Fig Nation

Figs are delicious so let's discuss.

Aside from their beautiful colors, sweet taste and adorable shape, figs are great to add to a meal or to snack on by themselves. They contain a good amount of nutrients too...so what's not to love?! (Rhetorical question but the simple answer would be nothing.)

~ When should you eat them?
They're best during the summer and autumn seasons.

~ Lower your blood pressure!
Figs help to naturally increase potassium in the body, which in turn helps lower blood pressure. Score.

~ Watching your weight?
Due to the high fibre content, figs help you feel fuller faster. Your food cravings will subside and they'll help with digestive wellness. Double score!

~ Get rid of acne!
If you have acne, try mashing a fig and applying it to your skin. The high water content makes figs a perfect cleanser.

~ Increase your bone density!
You can thank all of the Calcium and Potassium found in figs for this one.

~ Beast mode kidney function!
Have some fig leaf extract to help lower fat levels in your kidneys...therefore helping them to function better.

*Enjoy in moderation because too many tend to have a laxative effect on the body due to all of the oxalates. ;)

How I like them:

I like to cut these little guys in half and broil them with some agave or maple syrup (if you aren't feeling the agave and you aren't vegan, honey will do) on top for 8-10 minutes, or until the tops start to bubble. Serve warm by themselves or if you're a cheese eater, try some goat cheese. They're also great on vanilla ice cream (or banana ice cream), in a fresh salad (kale, anyone?), with baked sweet potato, pomegranate, or anything else you think up. Figs rock.

(As you can see, I was running extremely low on tinfoil.)

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How To Be Sushi Savvy

I challenge you to never buy sushi again.

If you cannot accept this challenge, I understand because I will not accept it myself due to laziness. Sometimes I just really don't feel like making food. During those times I make the wise decision to buy sushi.

Let me teach you how to prepare your own sushi so that you have the option of making it if you aren't feeling so lazy.

Sushi is extremely easy to make, hence why I made it for lunch. So why would you ever be lazy enough to buy it?

Well:

~ Making sushi requires pouring some water and rice into a rice cooker, pressing the power button and watching Netflix for 20 minutes until the cooker finishes doing its thing.

~ Rolling sushi requires a tiny bit of finger strength.

Think you can handle it? GREAT. Let's get started.

But before we begin I should mention that due to lack of supplies (a bamboo rolling sheet), I opted for a clean dish towel to place underneath my seaweed. I didn't find this to be a problem at all and it's a great solution if you don't have a bamboo sheet hanging out in your kitchen.


Ingredients:

~ Sushi rice - 1/2 cup

~ Any kind of vegetable(s) you would like to add (I used cucumber and bean sprouts)

~ Seaweed sheet - 1

~ Pepper (optional)

~ Soy sauce (optional)



Directions:

1. Cook your sushi rice.

2. Fold your dish towel in half and lay it down flat. Or, if you have a bamboo sheet, lay that out flat. Place 1 sheet of seaweed on top of your towel.

3. Spread the sushi rice evenly over the seaweed. The rice is sticky so I would advise you spread it with the back of a spoon, or if you would prefer to use your hands, wet your fingers with some water to avoid sticking.

4. Shred (or chop/slice/cut) your vegetables of choice into long strips. Place the vegetables one by one in a horizontal line. They should be placed about 1 inch from the bottom of the seaweed sheet. (First photo shows cucumber, second photo shows bean sprouts added.) I chose to sprinkle some pepper onto the rice after this. The choice is yours.

5. Now you roll. Don't be scared, it's only sushi. Take the bottom of the sheet and tuck as closely to the vegetables as possible. You are essentially wrapping the seaweed around the vegetables. Then begin to roll the entire sheet into a tube, from the bottom up. Keep rolling pretty tightly.

6. Finish off the rolling and make sure the seem of the seaweed is sealed. Move the roll onto a plate.

7. Using a serrated knife, cut your sushi into evenly spaced pieces.

Congratulations! You just made your first roll! Eat with chopsticks or your fingers and dip in soy sauce if you'd like.

I love that so much can be done with sushi making. There is a never-ending variety of delicious combinations to go into a roll. Now that you know how to make some very simple sushi, don't be afraid to get creative!

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Little Inspirations

I'm feeling really inspired lately, probably because spring must be on it's way eventually...although the forecast says snow and more snow. I've been reading blogs that I'm interested in, pinning on Pinterest and writing in my journal nonstop. Even with all of this, I think everybody could use a little extra nudge sometimes. I could use that nudge right now. I figure there's no better way than to share with the internet world that I am going to stay good to my body - eat well, exercise well, sleep well. Then I will feel well. :) Let's count this as a pact.

Story time:

I went downstairs to search for ingredients to make a healthy lunch just 30 minutes or so ago. Being at my parent's house, they don't care quite as much about living a fully healthy lifestyle as I do. I searched the fridge and the pantry and with nothing really healthy and appetizing in sight. Then I laid my eyes on an unopened box of Valentine's Day chocolate. Dun dun dun...

I'll let you imagine what happened after that. So yeah, I really need this extra nudge of motivation.

First we have this little quote. Tres inspirational. I'm a top notch procrastinator so let's try to remember this one. Ya got that, Isabelle?

