Browsing Tag

salad

Friday Fare

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

May 9, 2014

So once again, I was extremely busy this week plus kept forgetting to take photo’s of possible Friday Fare options (le sigh). So instead of disappointing you all and not posting a recipe, I decided to share a soba noodle salad rolls with peanut sauce recipe created by one of my favorite healthy food bloggers, Nutritionist in the Kitch!

Some of you may know that I am a huge fan of Christal, from Nutritionist in the Kitch, and regularly make her recipes and find inspiration from her. I thought her soba noodle salad rolls with peanut sauce recipe looked incredible and I wanted to share it with you all. I actually bought some fresh spring rolls the other day, so I will be experimenting with my own fresh roll creations.

Without further ado, here is the recipe and some of Christal’s photo’s of this yummy looking dish 🙂

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

 

Ingredients

  • Rolls:
  • 10 sheets rice paper
  • 6.5 oz soba noodles
  • 1 carrot, peeled and julienned
  • 1 bell pepper, julienned
  • 2 green onions, cut into strips
  • small bunch cilantro
  • small bunch lettuce
  • 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • Peanut Sauce:
  • ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
  • ½ lime, juice
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon pure honey
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger (optional)
  • ¼ cup water (add more if you prefer a thinner consistency)
  Instructions
  1. For Rolls: In a large pot, heat 4 cups of water to boil and cook noodles according to package instructions. Run cooked noodles under cold water and drain. Mix in 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil with noodles. Set noodles aside.
  2. Fill a shallow dish with warm water. Place one sheet of rice paper in dish until it is submerged, soak for 1 minute or so until it becomes soft, carefully set on a clean surface, such as a cutting board, and make sure the sheet does not bend or fold.
  3. Place about 2-3 tbsp of cooked soba noodles in the middle of the rice paper sheet, top with a few slices of carrot, pepper, onion, a few sprigs of cilantro, and a couple leafs of lettuce.
  4. Fold the top of the rice paper sheet over the filling, then fold in each side, then roll until the opposite end has closed the roll, put on a plate and repeat the process until you have ten salad rolls! (Learning this process may take a little patience, but after the first couple rolls you will get the hang of it! :) )
  5. For Sauce: Combine all ingredients in a food processor, or mix together by hand.
  6. Serve with cold rolls, enjoy!
Prep time

Cook time
5 mins

Total time
20 mins

Serves 5

Nutritional Information
Serving size: 2 Rolls & 2 Tbsp Peanut Sauce Calories: 323 kcal Fat: 8.7g Saturated fat: 1.6g Unsaturated fat: 6.5g Trans fat: 0 Carbohydrates: 56.7g Sugar: 6.2gFiber: 3.6g Protein: 9.5g
 

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Mmmmm, cannot wait to make these and fresh rolls in general. You can pick up rice paper at any Asian supermarket, and they are usually pretty inexpensive … perfect for a student budget, woo hoo! Actually most things at Asian supermarkets are much cheaper in general, so you should definitely give them a visit the next time you need groceries. I picked up some sesame chili oil for only $3 or something like that. Normally sesame oil is something ridiculous like $5 … no thank youuuu!

Have any of you ever tried fresh rolls before? I first had them about a year ago at a Vietnamese restaurant in San Leandro and have never looked back!

Honestly yours,
Alice

 

Friday Fare, Health

Asian Pear & Spinach Salad with Creamy Cider Dressing

April 25, 2014

This week’s inspiration comes from my good friend Alyssa, a lover of good and healthy food. She gave me the idea for this salad although I have made a few tweaks which I hope you will enjoy. This is a meatless salad with its protein source coming from the cheese (I give two different options), almonds and pumpkin seeds. You can always add some lean protein such as grilled chicken, beef, shrimp or fish to make the salad a little heartier, although in all fairness it is pretty hearty as it is because of the nuts, seeds and cheese! I added shrimp to mine though … surprise, surprise 🙂

Asian Pear & Spinach Salad with Creamy Cider Dressing

 Enjoying a twelve essentials ‘Suja Juice’ drink with my salad for the greenest of all meals!

 

Asian Pear & Spinach Salad with Creamy Cider Dressing

Alice Williams
A light and refreshing salad drizzled with a delicious cider dressing.

