To cut to the chase, that's my version of the Buddha Bowl.
Ingredients:
- 2 eggs, hard-boiled and sliced
- 1/2 avocado, sliced
- 2 tbsp edamame, steamed
- 10 small button mushrooms, fried
- 1 corn fritter, air-fried
- 4 cherry tomatoes, sliced
- 1 cucumber, cubed
- 2 baby carrots, cubed
- 4 tofu cubes
- 2 falafel balls, crushed
- 2 teaspoons of hommus
It all started when I decided to make Veggie Big Breakfasts at home instead of paying $25 for it at a restaurant.
That's usually what you get when you order a Vegetarian Big Breakfast at a restaurant - 2 eggs (poached, fried or boiled), 1 slice of sourdough bread with butter, and a serving of vegetables that varies from restaurant to restaurant. Fried mushrooms, avocado, hash browns, and tomatoes are the most common. Some restaurants serve asparagus or haloumi cheese instead of one of the other items.
For over a year, I made a Big Breakfast of my own at home, at least twice a week.
- 2 slices of sourdough bread, toasted, and with Nuttelex instead of butter
- 2 fried eggs
- Button mushrooms, chopped and microwaved in olive oil
- Cherry tomatoes, chopped and microwaved to a paste
- 1/2 avocado, made into a paste and mixed with Sriracha sauce
- 1 hash brown
I started with 3 slices of sourdough, then gradually reduced it to 2 and then to 1, as I started to find the meal too heavy.
A couple of months ago, I watched an interview of Dr Pal (Dr Palaniappan Manickam) by Dhru Purohit. One of the points he made was that what you eat and the gut bacteria you have are interlinked in either a vicious or virtuous cycle. Bad gut bacteria (sorry for the seeming contradiction, Germans) cause cravings for sugar and junk food, while good gut bacteria do not. One of the ways suggested by Dr Pal to wean oneself off bad food and to shift the bacterial demographics in one's gut is to eat cucumbers.
I have had cucumbers and carrots with hommus on many social occasions where they were served as starters, so I started having this combination as a snack.
Around the same time, I also visited a friend who served us a healthy meal in a "Buddha Bowl".
I first tried a hybrid of the two - a Veggie Big Breakfast and a Buddha Bowl.
That turned out to be too heavy. I tried it twice, and both times, I could eat only half the quantity shown in the picture. I had to put away the other half in the fridge and have it much later in the day.
Somewhere along the way, I decided that sourdough bread was the unnecessarily heavy part of the meal, so I got rid of it entirely. I also limited the quantities of all the other ingredients.
Now I can eat the entire contents of the bowl (top photo), and I don't feel bloated at the end of it. It actually makes me feel quite good.
I'm told you need some starch, like quinoa, brown rice, etc. I use falafel balls, hommus and a hash brown/corn fritter instead.
Try it and see how you like it.
