You won’t need any maple syrup for this…these waffles are made pressed sushi rice in the waffle maker! Intrigued? Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

*Sushi rice, cooked
*Egg
*Mirin
*All purpose seasoning
*Salt & pepper
*Bread shrimps
*Crab stick
*Green onions
*Avocado
*Thai Sweet Chili sauce
*Fuji sauce
*Fried onion

Preparation:

*Cook your shrimps and set them aside.
*Once cooled, transfer in a bowl, combine the crab sticks, Thai Sweet Chili sauce and green onions. Mix well and set aside.
*Toss cooked rice with olive oil, mirin, all purpose seasoning, egg and salt and pepper to taste.
*Spread rice onto a waffle maker. Cook rice until is it golden.
*When ready, transfer onto a plate.
* Assemble the waffle by layering it with sliced avocado, seafood mix fried onions.
*Enjoy.

Special thanks to @imma_jeetee for sharing this recipe with us! Follow her amazing recipe ideas and more collabs with Stokes! If you make this recipe and want to share it with us, tag us on Instagram @stokesstores and use the hashtag #StokesMoments.

What’s great about this is that you can have fun with it and decorate your plate as much as you’d like! And don’t forget to pour the sauce over for the final touch! This will give more flavour to your amazing creation.

Salud! To your health!

Thanks to @auseptiemedelice for the recipe.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup. soy sauce

2 tsp. rice vinegar

2 tsp. sesame oil

1 tsp. freshly grated ginger

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

2 green onions, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish 

1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds, plus more for garnish

Cooked white or brown rice

Sliced avocado

Sliced cucumber

Edamame 

Shredded carrots

Sliced radish

Sliced bell peppers

Protein of choice: We recommend ahi tuna, shrimp, or tofu!

Preparation:

In a large bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, ginger, red pepper flakes, green onions, and sesame seeds. Add your protein of choice and toss to coat. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes or up to 1 hour.

To serve, add rice to the bottom of four bowls. Top with your protein and vegetables. Garnish with green onions and sesame seeds before serving.

Perfect for a picnic or a quick, nutritious lunch, this Poke bowl will have you saying mahalo iā ‘oe (thank you), everytime! If you make this recipe and want to share with us, tag us on Instagram @stokesstores and use the hashtag #StokesMoments.

I think we can agree that two is better than one. And to be inclusive to all the many diets and –isms out there, we offer you two different recipes, one traditional Poke with fish and one vegan Poke bowl recipe with tofu!

What’s the best thing about Poke? It’s loaded with the most amazing veggies! If you like sushi or tartare then you’ll love this fresh and flavourful Hawaiian dish.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

Poke Marinade

• 1/3 cup tamari sauce
• 4 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp dehydrated onion
• 2 tsp chili flakes
• 1 tsp sea salt

Protein

• 300g silken tofu, cut into 1″ cubes
  or
• 300g fresh, boneless, skinless salmon, cut into 1″ cubes

Base

• 1 cup calrose rice, cooked
  or
• 1 cup rice noodles, cooked according to package directions

Vegetables

• 1 medium cucumber, cut into thin ribbons (see instructions)
• 1 medium carrot, julienned (see instructions)
• 1 medium beet, julienned
• 1 avocado, cubed or sliced
• 1/2 cup shredded purple cabbage
• 1/3 cup shelled edamame

Toppings

• 1 sheet nori seaweed, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• pinch cayenne flakes
  

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Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk marinade ingredients together and toss with your chosen protein, cut with the kiyosu utility knife on the marble chopping board. Cover, refrigerate, and marinate at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.
2. Meanwhile, cook your rice, or rice noodles, and set aside.
3. Then, steam your edamame: combine beans in a microwave-safe bowl with 1/4 cup water. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Drain & set aside.
4. Next, cut up your veggies – feel free to get creative with the slicing. I use my mandoline to create perfect little matchstick pieces, and my vegetable peeler to create lovely ribbons. Try the thinkkitchen Mandoline or the Casa swivel peeler from Stokes if you’re looking to get your own.
5. Once your poke marinade is done marinating and your prep is finished, it’s time to assemble! Fill serving bowls, like the iris blue bowls from Stokes, with rice or rice noodles. Spoon 6 tbsp of marinade over base. Top with vegetables, avocado, edamame and poke.
6. Sprinkle with sesame, chili flakes and nori.
7. Serve immediately & enjoy!