No more giving power to the Valentine's Day chocolates. They didn't even taste that good and Valentine's Day is so three days ago. Let's not forget that one either.

Here's a little warm weather inspiration. I think Candice might be from a different dimension with that bangin' bod but a girl can dream, right?!

'If you don't trust yourself, no one else is going to, either.'


More inspirational pics are coming your way so stay tuned, folks. Enjoy the snow and keep in mind that hibernation is coming to an end!

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Lazy Lunch - Coconut quinoa with almonds and cranberries

Making food in the middle of the day can be a pain. What are we supposed to do if we're hungry, need some good nutrients, but don't want to cook up a big meal or spend our hard earned money? I'll tell you what we do. We make coconut quinoa!

This takes about 15 minutes but you're only preparing food for a solid 60 seconds.

Coconut quinoa with almonds and cranberries:

You will need:

~ Quinoa - However much

~ Coconut milk - 1 part milk for every 1 part water

~ Almonds - 1 handful

~ Cranberries - 1 handful


Instructions:

1. Begin by cooking the quinoa with 1 part water, 1 part coconut milk.

2. When quinoa is ready, prepare in bowl and mix in almonds and cranberries.

3. Drizzle a little more coconut milk if desired.

And then we feast.

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Sunny Summer Dinners - Spinach salad with mango, strawberry, blueberry, avocado and feta cheese

I really love Toronto in the summer time because I can finally come out of hiding in my apartment and get some good old Vitamin D. If it's not summer time here, it's freezing. I'm talking winter, fall and spring too. All three of those seasons are for hibernating until summer comes around. Now that it's finally warm again, I'm taking full advantage by spending all day everyday in the sun. The sun, as you probably know, makes people very hot. And while some people have the luxury of going back to their air conditioned apartments, I am a broke student living in a studio apartment and air conditioning is not available. That being said, I need to eat cool and refreshing dinners. Since today was an especially hot and humid day, I needed an especially fresh and cool dinner. My food options in my refrigerator are pretty limited right now so I thought about what I had a lot of. Fruit. So that's how I came up with this genius salad! It's an easy one to make. Just chop chop, snip snip and you're good to go.

Spinach salad with mango, strawberry, blueberry, avocado and feta cheese:

Ingredients:

I know you're really curious to find out what's in this salad.

~Spinach - As much or little as you'd like
~Mango - 1/2
~Strawberry - 4 or 5
~Blueberry - Plop on as many as you want
~Avocado - 1/2
~Feta cheese - Crumble to your heart's content
~Maple balsamic dressing

Instructions:

Step 1: Cut up a bunch of spinach leaves and place them in a bowl.

Step 2: Cut a mango and dice 1/2. Save the second half for another time.

Step 3: Slice the strawberries vertically.

Step 4: Cut an avocado and dice 1/2. You guessed it, save the second half for another time.

Step 5: Toss the mango, strawberries and avocado onto the salad. Add blueberries.

Step 6: Crumble as much or as little feta as you'd like.

Step 7: Add the maple balsamic dressing.

Enjoy!


Cinnamon Toast:

This is a silly little side dish but it's delicious and so quick to make.

Ingredients:

~Bread - 1 slice, I use spelt bread
~Butter - just enough to coat one slice of bread
~Cinnamon

Instructions:

Step one: Generously butter one slice of bread. Shake cinnamon on top. I personally think the more the better.

Step 2: Put it in the toaster.

Genius! Enjoy!

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Rainy Sunday Breakfasts - 3 ingredient pancakes

I woke up this morning with my sister, Maddie, packing her things to leave Toronto. She was here for 3 days and everybody - and everything - was sad she was going. While she was here we made lots of delicious foods that I really should have taken pictures of for this blog. We also went to the Beyonce and Jay Z On The Run tour (which was one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed in my life) and we explored all over the city. We went to the downtown, to china town and to hippie town. We covered it all, basically. I was sad to see her go this morning and so was the sky. It was raining - no, it was pouring tears. Once Maddie was out the door I really didn't feel like doing much. It was early morning and the sky was grey and it was a Sunday. I think I can speak for everybody when I say that Sundays are for being lazy. I wasn't really in the mood to make some extravagant breakfast and to make sure I got every nutrient I needed to fuel my body throughout the day. I decided on making 3 ingredient pancakes. Quick and simple. But wait! These pancakes DO have the ingredients I need to fuel my boy throughout the day! Protein and fruit! All I needed extra was a side of toast!

3 ingredient pancakes:

Ingredients:
~Banana - 1
~Eggs - 2
~Baking powder - 1 tsp

The simple instructions:

Step 1 : Mash a banana to complete mush with a fork.

Step 2: Whisk 2 eggs, add a teaspoon of baking powder.

Step 3: Mix the eggs, banana and baking powder together.

Step 4: Heat on a pan. Poor the mix into circles about the size of your fist. They are ready to flip when bubbles start to form on top, just the same way you would wait to flip a 'normal' pancake.

Enjoy!

Feel free to add anything your heart desires to the pancakes. Blueberries, dark chocolate, milk chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, the list goes on and on.

I made a couple with blueberries and a couple plain. Then as toppings I used a number of different things such as almond butter, cacao butter, macadamia nut butter and maple syrup. My favorite combination is the almond butter and maple syrup. That's really my favorite combination on everything. It never fails.

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