From now on I will be blogging over at:
Feel free to come visit any time and thanks for sticking with mixxedtape this last year, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve met a lot of gorgeous people yet I can’t help but feel that mixxedtape has outgrown its original purpose a bit, hence the change of blog.
I can’t wait to see you guys over at my ‘new place’ 😉
Love, M.
Posted in Uncategorized
Entrée:
Smoothie with soy milk, half a banana, some spinach, 1/4 of an avocado and celery.
In a fancy Kriek Lindemans glass (not optional, it has to be a beer glass).
Main:
Microwave Muffin!
In a mug combine 4 T of oatbran, a sprinkle of salt and a sprinkle of baking powder. Add 2 T of plain yoghurt and 2 T of coconut milk. Stir to combine.
Add an egg(white) and whisk until smooth.
Add ins: chopped almonds and chocolate chips.
Microwave on medium high for 2 to 3 minutes.
I topped mine with some more coconut milk but in order to make an extra fierce breakfast you can also top it with a coconut-peanut butter glaze: microwave one T of peanut butter until melted and whisk in 1 T of coconut milk, smother this on top of the muffin and sprinkle with some grated coconut, simple as that.
This breakfast will make you as fierce as a Mona-kitten chasing a scrunchie!
Love, M.
I’ve already mentioned in the previous post that me being in the first phase of the intuitive eating path basically equals me eating a lot of ‘bad’ stuff to prove to myself that I can have them.
So yes I eat more sweets, but most noticeable is my bread consumption.
You see, before intuitive eating I had created this habit of staying away from bread as far as I could for most of the week and giving myself a free pass to eat ‘some’ bread in the weekend. I guess it’s not surprising you that that was not how it went in the weekends, once I started to eat bread I just couldn’t stop.
The intuitive eating book has an amazing chapter about how we need carbs as our basic fuel and of how our body reacts to the absence of it. This made me realise that it wasn’t because of my lack of willpower or my extreme fancy for bread that I acted the way I did, my body was just screaming for the carbs I did not give it and as soon as I would have some all it could do was ask for more and more and more…
So yes, I am eating more bread now, but paradoxically I might be eating less bread when you look at my week’s total! Crazy business indeed.
And because all of you should get your carbs in – you know, in order to not go crazy and consume everything in sight after I while – I suggest having bruscetta for lunch/dinner/now, just because you feel like having it!
‘Easy Bruscetta’
You can use of fresh loaf or ciabatta bread, I used that kind of bread you still have to put in the oven for about 10 minutes before you can eat it.
If you use the ‘not-yet-baked-kind’, bake it in an oven on 220°C (430F) for a couple of minutes before adding the toppings and place it back for about 8 minutes afterwards. Otherwise just add the toppings and bake/grill in the oven for about 8 minutes on 220°C.
Served with spinach, peaches, avocado and coleslaw.
See I don’t just eat bread you guys 😉
Love, M.
One of the great books I read while being MIA was ‘Intuitive Eating’
A lot of things became clear while reading this.
I realised that although I was not on a diet in the strict sense of that word, I still was thinking of food in a very black and white way, eating things I thought I should be eating in the amount I thought that was appropriate, letting my mind dictate my eating habits instead of my body.
The bottom line is that I deprived myself, not just from sweets and stuff, but mostly from those (scary little?) carbs. As a result I felt more and more out of control around a lot of food and overate like there would be no tomorrow. Add the stress of moving and examinations to that and you know how a monster gets created.
I knew something had to change but I also thought that I just had to be more strict and have more willpower to eat the healthy things and everything would be fine in the end. Well guess what, the more harsh you get on yourself, the more likely it is that it is not going to work out.
And this is where I thought about ordering that intuitive eating book I read about a couple of times, couldn’t hurt right?
It turns out to be a life saviour!