Ingredients
  

  • For the salad
  • 2 cups or more spinach
  • 1 medium - sliced asian pears
  • 1-2 tbsp - almond slices
  • 1-2 tbsp - feta cheese crumbles personally blue cheese is a my fave cheese on salad but it's pretty high in sodium so it is not something to have daily
  • 1-2 tbsp - pumpkin seeds
  • For the homemade dressing
  • 1/2 - 1 tbsp - dijon Mustard
  • 1 tbsp - olive oil
  • 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • Grated lemon zest - 1 lemon
  • 1 tsp - black Pepper

Instructions
 

  • 1. First, let us start by making the dressing. Combine all of the salad dressing ingredients in a small bowl and use mix all the ingredients together. You could also use a food processor to do this as well.
  • 2. Set aside your yummy dressing. Get a plate or salad bowl and put the spinach leaves in it, and then pour some of your dressing into the plate or bowl. Toss the spinach and the salad dressing so that your spinach leaves are nice and .. well, dressed!
  • 3. Add the rest of the salad ingredients and toss them all together.
  • 4. Eat and enjoy!
Asian Pear & Spinach Salad with Creamy Cider Dressing

Asian Pear & Spinach Salad with Creamy Cider Dressing

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Friday Fare, and if you share it on instagram or twitter, please hashtag #fridayfare and tag me in your photo’s so I can see your lovely re-creations! Do you have any requests for future editions of Friday Fare? I am always open to suggestions because I want to make sure I am tailoring my posts towards what YOU want 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 4

March 23, 2014

Hey everyone!

So, I have now officially been doing Kayla Itsine’s Bikini Body Guide for a month now. Woo-hoo!

Kayla Itsines Week 4

I feel really accomplished, the guide is not easy guys!!! The workout for weeks 2 and 4 were particularly hard for me because there were endless jumping lunges we had to do … jumping lunges are super hard for me. SUPER HARD. I am excited to see my progress at the end of the program, as it is a bit hard to tell at the moment .. although my legs seem slimmer 🙂

This week has been pretty all over the place this week. I literally went to Rubio’s (a ‘fresh Mex’ casual restaurant) about 4 times this week and while I think it is a pretty healthy option, the tortilla chips and delicious beer batter are not something to eat 4 times a week lol.

I also attended a crab feed for my boyfriend’s fraternity Theta Tau on Friday night and of course had loads of crab (which is actually not bad at all) and quite a few of the Portuguese pastries my boyfriend won in the silent auction (… not so good).

review of Kayla Itsines Week 4

Please excuse the lame crab bib!!! It was a necessity ..

The rest of the weekend was spent at my boyfriend’s parent’s house and it was lovely. We had a BBQ on Saturday (by the pool nonetheless, living the good life), and spent a good amount of time climbing one of the ropes attached to a tree. Needless to say my upper body strength has definitely gotten better as I actually managed to climb some of it! Three months ago, it probably would have been a different story. The rest was spent chilling by the pool and finally getting to read Cameron Diaz’s ‘The Body Book’ and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.

cameron diaz The Body Book

My brother’s boyfriend has a husky!!! Isn’t he cuuute. I love him.

review of Kayla Itsines week 4 BBG

This morning we went to get brunch at the Vintage Press, which is a rather fancy restaurant in Visalia, California. I ordered a delicious shrimp florentine and had some orange juice and a cafe latte. They give you a pastry plate with your brunch and I am sad to say that I had a bit too many but eh, that’s okay. I am planning on trying out a bunch of new salad recipe’s this coming week to help me get back on track. Like I said, I didn’t eat particularly badly this weekend but my body is craving homemade food and more veggies again.

brunch in Visalia The VIntage Press

This next week is going to be a busy busy one, because one of my good friends, Siobhan (a.k.a. Shivvy) is coming to visit me all the way from England!!! This is going to be her first time in America and I am so excited to show her everything. She will also be my unofficial Honestly Fitness photographer as well so look forward to some fitness related video’s and photo’s! And just a lot of photo’s in general.

I am also working on making a special cake (try and guess what, I bet you will never guess!!), a savory lunch treat, and will be posting the recipe for the delicious sugar free muffins I talked about last week.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! What did you get up too? Let me know in the comments below <3

Honestly yours,
Alice