Sunday, July 28, 2013

New beginnings

Hello friends!

I apologize for the lack of posts over the last seven months... I would like to say I have been all around the world and back. But actually, I have been!

I recently made some new goals and wanted to share them with you. For a while, I got so caught up with minute details of life that health and fitness took a back seat. Unfortunately, it's hard to get back into the swing of things after taking a break. I decided to transition gradually which has worked well so far!

Let's first start with the eats. I decided to get back into juicing...hooray for that one, because vegetable juice makes me feel so much healthier on the inside and so energetic. So, I began juicing last week and I am still on the juice train.

Last year, I got a steamer and I never used it because it had so many parts and it was overwhelming to figure it out. (Strange I know). I decided that I would take it out of the box this weekend and do some steaming.

Of course, I had to start my first steaming experience with a fancy recipe. I made some vegetable dumplings with a side of baked brown rice. Yes, baked brown rice. The verdict? Delicious.


Baked brown rice
  • 1 cup uncooked brown rice
  • 1 2/3 cups water
  • 1 tsp salt
Combine all ingredients in a baking pan. Cover with two layers of aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for one hour.


Vegetable dumplings
  • 1 bag broccoli slaw
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 block firm tofu, chopped into thin slices
  • 1 1/4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 inch ginger
  • 1 1/2 tbsp chopped cilantro
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 package wonton wrappers

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except for the wonton wrappers. Gently mix. Spoon the mixture into the wonton wrappers and seal the wrappers by brushing the corners with water.



Place the sealed wrappers into a steamer and steam for 12 minutes. I steamed them in batches of 6-7 to ensure that there was enough space between each one in the steamer.


Serve with brown rice, more soy sauce, or chili sauce.


I am quite excited to eat these for lunch all week!

On the workout front, I have been fascinated by tabata recently. Tabata workouts are the definition of short and sweet -- extremely short and extremely sweaty! I have also been doing more yoga, which has been my goal for quite sometime. Last week, I opened up this upper body workout I found in Women's Health. Don't let it deceive you! It was harder than I thought it was, and I was sore for a couple of days afterwards. That's what I like to call success!

Anyone have any new workouts to recommend? How about any recipes that use a steamer?