It might seem paradoxical but as soon as you are truly willing to let yourself eat anything you want, the undeniable urge to eat everything in your cabinets vanishes. While I’m still in the first phase of intuitive eating and thus still experimenting with that ‘unconditional permission to eat things’ (i.e. eat sweets just to prove to myself that I really can) I notice I haven’t been craving sweets and carbs like I used to and can eat smaller portions of them than I could ever before and feel satisfied while doing it.
I’ll definitely keep you posted about the process!
Love, M.
Tagged carbs, deprivation, intuition, intuitive eating, sweets, trust
I must admit I thought about not blogging again for a while.
Life got crazy and stuff went down and I did not miss it, not really.
But then everything got back to normal again and instead of being lived by my life I started living it myself again.
And with that shift the thought of ‘I should share that on the blog’ reappeared.
Mona’s cute kitten moments, great food, Werchter, reading new books, learning to appreciate the little things… I wanted to share it with you guys.
If you’ll have me back that is 😉
And well, it’s not like you’ve missed an awful lot, I’m still a yoghurt breakfast bowl fiend.
I did pick up juicing, so this might be a bit scary for some of you!
Don’t be self conscious, my mum thinks it’s scary too 😉
Glad to be back,
Love, M.
It feels like my life has been on repeat lately.
Good thing is I only have exams until Wednesday and then I can become a real person with a real life again.
Life lately: Yoga, studying, sleeping, yoga, studying, sleeping, yoga, studying, sleeping….
and I went for a run for a couple of times.
Oh yeah, and of course there was food too!
Breakfast lately:
I haven’t touched oatmeal in 3 weeks now, I haven’t gobbled down smoothies as breakfast for a while, instead I’m sticking with yoghurt bowls.
Light and fun.
And very versatile: most of the time there are strawberries involved and some kind of grains.
My favourites thus far:
Yoghurt bowl with strawberries, melon, crushed macademians, all bran flakes and a generous splash of rice milk and the bowl with banana, almond butter and dark chocolate chips.
The yoghurt obsession probably has something to do with discovering a new kind of soy yoghurt which is much creamier and has a milder taste than the one I usually have.
Snack lately:
All kind of mini veggies: mini bell peppers, mini chicory, cherry tomatoes, mini carrots…
Apples are back in my life!
Obsessions lately:
Papaya
Macadamian nuts, just looking at that photograph makes me drool a bit.
I really credit yoga for keeping me sane and making me feel like I’m alive in the midst of this chaos of exames, papers and new movingplans.
I’ve been hitting the mat almost every day, either doing an ashtanga mysore practise or doing some yin yoga, mostly focusing on easing the muscles in my hips and lower back a bit.
Hope you are all doing well!
Love, M.
Mona likes it when people prepare food.
She always thinks there might be something in it for her so she meows and she cuddles and she darts around your legs (hoping you’ll fall and she can get to the food easier, no doubt).
I always tell her she won’t be pleased with the stuff I have to offer when I’m cooking, with me being vegetarian and all, but apparently Mona thinks eating vegetarian is a very appropriate thing for a cat to do.
We already knew she was crazy for sweet corn and chickpeas, but today she took it up another notch:
She was hooking up with some lamb’s lettuce!
Love, M.
I hope you’re ready for another walk down memory lane cause today I incidentally threw something together for dinner that strongly reminded of my all time favourite childhood dinner.
I remember pleading with my mum to make it at least twice a week and as it happens I came across an old “friend book” lately (you know the ones you would hand out to all of your friend back in primary school to let them answer all kind of weird questions, or did this only happen in Belgium?) and I answered exactly that to the question “What’s your favourite food”:
Oven dish with potato mash, broccoli, minced meat in a cheesy sauce covered with grated cheese.
Here are the swaps I seemed to have made from my mum’s original recipe:
I swapped mashed potatoes with millet.
I swapped the cheesy sauce with a broth-hummus sauce.
I swapped the grated cheese with mozzarella.
The broccoli stayed as it always was and I didn’t use anything to replace the minced meat but you could always use vegetarian ‘mince’, lentils or minced meat for the carnivores among us. Just prepare it in a skillet and add it to the rest of the ingredients when you put it in the oven dish.
