Buddha Bowl Bloggin'

So this blog post is going to be a little different - I'm going to get a little personal before sharing the lowdown on how I threw this colourful buddha bowl together for lunch today. This is the first blog post I have written in a while, and a big reason for that is because my head, and life, has been everywhere lately.

I guess I'm a bit of a Buddha bowl myself...

I have a lot of passions. Music, food, fitness, baking, history - it goes on. And recently I have started working full time and I am trying to progress career wise on top of all that. My head feels incredibly messy because of this. Some see it as a great thing, being so multi-faceted in one's interests and passions, but it truly does get tiring. I will often go on baking tirades, baking different things every week but completely neglecting the healthy diet I need to support my fitness goals. I will dedicate so much time to learning more about baking, watching food channels, and trying out recipes that my mind becomes too tired by the time I want to read my history books.

I have a food blog but I want another blog to write music reviews because sometimes an album will move me so much that all I want to do is tell someone the finest details about what makes that album so magical to me. But to create a separate blog for every facet of my personality would be ridiculous and if that were the case, I would likely have 10 different blogs which is just not plausible.

So. Why am I sharing this? Mainly because I know there are probably many more messy headed people out there feeling the exact same way and not knowing what to do about it. (But also, because I haven't written a blog post for two months and wanted to explain why.) Slowly but surely, I am learning to be kinder to myself and not get so frustrated when I feel like I'm neglecting another part of myself. Instead of thinking "you're wasting time, go and read about this", I remind myself of the growth I am experiencing by devoting time to baking, for instance. When I am too weary from work or all of my kitchen antics to read, I watch documentaries on the kinds of history I want to learn more about. And often, this gives me the nudge I need to pick up the book I've been procrastinating about all this time. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my love for music yet. Perhaps I'll add a little miscellaneous section to this blog, or maybe I'll integrate that into my Twitter. That's something I'm still yet to figure out. But one thing's for sure, I refuse to prevent myself from sharing it for fear of coming across messy. We're all messy and we shouldn't compartmentalise or restrict ourselves.

I'm going to start making my page into a bit of a buddha bowl... a massive throw together of all of the passions that make up who I am, and what makes me so happy to be alive. That being said, here's a summary of a buddha bowl I threw together for lunch today!

Buddha Bowl recipe!

Now some of you might be wondering what on earth a buddha bowl is - which would be funny considering I just called myself one... But essentially, a buddha bowl is a throwing together of various vegetarian nibbles into one bowl. This genuinely took me around 10 - 15 minutes to throw together before work today so check it out!

1. Cous Cous Tabbouleh. I measured out some cous cous, added some boiling water, and left it to absorb. Meanwhile, I finely chopped up some garlic, parsley, and coriander before finely dicing some cucumber and cherry tomatoes. Once the cous cous has expanded and absorbed all the water (this usually takes 5 minutes), mix in the ingredients and add some lemon juice, hot paprika, Himalayan rock salt and pepper to add some flavour.

2. Chick peas (which also happens to be an excellent source of protein). I microwaved half a can of tinned chick peas in a microwaveable container for 2 minutes, ensuring the chick peas were covered with water. Once done, I drained them and added some lemon juice, coriander, masala powder, chilli powder, and a dash of turmeric.

3. Veggies galore. I added some spinach, avocado and radish that I seasoned with Himalayan rock salt, pepper and lemon juice - but the great thing about this is you can literally toss whatever veggies you like and have to hand!

4. Beetroot. Hummus. My new OBSESSION. You can definitely make this at home but because I am not really fond of beetroot in any other format, I buy it ready made. I had to add some of this to the bowl, but next time I will certainly add a pita bread to accompany it so that the bowl is extra filling!

And that's my buddha bowl, baby! I will probably post a few variations of this, especially in the lead up to summer. And a massive goal of mine this year has been to try and cut down on my meat consumption, so you'll be seeing a lot of vegetarian and vegan friendly recipes from me from now on!