I made a rice bowl!

This recipe is based on the rice bowls at Community Food and Juice on the Upper West Side. It is a bowl of rice with lots of julienned veggies, a protein, and a cilantro-lime dressing topped with peanuts! I was there recently and greatly enjoyed my tofu rice bowl and thought it would be easy to recreate at home and it was. One caveat: we have a mandoline, which makes all the slicing superfast and easy. If you don't have one, it will take a little longer, but will still be good!

The components:

Brown Rice (I recently discovered that I really like medium grain brown rice and that is what I used)

Protein:
The restaurant offers salmon, tofu, and grilled chicken. I've used both cubes of tofu sauteed with a bit of sesame oil, and also used edamame. Baked tofu would probably be really good also. Or hard boiled eggs!

Veggies: (This is very flexible - these are some things I've used)
cucumber
red cabbage
bean sprouts
jalapeno
carrots
daikon
avocado

Dressing:
cilantro, finely chopped (a few TBS)
lime juice (I usually use two limes)
sesame oil (enough dashes to make it sesame-y)
mirin (about a half TBS)
mint (I didn't have this, but I'm sure it would be good)

Garnish:
chopped peanuts
scallions
sesame seeds

close up!

Assembly: Cook the rice and your protein. Start prepping vegetables. If any need to be cooked, do it! You can either mix all the veggies in a mixing bowl (the slightly easier way), or wait until you're plateing, then create individual vegetable piles in your bowl and mix it in the bowl as you eat (this is how the restaurant does it). Mix the dressing and chop the peanuts and scallions. When the rice is done, put it in your bowl, and either top with vegetable mix, or assemble your chosen vegetables. Top with dressing and garnish. Enjoy!