m telling ya, this part-time job is solely to support my health food store addiction!  :)

***

Well friends, I better hit the ‘publish button’ on this post so that maybe my friends on the west coast will have a little light reading to do while they are watching the clock count down to 5:00.  ;)   I think it’s time to have a little glass of wine to celebrate the arrival of Friday evening, and I have a feeling there will be a bit of Wii Resort in my evening!

Have a FABULOUS Friday and an even better weekend!  I’ll be back again tomorrow!

– Shari B. =)

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