2014 Year of the Horse, hoping for a more healthy year and to attain goals set - more recipes!

Usually on the eve of Chinese New Year which was 1/30/2014, the Chinese would have a family gathering and there would be 10 dishes - each one symbolic of something good. For instance, fish is 'yu' is Chinese which means abundance, and chicken symbolizes the start of the new year.

Usually I would cook a big meal but this year I did not - was too busy at work to take time off. I was a little bummed out with that but work is work. Otherwsie I would have taken pictures of my dishes. However not all is lost, I got a chance to cook again actually the middle of the week because my kitchen therapy was much needed.

One of my goals was to keep on with my training, so I did get to train with my trainer and also got more classes at Crossfit. Unfortunately, I did not make it to yoga class.

Last night's cooking, I cooked 3 items:

Baked Stuffed flounder - Used 2 pieces of flounder fillets per person. The stuffing I used was part of the stuffing I used for the portabello mushbrooms. I added a little bit of gluten free bread (homemade), crabmeat, rosemary, garlic, sesame seeds. I placed the stuffing in between the fillets. Laid them on parchment paper in a skillet. Bake at 450 for 10-15 mins.

Stuffing for flounder and portabello mushrooms - riped avocado, scallions, garlic, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, lime and lemon juice, onion powder, feta cheese, nutritional yeast, dijon mustard, black pepper, chopped stems from the mushrooms. Mashed all that. For the stuffing for the flounder, I added crabmeat, gluten free bread and some other spices.

Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms - Fill each mushroom with the stuffing and place on baking sheet. Bake at 400 until the mushrooms are tender

Black Rice and Mixed Grain - Instead of just cooking black rice, I added a mixed grain blend which consist of brown rice, short grain brown rice, beans. I cooked that in the rice cooker. This combination gives it a different texture - more like sushi rice.

Here is the finished product all ready for my trainer to try. You can't see the rice, but you can see the flounder and the mushroom.

Also, the stuffing is totally paleo just in case my Crossfit Family wants to try it. I think if I did not add the gluten free bread to the fish stuffing, it would have been fine. I needed a binding agent.

Enjoy!