Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts

9 Feb 2014

Jillian Michaels Food Challenge (Leave something on your plate)

Recently I was inspired on tumblr to do this Food challenge by Jillian Michaels. In my childhood I was trained by my family to eat up everything that was on my plate independent on how full I already was. I think this is a weakness because I don't feel good when I overeat. So, this week I want to train to leave something on my plate each day. Will you join as well? 

found @tumblr

21 Jul 2013

Healthy Breakfast

I try to live healthy at the moment. As I don't have much time, I don't cook often, unfortunately. But the summer and the availability of fruits and vegetables allows everyone to have healthy breakfasts. For breakfast, I try to have different fruits and vegetables. For lunch, I usually go into the cantine.

The best and cheapest fruits and vegetables can be found at the farmers market. I usually go there once a week and buy as many fruits and vegetables I can in order to make sure to have my five a day (and usually I have much more than just 5 a day :-)) for the following week. 

Below is my breakfast of today. I also had a huge cup green tea and a coffee with it. (I love to drink both in the morning.)


How was your breakfast today?

1 Jun 2013

More current favourite drinks (Matcha tea)

After my last post on my current favourite drinks, it crossed my mind that I forgot to mention a very important new green tea discovery: Matcha tea. So, I decided to share some more information about my favourite drinks with you. 

I first came across Matcha tea when Leo Babauta from zenhabits mentioned it in his healthy eating challenge. Once, he also drank it in one of his videos. He seems to drink it in the traditional way with a traditional bowl (chawan), after having used a traditional spoon (chashaku) and a tradtional bamboo whisk (chasen). I found that so interesting that I still remember it but I didn't consider to try it myself at that time yet. First, I had to witness many of the German and Austrian health bloggers I currently follow to mention it on their blogs and on Twitter. But then, I had to try it myself and I really like it. But I am an advanced green tea drinker and used to the taste of green tea anyway. Matcha tea is not much different. It just has a stronger effect and makes me more awake faster.

I am not such an advanced Matcha tea drinker. I like to drink it in a huge Guinness mug and use a normal spoon and my british milk frother instead of a chashaku and a chasen. ;-)

23 Apr 2013

Current Favourite Drinks

As I didn't use up many beauty items in the last months, I thought I share my current favourite drinks with you. A drink very much worth mentioning is my recent drinking chocolate discovery. One day when I was looking around in Tesco for interesting products, I stumbled upon the drinking chocolate by Clipper which is a brand for organic products. They mainly sell teas and I can tell you that one of their teas also belongs to one of my favorite teas. But let's discuss one drink after the other, right? :-)

This is my current favorite drinking chocolate by Clipper: 
It contains a lot of coarse-grained sugar and when mixed with milk, it needs quite some time to melt. In the picture above, you can see that the sugar still swims on top of the drink. Letting it alone for a couple of more minutes, however, will allow it to finish melting and then it tastes like heaven. At the moment, I end up having one glas of drinking chocolate each evening.

12 Aug 2012

Egg in a pepper

Have a look at what I had as a post-workout dinner recently:

I also had some whole-grained bread and a tomato salad with the eggs as shown above. It was very delicious and the pepper enhances the taste. What a nice idea to enhance fried eggs. :-)

22 Jul 2012

Summer Salad with Ebly Sun Wheat

I'd like to share a simple and fast recipe with you again. This is one of my favourite salads in summer and it is also perfect for the lunch box at the office.

Ingredients for 2 meals:
  • 150 gram of Ebly sun wheat (this product is well known in Switzerland and Southern Germany and is advertised to be wheat in its most natural form - I just love it and recommend to try it), cooked according to the instructions written on the packing
  • 1 Feta cheese, cut into small pieces
  • 250 gram of fresh small tomatoes, each cut in half
  • half of a peeled cucumber, cut into small pieces

Dressing:
  • 4 table spoons of oil (I prefer some cold-pressed oil with a lot of different omega-x fatty acids)
  • 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar
  • spice it properly according to your preferences with salt, pepper and basil

This is how it looks in the end:


I just love it. :-)

24 Jun 2012

Jamie Oliver @TED

Watch an emotionally arousing talk by Jamie Oliver on food and unhealthy eating habits especially in the United States of America. This talk has been held in the US in conjunction with him being a TED Prize winner of 2010 and is linked below. Healthy food is not only important in the US, it is an important topic all over the world! Everyone should take care of what they eat and everyone has to get to know how to cook healthy food!



