Nourishment Lately 8.9.18

{from my trip home in July ❤️ 7.7.18}

It’s been a while since I have shared one of these posts, so I thought I’d pop in today to share a few favorite things that have been bringing me nourishment lately!

Siggi’s 4% touch of honey yogurt. I know that I have talked about Siggi’s before, but my level of obsession with it has brought me to mention it again. Greg and I have both been eating Siggi’s touch of honey yogurt every day for breakfast – with a bit of homemade granola and a bit of fruit for me. It is the best fuel.

French press coffee. Greg and I got our French press probably about six years ago, and for most of those six years, it was something that we used only on special occasions. For the past few months though, I have been obsessed with the French press and it is how I have been making my coffee every weekend morning. I am loving the slowness and routine of it – grinding the beans, boiling the water, stirring it together, waiting for it to brew and then pressing it. Currently in love with that. I’m not 100% sure of the brand we have, but I’m almost certain it’s the one I linked above.

Victory Brewing Company’s Sour Monkey. In the alcohol department, this is it for me right now. Greg and I have both been loving sour beers lately, and everything about this one is just right – very sour and very tart.

Popsugar Fitness boot camp videos. Specifically this one and this one right now. I like adding these into my routine a couple of times a week, and I am really liking the boot camp style workout. I also really like being able to do this at home.

Big Magic. I’m a big Elizabeth Gilbert fan, and while I’ve known about this book for a while, it just now has called on me to read it. I am absolutely loving it so far – it’s the right read at the right time for me.

Summer Steak and Egg Salad with Honey Dijon Dressing

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It feels a bit weird to be posting this recipe after being a plant-based blog for so many years. I know I haven’t talked much on here about incorporating meat back into what I eat, but this is what most dinners look like for Greg and I these days. Animal protein, lots of veggies, all whole foods and little to no grains. This exact meal is so, so good, but is also very easily modified. Let’s talk about it:

Greens:
Use any type of salad greens here that you’d like: spinach, mixed greens, any type of lettuce, kale, arugula, etc. Anything would be good!

Toppings:
For this version we used: cucumber, thinly sliced red onion and sunflower seeds. I don’t usually like raw red onion, but when sliced thin enough, it adds amazing flavor to this salad. For the sunflower seeds – I like to have something with a crunch on my salads. You could also use any kind of nut here. We used cucumber because we have a ton of garden cucumbers right now, but any other veggie addition would be wonderful in this. I highly recommend avocado – we just didn’t have any the night we took photos of this.

Dressing:
Homemade dressing is the way to go! This is a super basic, super easy to make homemade honey Dijon dressing. You just add a few ingredients to a jar, and shake it all together. It is so, so good and so much better than store bought.

Protein:
You could really use any protein on this salad that you’d like, but the combination that we used – hard boiled eggs and steak is so, so good. I used two small flat iron steaks, seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked for a few minutes on each side, until they reached 140 degrees. I let them rest 10 minutes before slicing and they were just right.

Assembly:
This makes a big difference to me when it comes to salads – rather than topping all the salad ingredients with dressing, I like to add most of my salad ingredients into a big bowl, then toss well with the dressing so that everything is coated in dressing. For this salad, I tossed the spinach, red onion, cucumber and sunflower seeds with the dressing and then topped each serving with the steak and eggs.

I’m going to type up more of a recipe below, but for me, the key to salads is just having a variety of ingredients and textures, with everything tossed together with a homemade dressing. Meals like this taste amazing and make me feel amazing, so I hope that this inspires you to make something like this, too.

Summer Steak and Egg Salad with Honey Dijon Dressing

Servings 2

Ingredients

Greens (could be spinach, kale, lettuce, etc.)
Cucumber
Red onion
1/3 cup Sunflower seeds
Hard boiled eggs
2 flat iron steaks

For the dressing:

1/4 cup avocado oil (or other mild-flavored oil)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions

Prep your vegetables: slice cucumber and thinly slice red onion.
Make the salad dressing: combine all ingredients in a jar and shake well until combined.
For the steak: Let steaks come to room temperature. Season each side well with salt and pepper. Cook over medium high heat, about 3-4 minutes each side, until internal temperature reads 140 degrees. Remove from heat, let rest 10 minutes. Slice for salad.
To assemble the salad: In a bowl, toss together greens, cucumber, red onion, sunflower seeds and dressing. Place on plates and top with hard boiled eggs and steak.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

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The meal I’m sharing today is definitely not the prettiest meal, but it was the tastiest new meal that we’ve made in a while. And, it’s super simple, healthy, satisfying and is definitely going to be added to our weeknight meal rotation. There are three parts to this meal: the sweet potato, the protein and the toppings (guac!). Here are the details:

Sweet potatoes:
I roast sweet potatoes weekly and here’s how I do it: wash the sweet potatoes, prick them all over with a fork, wrap tightly in aluminum foil, place in the oven (450°) and bake until soft – usually 45 minutes to an hour, depending on their size.

