Buddha Bowl

Some of you may have heard about "buddha bowls." Basically, they're just bowls of food composed of 3 things:

1. grains as a base (brown rice, quinoa, millet or barley)
2. vegetables
3. a vegan sauce/gravy (cashew based, tahini based, peanut sauce, etc).

This time, I used the vegetables I had on hand and chose to steam them so they could still have a little bit of crunch left. I love to make cashew-based sauces because they just taste creamy and cheese-like. I've seen some buddha bowls with almond-based sauces that are amazing. Peanuts are good too.

You can choose to put some raw vegetables on top to make it even healthier (maybe some shredded carrots?). Anything you like would probably work here.

I made a miso-based cashew gravy. You can buy the miso paste at any supermarket (Whole Foods, obviously, always has it on hand). Miso is made out of fermented brown rice and soybeans. Great for you.

For the bowl

• 1 head broccoli
• 1 package mushrooms (baby bella, shiitake, etc)
• 1 zucchini 
• 1 cup green beans

For the miso based sauce

• 2 tbsp miso paste (i used yellow paste)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 1/2 cups cashews
• water (to cover)
• salt and peper to taste
• 1/2 tsp paprika

- Make quinoa, brown rice or other grain according to package directions or use frozen packs.
-  Steam the vegetables: boil water in half of the pot and then put vegetables in the basket. Steam for 5 minutes (exactly). (Zucchini is best stir fried and not steamed).
- Set vegetables aside.
- Sautee mushrooms in 1 tsp olive oil. About 4 minutes. Set aside.


- Make the sauce: Mix ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth and paste-like.

- Assemble the bowl: grain first, then vegetables and top with sauce. Also put some pumpkin seeds on top for crunch.

Pam & Oscar