Rice Noodle Salad Bowl

Even though the calendar says fall, it certainly still feels like summer down here in San Diego! So here's a hearty salad bowl to combine a little of both seasons.

Ingredients

Chicken:

• 3/4 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken
• 2 T Soy Sauce
• 1 tsp Sesame Oil
• 2 tsp Ginger Minced

Salad:

• 1 Head Romaine Lettuce
• 3-4 Green Onions (FODMAP followers use green part only)
• 1/4 cup Cilantro
• 3/4 cup Carrots
• 2 cups Mandarin Oranges, drained and rinsed (FODMAP followers avoid those in pear juice or with HFCS)
• 3 oz. Rice Vermicelli Noodles (cook according to package directions) a drizzle with a small amount of sesame oi.
• 1 TB Sesame Seeds, toasted if desired.

Dressing:

• 1/2 Lime juice
• 1T Soy Sauce
• 1T Rice Vinegar
• 1/2 T Sesame Oil
• Pinch Sugar

Instructions

1. Marinate chicken breast in soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger (30 minutes to a couple hours).
2. Grill chicken until cooked thoroughly and then slice in thin strips. 
3. Rinse and chop Lettuce and Carrots
4. Place Lettuce and Carrots in a bowl and dry with a towel.
5. Top with Noodles
6. Add Sliced Chicken and Oranges
7. Drizzle with dressing, top with cilantro, green onions and diced peanuts. 
8. Enjoy!
   

Roy Swim

 Living in San Diego I always have a need for a great bathing suit, but I don't want to just settle for one at Target. So when royswim approached me I was pretty excited. Not just because her suits are custom made in the USA (She just moved from NY to Santa Cruz), or because they fit perfectly, but because in her plethora of colors and patterns, she has one that is all cats! Now I can be a beachy cat lady!

 Her fabrics are buttery soft and completely customizable and most designs are 2 sided! You want floral? tribal? stripes? gold? pink? BOOM! She can do it and it'll look gorgeous! I chose Kitten and Shiny Rust. I honestly can't rave about these enough. The suit fits perfect! I can't wait to rock my crazy cat lady beach getup all year long!!

Avocado Festival 2015

 

This weekend was the fantastic California Avocado Festival in Carpenteria! This year was the first time that I got the full experience: camping on the beach, avocado treats all day and music all night. Here are a few little gems from this awesome coastal festival.

 Robitaille's has been satisfying sweet-toothes for over 40 years. And the continue to deliver. My personal favorite are all the crazy gummy flavors, but they've also got chocolate covered everything and locally made fudge, along with candy from back in the day like pop-rocks, gummy pizzas, lavender gum, you name it.

 One of the best parts of the festival is that it's just blocks from the beach. There's RV and tent camping, but you do need to plan far in advance to get a spot for this weekend. But if you don't, bring your suit for a dip in the pacific, and maybe some gasoline for the tar. If you're not from coastal California you may not know that tar comes seeping out of the earth, and it's very sticky, and they easiest way to get it off of your skin is gasoline.

 

This is Murphy, he has nothing to do with the festival, but he's very cute.  Tip on how to make friends: walk around with a 60 pound puppy, everyone will want to talk to you. 

So that's the avocado festival, put it on your calendar and don't miss out next year!

GoPro video coming soon.

Summer Veggie Rice Bowl

      In case you didn't know, summers in Southern California are hot. Like "I don't wanna eat anything kuz I'm about to melt" hot. So I've gotten a bit stuck on what to make for dinner. One night I decided to pull whatever I wanted to eat out of the fridge and figure out a meal to make out of it. Voila! Cold Veggie Rice Bowl. It's colorful, it's yummy, and it'll make you say "Wow, I'm so super healthy!"

Ingredients:
1/2 c Cooked Rice
1/2 Bell Pepper
1/4 Small Jicama
Handful of Cherry Tomatoes (or 1 regular Tomato)
3 basil Leaves
4 Sprigs of Cilantro, just the leaves
2 Tbs Goat Cheese
Drizzle of Soy Sauce

Dressing:
Apple Cider Vinegar
Garlic Olive Oil
Salt Pepper

 1. Dice all the Veggies (Bell Pepper, Jicama, Tomato) and Herbs (Cilantro and Basil) and combine in bowl

 2. Add Oil, Vinegar, Salt and Pepper. Let sit. The longer you let it sit the more water the salt will pull out and the less soggy your bowl will be. Don't understand that? Ask your high school Bio teacher!

3. Prepare Rice according to instructions.

 4. Put rice in a bowl and add a drizzle of Soy (or Soja) sauce. Top with Veggie combo. Do not dump in the extra liquid in the bottom of the Veggies! Unless you want a soggy mess...
5. Crumble Goat cheese on top.
6. Dig in!!

Other Suggestions:
Things to add to the veggie mixture. MAY NOT BE LOW FODMAP
Cucumber, Beans (black, kidney, garbanzo), cold lentils, carrots, mushrooms, any veggie you want!

Citrus Berry Crumble for One

     SO many berries, so little time. As a result I've had quite a few go bad or soft or wrinkly. So here's an easy way to use them! I've been playing with this recipe for the last week and I think I finally like this one best.