Protein:
For this particular meal, I used ground pork (that I buy locally!). I cooked it in a skillet with the green chile sauce pictured below. The flavor of the pork on its own was actually kind of subtle – it did just a have bit of spice to it – but was excellent in the dish as a whole. You could really use any protein you wanted in this recipe – meat or plant-based. I think almost anything would work!

Guacamole:
I love making gauc and usually do it the same every time. For this batch, I used three avocados, the juice of two limes, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. I blend everything together until very smooth in my Ninja.

Tomatoes:
I mixed cherry tomatoes with a touch of avocado oil, fresh cilantro, salt and pepper. Simple and delicious.

Putting the meal together is so simple: Split open the sweet potato and fill with your protein of choice. Top with lots (and lots) of guacamole, tomatoes and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro, and enjoy!

This meal was not photogenic, so I didn’t include many photos, but it was oh so nourishing and tasty.

*Note about the green chile sauce I use in this recipe – I am all about making things from scratch, but there are a few things that I will buy already made – things like the green chile sauce I used in this recipe. I am super picky about buying packaged goods, and the green chile sauce that I bought from Wegman’s passed my test. It was made with minimal ingredients and they were all whole, real ingredients that I would have used at home.

Summer Cooking Inspiration – Herbed Zucchini Noodles with Grilled Shrimp and Tomatoes

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In an effort to share more of what we love and what we cook, here is the first in hopefully a little series of summer cooking inspiration posts.

These posts will serve as just that – inspiration. I won’t have exact recipes of what we made – I will just share photos of the process and notes of what we did in hopes that it inspires you to cook something that makes you happy.

This one was a perfect summertime meal – zucchini noodles with grilled shrimp and tomatoes. We cooked this meal on our charcoal grill and enjoyed every moment of a perfect not-quite-summer evening.

Here’s what we did:

Zucchini noodles:
We spiralized 3 large zucchinis and tossed them generously with olive oil, salt and pepper. We actually cooked these on the grill, in our vegetable grate, and it worked so well. We cooked them, tossing often, for about ten minutes. Right before we pulled them off the grill, we added minced garlic and freshly chopped herbs. We used herbs from our garden – basil and rosemary. Once off the grill, we mixed in fresh lemon juice.

Shrimp and tomatoes:
We skewered the shrimp and tomatoes separately. To season, we mixed minced garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and a ton of fresh lemon zest. We brushed this on both the tomatoes and shrimp before going onto the grill, and then again once we flipped them on the grill. We cooked the tomatoes until the were slightly blistered, and they were just perfect in this dish.

The dinner:
For putting the meal together, we just topped the zucchini noodles with the grilled shrimp and tomatoes. We didn’t do this, but thought that it would also be great topped with a bit of fresh Parmesan cheese.

One thing we would change next time is adding a bit more seasoning to the zucchini noodles. We’d probably add more salt, pepper and herbs, lemon juice and maybe a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Our favorite part of the meal was the marinade/seasoning mix we made for the shrimp and tomatoes. The combo of olive oil, minced garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper was so, so delicious and the flavor really came through nicely in the dish. We will be making that again to put on many things. I think the key was using a lot of lemon zest – I used the zest from one large and thoroughly zested lemon.

Take a look:

Nourishment Lately – Sedona

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Sedona was beyond nourishing. I have never visited a place that had quite the effect on my being, and a week after returning, I’m still reflecting on what that effect was/is. One thing I’ve mustered: I need to work on recreating the feeling that I had there, here. The calmness, the energy, the centeredness.

I know that it’s easy to feel calmer and happier on vacation, away from any stressors at home, but this was different. I knew that I’d love being somewhere new, I knew I’d love the hiking and biking and sunshine and exploration. But I didn’t know I’d leave Sedona and come home feeling the way that I do about it. I didn’t know that I’d feel such a draw to go back, as soon as possible. I didn’t know that the very night I got back from the trip, I’d be sitting on my couch searching Airbnb for Sedona rentals. I didn’t know that I’d refer to Sedona as my favorite place.

I think it was the air, the sunshine, the lifestyle, the energy. Sedona is my soul-place.

Although Greg and I hiked (and biked) every day while there, I only took my camera out one time. Here is what we saw: