All the Way Arame Salad

When it's this hot and humid outside, I almost don't even want to eat anymore. I just want to drink all my meals. I'd be happy just consuming smoothies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My hubby, however, doesn't exactly share my proclivity for liquid meals. Fortunately, last night's dinner satisfied us both: All the Way Arame Salad from Chocolate Covered Katie's blog.

This is just what we needed on a hot, hot day - cooling, water-rich raw veggies, avocado, and sea veggies (I used arame and wakame) tossed in a light dressing of Bragg Liquid Aminos and rice vinegar.

I used carrots, celery, yellow pepper, orange pepper, zucchini, scallions, lacinato kale, avocado, and dried cherries for some tangy zip. I served it over a bed of baby spinach.

This is just about the most hydrating food you can eat! It's almost as good as a smoothie...almost :)

Arame Bowl

I made another Bowl from Appetite for Reduction tonight. Tonight's rendition was the Nori Bowl, which Isa lists as brown rice, steamed broccoli, azuki beans, Carrot-Ginger Dressing, and shredded nori. Since I had leftover Carrot-Ginger Dressing from the other night, throwing this bowl together was a breeze. All I really had to do was cook up some brown rice, steam some frozen veggies, and find a substitute for nori, since my hubby doesn't like it :) I had a bag of arame in the pantry, so I soaked a big handful for about 5 minutes, drained it, and boom, it was ready to go.

I assembled my bowls as follows: some torn baby spinach, then brown basmati rice, steamed stir-fry veggies (I used a 1-lb mix from Trader Joe's that had broccoli, red pepper, onion, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, water chestnuts, and baby corn), azuki beans, arame, and the Carrot-Ginger dressing:

 Before I mixed 'em all up:

 Post-mixing, with my chopsticks (sorry for the bad lighting):

It was pretty yummy - not my favorite, but nice and healthy. Sometimes I don't care so much if something is super tasty, as long as it is healthy and nutritious. This one definitely fit the bill. My son even ate a few strands of arame, which is cool. I was prepared to tell him it was "black spaghetti," but I didn't have to resort to that! :)