‘Millet and Broccoli Oven Dish’
serves 2
Cook the millet in vegetable broth (ratio 1:2.5) for 25 minutes. I don’t really know how much millet I’ve used, I used a little teacup at home to measure it out, not that this information is of much use to you. Just use what you think is the proper amount for 2 people to eat from.
Once done take it of the fire and let it sit for another 5 minutes.
Cook the broccoli until tender (about 5 minutes), prepare the sauce with about 100ml of vegetable broth, whisk in the two T of hummus.
Preheat oven to 200°C (390 F).
Layer the oven dish with the millet and broccoli, pour the sauce on top and top with about half of a mozzarella bowl. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes, make sure to turn on the grill for the last 5 minutes so the mozzarella will get some colour.
Eat from a bowl, because all classy people eat their dinner out of breakfast bowls!
Love, M.
Posted in food
Tagged broccoli, dinner, hummus, millet, mozzarella, nostalgia, oven dish, vegetable broth
Due to this being at home these past few weeks to study I haven’t been able to take a yoga class in a studio for a while, but I have been hitting the mat frequently myself in order to ease the tension in my back, working up some sweat and staying sane mentally.
So I was very excited to have scheduled a ‘real’ class at a studio for last night. It was a class at a studio I’ve never been to but taught by my favourite teacher from Leuven, so everything was sunny in Mixxedtape land.
That was until I consulted the site of the studio a couple of hours before the class and found out that the schedule had changed. I was planning to attend an ashtanga short form which had suddenly changed into a mysore class.
And my reaction to that was mentally changing into a nagging 6-year-old.
You see, I have followed mysore classes, but only the preparation ones, that were actually still led classes. I’ve never ever done the primary series on my own with no one talking me through it. Trust me, I’ve tried it at home and it didn’t work out that great: the standing poses are just fine but when I’ve gotten to the sitting poses I’m always sick of it and out of focus and NO, I do not want to do another vinyasa in between those two postures.
How mature of me 😉
Yet, I decided to just suck it up and go for it anyway, I was full of resistance, feeling really awkward and uncomfortable (especially when I was the only one there to start and other people came walking in after a few minutes while I was busy doing sun salutations).
I was struggling and out of focus, looking at other people, not really knowing what I was doing and things just felt all wrong, but I gradually let go of it, relaxed a bit more, gained some focus and then it got wonderful.
I’ve learned quite a bit about myself yesterday and the adjustments were spot on so I think this will really help me overcome these mental barriers that are holding me back when I’m doing the ashtanga series on my own.
You see, yoga is not just about the asanas, it’s about this too: overcoming mental barriers and letting go of resistance, not just on the mat but in every day life situations as well.
Namaste, M.
Posted in meditation and yoga
Tagged ashtanga, mysore, resistance, yoga, yoga life lessons
I’m currently studying over at my dad’s house and I bumped on a package of rice paper just the other day, while I was on a hunt for food in the fridge and the kitchen cabinets.
My dad does not keep any ‘real’ food in his house, I swear, it’s like a bachelor’s house! He had a cabinet full of cookies and chocolate and some mayonnaise, hot sauce and coca cola in the fridge…
well, that should make a great and nutritious dinner.
I’m so glad I asked him to do some groceries for me cause now I at least have some veggies, fruit and some rice.
So I decided to just roll with it:
Salad with cherries tomatoes,spinach and carrots.
Rice paper Spring rolls with:
One version is made with spinach, strawberries and half a peach.
The other version is made with a wild rice and quinoa mix, smokes almonds, pine nuts and dried figs.
And in case you never worked with rice paper before, have no fear: it’s super easy and quick. All you need is bowl, fill it with cold water, place the rice paper in and let it soak for about a minute,take them out, place them on a towel and stuff them.
Posted in food
Tagged dried figs, peach, pine nuts, quinoa, rice paper, smoked almonds, spinach, spring roll, strawberry, wild rice
Mixxedtape 