I haven't learned how to cook as a child either. My mother cooks amazing and very healthy, so I grew up very healthy. But unfortunately, I somehow have not been taught how to cook myself and have not helped my mother with cooking at all as a child. So, I struggled with food and cooking when I moved out and also gained some weight. Only recently, I had a major breakthrough with cooking when I moved together with my boyfriend. He cooks amazing and he taught me a lot and helped me to get a feeling for cooking and dealing with spices and ingredients. Now I really enjoy experimenting with recipes and ingredients and also have developed some feeling for cooking. Currently, I also read Jamie's Dinners by Jamie Oliver which is a very inspiring every day cooking book. (This is why I had a look at his TED talk in the first place.)


Here is a dish we cooked according to a recipe included in Jamie's Dinners last weekend. It's roast chicken with lemon and rosemary roast potatoes (have a look at the recipe online). Yummie - I am not exaggerating by telling you that this was the very best chicken with potatoes I ever had in my whole life.

Cooking is an essential skill for a healthy and thought-ful life. But it is a long way until feeling comfortable with cooking when you haven't got any access to it as a child. Interestingly, a lot of my friends do cook but in the end of the day, it's obvious that they don't have that kind of feeling for ingredients and cooking that I admire and aim for myself (but I am totally not there yet either ;-)), namely to be able to set up a meal in mind while walking through a (super)market or while looking through the fridge and trying to consume leftovers or products near date of expiry. As Jamie says: being a good cook means juggling with ingredients and spontaneously assemble parts of a meal yielding tasty combinations. Here, practice is essential. However, for most people I know (except of my mother and my boyfriend and very few friends) cooking is something special you just do strictly according to a recipe and rather seldomly, e.g. on weekends or for special occasions. Of course, it's no wonder that they don't have much experience with cooking and might also not be able to help their children gaining some.

In the above mentioned book by Jamie Oliver, he manages very well to support the reader with gaining confidence for every day cooking activities. Here is the link to the german version of Jamie's Dinners (german title: Essen ist fertig) at Amazon:

10 Jun 2012

Healthy Breakfast Cake

I like healthy cakes that are not too sweet. In this way I can combine my (not too) sweet tooth with my interest to eat healthy. Hence, it's no wonder that I was immediately drawn to Zuzana's breakfast cake when I first discovered it about 2 years ago. I made this cake several times in the last 2 years and also experimented a bit with different ingredients.

Here is my current version:
  • 120 grams of Couscous cooked (or doused with hot boiled water)
  • 50 grams of Oat Flakes
  • A little bit of milk
  • 2 apples, 1 carrot and 1/2 of a chocolate bar crushed & mixed
  • a hand full of crushed walnuts
  • a tea spoon of cinnamon
  • honey
  • 2 whirled eggs
Sometimes, I mix the eggs with the rest of the cake. Sometimes, I add ground almonds instead of walnuts and mix them with the rest of the cake. There are plenty of possibilities ...

But now to the current version: at first take the couscous, heat water in a kettle and pour it over the couscous. Let it steep for around 10 minutes until the water has been absorbed by the couscous.
Clean 2 apples and 1 carrot and crush and mix them with 1/2 of a chocolate bar. Mix everything together and add also the Oat Flakes and the Milk:
 Add crushed walnuts on top and disperse cinnamon over them. Finally pour some honey on top:
Pour 2 whipped eggs on top:
Bake the cake for around 25 to 30 minutes at 220 degrees in the convection oven:

 Finished:

And this is how I enjoyed it this morning:

Yummie! :-)

17 May 2012

Relaxed Lunch

This is how a very relaxed and healthy lunch looks like for me. For dinner, my boyfriend and I usually do cook something together. Hence, I prefer a rather uncomplicated lunch that does not bother me too much but still is healthy and also tasty.
Usually, I have a huge bowl of delicious salad (here: tomatoes with spring onions, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt + pepper + basil) and open sandwiches. In spring and summer when the weather is nice, I enjoy my lunch on the balcony. When the pictues have been taken, it was warm and sunny and really nice.


Here, I have put on half of my open sandwiches several pieces of sliced salami and on the other half some of the Alnatura Aubergine spread. What do you usally put on your bread? And how do you enjoy your relaxed and uncomplicated lunches? :-)