Bisogno Pasta: Gluten-Free & Vegan

May 21, 2014

Bisogno Pasta: Gluten-Free & Vegan

What a treat I have in store for all of my readers who suffer a gluten intolerance or happen to be following a vegan diet 🙂 Today I want to introduce you to Bisogno Pasta! They are a California based brand and currently sell their products in Southern California. Luckily for all us Northern Californians, Bisogno Pasta are currently expanding to the Bay Area, woo hoo!

I came across Bisogno Pasta and was instantly intrigued by them. Why? Because they are the only fresh gluten free and vegan pasta currently on the market. Their nutritional values were super impressive, boasting 20g of protein (as much as 4 ounces of chicken) and 23g of fiber (basically fulfilling how much fiber you need in a day). Their pasta is made from lentil flour and water and so absolutely no gluten, wheat, corn, rice, soy, dairy OR eggs were used at all!

I really wanted to try Bisogno Pasta because I have tried a few gluten-free pastas for fun but honestly, they were all kind of … lacking. Bisogno Pasta kindly sent me samples of their three flavors of pasta: beet, lemon parsley, and spinach. My boyfriend and I had a lot of fun thinking up some recipe’s to try out the pasta and were seriously so impressed. The texture and taste were both fantastic, and I would never had known that it was missing wheat and eggs if I had not known beforehand. I think my favorite was the spinach pasta (who doesn’t want a way to incorporate more veggies into their diet?) but my boyfriend preferred the lemon parsley. All flavors were fantastic though, and I encourage you to try them!

Here are some photos of what we made followed by the recipes 🙂

Spinach and lemon parsley pasta with cashew pesto and smoked salmon

Ingredients

1 serving of spinach bisogno pasta
1 serving of lemon parsley bisogno pasta
4-8 ounces of smoked salmon (I used honey smoked salmon)
Cashew pesto – I used walnuts instead of cashews in mine however because I had run out of cashews!
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese to garnish
A few basil leaves to garnish

Serves 2 people

1. Prepare the cashew pesto first and then set aside for now.
2. Prepare the bisogno pasta according to instructions – boil in hot water for 4 minutes.
3. Serve pasta and top with a generous serving of cashew pesto, smoked salmon and parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

Beet pasta with Thai style chicken

Ingredients

1 serving of beet bisogno pasta
16 ounces of chicken
1 can of coconut milk
1 cup chicken stock
1 sliced carrot
2 cups of cauliflower
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fish sauce
1tsp red chilli flakes (feel free to add more if you like spice!)
OPTIONAL – 1 cup enoki mushrooms

Thai style chicken will serve 4. Make 4 servings of bisogno pasta to use all of it or store the rest away as leftovers.

1. Prepare the thai style chicken 1 day in advance. Using a slow cooker/crockpot, put all of the ingredients (minus the bisogno pasta) into your slow cooker and set on ‘LOW’ for 7-8 hours. Keep in slow cooker on ‘WARM’ setting until you make your pasta.
2. Make bisogno pasta according to directions – boil for 4 minutes.
3. Serve pasta with 1/4 of the chicken that you made. The chicken will serve 4 people and is a great leftover meal!

I cannot waaaait until Bisogno Pasta expands to the Bay Area. When it does it is going to be a constant in my kitchen! Can’t wait to make people think they are eating normal pasta and then tell them the nutritional profile hehe.

I am curious, how many of you are actually gluten-free and vegan?

Honestly yours,
Alice

DISCALIMER: I was not paid to write about bisogno pasta. I only ever write about brands which I believe in and have high quality and healthy products.

Fitness, Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 12

May 18, 2014

kayla itsines week 12

Wow. I cannot believe I have finished Kayla Itsines 12 week bikini body guide! Feels surreal that it has already passed so quickly … 12 weeks is a really interesting amount of time. In the grand scheme of things it really is not that long, but at the same time, so much can happen in 12 weeks. In the course of these past 12 weeks, I have:

finished Kayla Itsines bikini body guide (try it here for free for a week!)
finished my first year of graduate school (don’t know how that happened lol)
watched my blog grow, receiving over 1,400 visitors at its peak
became an I’m Fit Possible ambassador
joined the POPSUGAR select fitness program
continued my yoga practice and am much more flexible
can do over 180 push ups in a 30 minute workout session
can now do 70 pound lat pulls

Okay, I will stop there haha! Those are the accomplishments I am most proud of 🙂 And of course I am extreemely proud of my boyfriend for getting into the PhD program at the University of Utah, but I can’t really count this as my own personal accomplishment now can I? 😉

I am so grateful to everything that has occurred in the last few weeks, and I cannot wait to see what the future has in store. Your reality is what you make of it, so make sure you are doing what makes YOU happy. Do not focus on what others will think of you or what they will say. Although for the most part people are supportive of what I do, I still get some passive judgement about the choices I make. But I don’t really care and if I have to continue to state why I am doing what I am doing, then I will continue doing so.

You are probably all wondering whether or not I will be posting progress photo’s, huh? 🙂 I do want too, although I am not sure when (check on my instagram because if I do post them, I will post them there). Don’t get me wrong, I am EXTREMELY proud of my progress, although I do worry about the negativity I may receive: “There’s no change.” “She look’s worse” etc etc. It isn’t like I have developed a six pack or a thigh gap lol, but I have tightened up a lot and am much stronger although I do not really think the photo’s can accurately convey this. I am definitely going to continue with the bikini body guide and will probably just repeat it until Kayla’s new book comes out. Maybe that time round the abs will be showing 😉

Also I just wanted to share this graphic with you that my friend sent me. I think it is fantastic and fits in well with my philosophy that diets are unnecessary!!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 10

May 4, 2014

Early happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of a victory in 1862 in the fight for independence from French forces which is celebrated by both the US and Mexico. I went to my first ever cinco de mayo party the other night and it was extremely fun. And yes, I did have some sangria and a margarita (or two) which is unusual for me since I normally do not drink. I view alcohol as a source of empty calories and as not benefiting your body in anyway whatsoever, but I will have a drink on a special occasion.

Photo courtesy of the amazing photographer VK Ree’s

Kayla Itsines Week 10

I have now finished week 10 of Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide (hands down the hardest arm and abs workouts of the entire program) and cannot believe I only have two weeks left!!! I found the gazillion snap jumps and the spider push ups so incredibly hard .. thought my arms were gonna fall off. Although my transformation so far has not been crazy and incredibly dramatic, the progress photo’s I have been taking show that my stomach is more toned and that my legs are getting smaller. I am so proud of the changes (small or not) that have happened so far plus I can do much much more push ups than I was ever able too, which is an achievement in itself. Since I had quite a lot of sugary foods and drinks this weekend, I really need to be strict for the next two weeks in order to reap the full benefits of Kayla Itsine’s workouts. I normally do eat a very healthy diet but I am just going to be stricter with counting my macro’s and calories for the next few weeks. Counting macro’s and calories may not work for some but it definitely works for me.

Dying after week 10’s leg workout

In addition to my kick ass (literally) workouts, I was kindly invited by Project Juice to visit their Russian Hill location in San Francisco to sample some of their juices and to check the shop out in general. They gave me a few juices to take home and try and I will be doing a post on Project Juice and their delicious and very healthy juices this tuesday, so look out for that! Project Juice has fantastic values and I was truly impressed by what they had to offer .. which is quite rare in the health and fitness industry. If you follow my Facebook page and my Instagram, no doubt you will have seen what juices I have tried so far.

That’s it from me! I have received a lot of questions regarding the type of equipment you need for Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide, so to get your answer please click here and scroll down to the comments section 🙂

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Honestly yours,
Alice

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