easy, healthy and tasty recipe

This, my friends, is what I like to call a yum yum bowl. There are no specific ingredients, I just use whatever I have. It's called a yum yum bowl because, well, it's really yummy and also really good for you. Both body and mind are satisfied by a yum yum bowl. Typically they contain short grain brown rice/quinoa (either or, sometimes both), kale & a veggie or two. Sometimes I throw in nuts or seeds too (like today). I share this with you because, as I've mentioned before, I never cooked or even felt inspired to try it until this past January when I was visiting a friend in Los Angeles. She inspired me to the core and taught me that healthy cooking doesn't need to be complicated. My hope is that someone else who hates to cook or doesn't know how, but wants to eat nutritious and nourishing foods, will see this and be inspired the same way I was. Here's how to make this little gem (serves two):

Start by preheating your oven to 350. Wash your (organic) yam and chop it into little chunks. Put it in on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil (coconut oil works too) then sprinkle it with cinnamon (you can leave that out, but it's a powerful anti-inflammatory so I like to always add it). Mix it all together with your hands and toss it in the oven for 35 minutes.

Boil 1 cup of water, then add 1/2 cup of brown rice or quinoa. Turn the heat down to low and let it simmer. Rice takes about 30-35 minutes to cook, quinoa takes less. So easy... once it's soaked up all the water, its done.

While all that's going on, wash and slice a zucchini (organic!) and wash and chop your kale. Any sort of organic kale will do. I like a lot of kale in my yum yum bowls so I used 4 leaves. Then get a pan, put a little olive oil in it and put it on the stove. Once the yam has about 10 minutes left, I turn the heat on medium/low and toss the zucchini in. After a few minutes I turn the heat down to low and when there's just about 2 minutes left, I put the kale in. I like my greens and veggies very lightly sauteed, really just warmed up. Once you add everything to your yum yum bowl, the heat of the rice or quinoa will make it wilt a little too, so don't overdo it in the pan.

Lastly, once everything is done put the rice in your bowl, then add your kale and zucchini, then the yam, sprinkle with sea salt (I love Selina Naturally's Celtic Sea Salt) and put a small handful of raw sunflower seeds in too. Then mix it all together and enjoy!

Other things I like to add to yum yum bowls:

• walnuts
• nutritional yeast flakes
• avocado
• fresh lemon juice
• almonds
• red, yellow or orange bell peppers
• yellow squash
• garlic
• beans would be good, but I don't eat them
• beets
• green onion

Another perk... this dish is naturally free of gluten & dairy.