Crumble:
Half a Lemon
Handful of Berries
Sprinkle of Sugar

Topping:
1 Tbs Coconut Oil
1 Tbs Almond Flour
1 Tbs Oats
1 tps Brown Sugar


1. Place one thin slice of lemon with skin removed in the bottom of the ramekin

2. Wash blueberries and put them in the ramukin
3. Sprinkle with sugar and mix them up

4. On a seperate plate mix Coconut oil, Almond flour, Oats and Brown Sugar until well combined

5. Crumble over blueberries

6. Top with a little sprinkle of Sugar
7. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until you see purple liquid bubbling up around the sides.

8. Remove and let cool for 10 minutes and top with any yumminess!

Fruit Crisp for 1, or Everyone!

Summer means lots of yummy new fruits! How many times has this happened to you: you buy a bunch of delicious fruit, but before you can eat all of it, the summer heat turns parts of them to mush.
Well now you can turn a few bits of those fruits into a delicious dessert!

I like this recipe because you don't need too much of each ingredient to make it, and you can just make a little treat for your self.  Of you can double, triple, octuple it to share with friends!

I made this recipe low FODMAP for people that can tolerate fructose, but it can easily be made more "typical" (I'll put suggestions at the bottom of the page). I tried a gluten filled butter version while away from my home kitchen and it got pretty good reviews.  I used yellow nectarines but I see no reason why you couldn't use any other fruit.

Recipe:
1 cup diced Fruit (roughly 1 peach, nectarine, apple, etc)
1/2 T Maple Syrup (or other sweetener)

1/4 cup Almond Flour
1/8 cup Oats
1 1/2 T Coconut Oil
1 T Maple Syrup
1/4 t cinnamon
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine Fruit and sweetener in dish

3. Combine Flour, Oats, Coconut Oil, sweetener, cinnamon, and salt. Mix until it seems to be one mixture.

4. Crumble on top of Peach mixture.

5. Cook for 30 minutes, until the top gets a bit crispy. It may take a bit shorter or longer depending on the fruit (longer for apples, a bit shorter for over ripe peaches, shorter for berries)
6. Remove and let cool a bit then enjoy! Top with ice cream, yogurt, cheese, whipped cream, get creative.

The end picture are for 3 times the recipe. I was in a pinch for dishes and I found this gem at a thrift store (yes I checked that it was oven safe). Plus now I get to share it.

Substitutions:
Fruit: Peach, Nectarine, Apple, Pear, Strawberry, Blueberry, you get the point.
Maple Syrup: Honey, Sugar, Agave
Almond Flour: Any type of Flour
Coconut Oil: Butter, Margerine

low FODMAP,  not low FODMAP

Morro Bay

The view across the bay to Morro Rock

      This past week I finally got some free time to head up the coast to Morro Bay. I don't think I'd been there since I was a wee tot.  Here's some highlights from the trip!

     We camped at Morro Bay State Park, which was lovely. Personally I recommend trying to get a campsite on the upper loop, as we did for our second night. The campsites there are in a stand of eucalyptus, rather than out in an open field, so it feels more private.

     We spent our first day setting up and wandering around the marina.  We made our way up to Cayoucos to the Brown Butter Cookie Company.  These guys have amazing cookies!! I really regret not taking a picture inside, because you can see the cookies being baked right in front of you.  They even had 3 gluten free options!

     We made a delicious camp dinner (especially considering this was our first camping trip on our own) and a little campfire and that's about it.

Steak, Salad and Gluten Free Mac & Cheese. Keeping it low FODMAP on the road.

     The next morning we work up to mourning doves and got a jump start on our day with some breakfast burritos!
     Then we threw everything in the car and moved to our second campsite. Surprise, booking a campsite in the summer is difficult, so we're lucky we got  2 consecutive nights, even if it wasn't at the same site.

 

The second day was pretty packed.

     We grabbed kayaks and went across the bay to run around to the sand dunes that I had been dying to play on since the moment we'd arrived. Apparently there was a beached whale somewhere that was attracting a lot of harbor seals and other wildlife, but I've been down wind of a beached whale once before and it's not something I'd like to repeat.

     After a quick paddle back with the tide helping us along, we made lunch and set out for Montano de Oro State Park.   It's only about 10 minutes away from Morro Bay and well work the drive.  The scenery changes vastly when you get out the the area that faces the ocean. 

The little hook coming off Mondano de Oro is surrounding Spooner Cove

    We ended up at Spooner Cove, with is stunning. It's covered in perfectly smoothed beach stones (sorry southern California pals, this is not a sandy beach). And when we were there were heaps of beached Velella Velella.  They're basically like jelly fish that use a sail on the top of their body to skim across the waves, but if the winds change, they can get blow onto the beaches in hundreds.  The perfect treat for a bio nerd.

A dead Velella Velella

   But outside than biological oddities, it is still a great place.

A natural rock "pier" that you can walk out on, as long as the tide is low enough for you to get back.

The signature hole in the rock and my wonderful camping buddy.

     The second night we were relieved from our duties as camp cooks by the SLO Farmer's Market.  If there is a way to arrange your trip so you're there on a Thursday, you have to do it.  The market is 5 big blocks long, with musical performers at every intersection.  There's barbeque, fresh veggies, and most importantly, all sorts of sweet treats.

     But none so sweet as a view down their famous bubble gum alley! I remember putting my gum on this wall when I first came here at 5 years old, and I was probably just as excited this time! We left our mark on SLO in the shape of a lucky green mint clover.

We packed up or happy little camp the next morning and headed out to our next adventure.