Making it easy for you try out the latest food trends at home,

Allison Sklar is a Montreal native who started her blog in 2009. Allison is an advocate of plant-based diets, and she eats mostly vegan diet at home, but she does not like to label herself. For instance, from time to time, you may catch her enjoying some sustainably sourced fish, as she did last summer in New Orleans. You may also see her occasionally drizzling some fair trade honey into her green tea. Call her a flexatarian, a pescetarian, a confused omnivore, whatever – she eats what she enjoys, and she encourages you to do the same. Allison creates the majority of her own recipes, unless otherwise stated. She is inspired by friends, family, and of course, whatever’s in her fridge. For more of The Bacon Eating Jewish Vegetarian’s recipes visit her blog!

Click here for a text only version of this recipe!

This New Year satisfy your taste buds, be inspired, and get healthy with these innovative and creative developments in the cooking and food world!

Bowls are the new plate!

Bowls, a more casual and easy way to assemble and enjoy our meals. There’s no denying it with popular trends from the past couple of years that Acai bowls and Buddha bowls are taking up permanent residence on restaurant menus, in our kitchens, and with upcoming trends such as the Poke Bowl and Smoothie bowl creating buzz. Bowls are becoming a regular staple not only in nutrition and health guru diets, but with everyday foodies who are simply looking to try something new and delicious! All you need to do is make sure you have a big enough bowl!   And we have lots of them with whimsical patterns that go perfectly with this playful trend.

Our favorite right now is the Poke Bowl. A traditional Hawaiian dish which consists of fresh raw fish, shredded veggies, edamame beans, avocado, sesame seeds and soy sauce… it is refreshing and healthy. Sushi lovers rejoice: Poke bowls have all the tastiness of your favorite Asian style meal without the heavy carb-filled rice. Check out the poke bowl recipe next week we are doing in collaboration with one of our favorite food bloggers!

Hello alternative pasta options!

A creative way to bring flavor and innovation to a classic staple in our North American diets is using alternatives to pasta.  Chefs and home-cooks alike are swapping out doughy noodles for more nutrition enriched alternatives. Whether it’s trying out vegetable replacements, or using a blender to infuse pasta dough with pureed veggies, or sticking with carb based alternatives  like quinoa, chickpeas, lentils, barley or chia seeds that offer us more nutrition, pasta lovers are looking to add a healthy and palatable twist to their experience.

One of the easiest ways to try this one out is to spiralize some zucchini! Once, you have the ribbon all you need to do is cook it up in a bit of oil for 5 min and you can season it however you want! Check out how we tried out this trend with our Asparagus and Feta Tagliatelle recipe – with a healthy twist!

Vegetable Revolution

We’ve started giving our vegetables the time and attention they’ve always deserved! Vegetables have taken over the plate. Food bloggers and amateur home cooks play an important role in this trend by getting more creative and innovating the way we prepare our veggies. Their recipes prove vegetables can be the main part of our meal, taste great, and satisfy our appetite. This year, the experimentation that we’ve been doing with adding vegetables to meals and recipes they are not traditionally included in will become common practice and restaurateurs will be incorporating these ideas into their menus.

Whether it’s a sweet potato patty in your burger, replacing pasta and noodles with spaghetti squash, or adding kale or spinach into your morning smoothie, no meal will be considered complete without a vegetable making an appearance! So get out your mandoline, food processor or juicer  and join the revolution! Try out our Green Juice and our Post Work Out juice recipes!

Serious Snacking

Eating smaller and more frequent meals is becoming more habitual for the average person, and we’re not talking about the snacks we had as kids, or the late night covert trips to the fridge. From foodies to your average Joe or Jane, the way people want to eat is changing. We want to be able to try new things, taste more and have variety without overdoing it. Sharing appetizers, ordering Tapas, and charcuterie boards are ways that this trend materializes. What’s more is that there may well be some nutritional perks to this new form snacking! At all times of day, dehydrated or baked vegetables, rather than oily chips, and exotic dried fruit for sweet offer us new tastes from around the world and are healthier!

For an example of how you can prepare yourself a healthy snack at home, check out our veggie chips recipe on our blog.

Craving Authentic Cuisine

In North America, we are a melee of cultures and this has always been reflected in our food! After years of combining, mixing, sharing and borrowing from here and there to invent our own fusion creations, there is a turn towards more traditional takes on the recipes from our roots.  Whether it be genuine Korean Bashan, or “new-ish jew-ish cuisine”, third and fourth generation chefs are looking back to their heritage for inspiration, and we love the authenticity of it.

Check out our blog for authentic cuisine from Spain, a Catalan Fideua dish which is similar to paella, and a traditional pork dish from Vietnam, a THIT Kho Trung recipe.

Keeping you up to date in all the latest cooking innovations and food trends,