Life Lately

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.

Mockery and Compensations

In the theme of either you do it right or you don’t do it at all, I made up for my absence from my yoga mat this week by doing two classes in timespan of of 12 hours. Last night I went to a wonderful vinyasa class, which was extra special because we practised in the beautiful yard of our yoga studio for the first time. I’d recommend everyone to do a yoga practise outside when it’s nice out, you will learn many different things about yourself and your focus.

This morning I attended the mysore ashtangha class at 6.30.
I will repeat that in case you don’t grasp the earliness of the concept: 6.30 a.m.
I’m always pleasantly surprised when I take this class cause I leave it with so much energy and the feeling like I’m on top of the world, and it’s not even 8 yet!

Breakfast get designed in the theme of take away breakfasts.

Overnight oats in an almost empty yoghurt container:

These oats got inspired by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

I love Ben & Jerry’s! I’m not normally an ice cream fan but I like Ben & Jerry’s from time to time because it’s so much more than just ice cream.
All the flavours, add ins and different textures… it amazes me every single time.

In the container went 8 T of oatmeal, 2 T of grated coconut, splashes of soy milk, flax seeds, strawberries and smoked almonds. Store in fridge overnight and topped  with some melted peanut butter in the morning.

And an iced coffee on the side:

Yep, I am the creep that stores the container and some spare ice cubes of an iced latte from a café in her tiny freezer in order to be able to use the container again. In my defence , it’s the only way I can make sure I have ice cubes at hand and I will throw the container away after I finish this drink.

Love, M.

It’s a Pancake kinda Day

I’ve been thinking about pancakes since yesterday evening’s ashtanga class.
I know yoga should be about letting go and focusing on the postures and stuff, but I couldn’t help it, pancakes were on my mind!

I probably dreamed about pancakes too… and I woke up super early, glad to see it was a pancake kind of day: I bit gloomy, a bit grey, perfect Pancake weather!

‘Coconut Oat Pancakes’
makes 4 big or 8 to 10 small ones

• 5 T of oats
• 2 T of unsweetened coconut
• 3 T of yoghurt
• a generous amount of coconut milk
• one egg
• optional: 1 t of sweetener of choice, cinnamon

Toppings: melted peanut butter, half a banana, granola with chocolate chips and smoked almonds.

Mix together the oats and the coconut, add the yoghurt, egg and milk and whisk together until everything is combined. Fry in a skillet on high in some olive oil.

I wanted to make a couple of big pancakes first ( about 5 T of dough per pancake), but things started to get messy when I tried to flip those so I went with tiny pancakes instead (1 a 2 T per pancake).

Bonus points for those cause they are easier to stack.

Love, M.

All the Little Things

It is not about the big, life-changing events,
it’s about those tiny things that make you smile.

Like the tortellini primavera in my salad

Those tiny things that give your day that bit of spark.

Strawberries and black vodka

Those tiny things that reminder you to take a deep breath and enjoy.

Taking time to drink a cappuchino at The Coffee Club and read Hamlet.

Those tiny things that remind you to take notice of tiny things.

Flowers and breakfast parfaits

Those tiny things that will turn out to be great thing after a while.

Floris!!

Love, M.

Running on Pink

I’ve been having the most productive week ever!
And it’s only Wednesday, so things can only get better.

So far I’ve been:

• catching up on courses I’ve been neglecting
• writing papers like my life depends on it (one of which on the development of dummy from the 16th century to now, such fun)
• rode on a bike in the city for the first time  (which was fun and scary at the same time)
• took 2 yoga classes in 2 days (vinyasa power and ashtanga)
• working on my gift for Floris (more about that later!)

My mind is on full speed, even though my body has not been really cooperating, I’ve been sporting a throat ache that is not really something serious yet but serious enough to bug the living hell out of me at night, which translates into some severe sleep deprivation.

But apparently you do not need sleep to be productive, as long as you have enough caffeine and strawberries at you disposal.

Overnight oats with coconut and strawberries to start the day of on the right foot.

Smoothie with banana, strawberries and some ice cubes to sooth the troubled throat.

Spring salad: Lamb’s lettuce with cherry tomatoes, radishes, asparagus and strawberries of course.

Today’s lunch on the go: quinoa and strawberries with an apple and cherry tomatoes on the side.

PS: there won’t be any photographs of Floris until the weekend as I’m stuck in Leuven for the week!

Love, M.

Nostalgic Breakfast

We used to get dessert after every meal we ate at our nanna’s house.
And we spent there a lot of time with both of the parents working and our mum working a night shift.

The sis always wanted to eat vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles, but my favourite dessert was rice pudding or chocolate pudding with a cookie on the bottom. Since there was some leftover rice from yesterday’s lunch I know I wanted to do something with that for breakfast, my two old-time favourite desserts inspired this breakfast idea!

‘Overnight Rice Pudding Breakfast’

• 8 T of leftover rice (already cooked)
• 1 T of shredded coconut
• 1 T of flaxseeds
• cinnamon
• optional: half a mashed banana
• a container of soy yoghurt
• a sprinkle of soy milk
• 2 T of granola

Combine all the ingredients except the granola in a container and put them in a fridge overnight. The next morning, stir in some extra milk. Sprinkle the granola  on the bottom of a jar and layer with the rice pudding.

Even back in the old days I did not really like it when the cookie on the bottom of the pudding got all mushy, so I would only eat the cookie pudding when it was just made. If you do like mushy cookies, or granola in this case, you can also do the layering the night before and place the granola topped with the rice pudding in the fridge to chill overnight.

Love, M.

Food in Rome

Italians are a bit weird about vegetarianism: they have a lot of amazing dishes that do not have any meat in them, but as soon as you announce you’re a vegetarian they get a bit confused and the only thing they seem to be able to offer you is a plate of lettuce with some tomato slices.

Yeah, that happened on our trip in Rome… several times.
But there were also times we got more lucky.

For lunch we either had a panini on the go (on the photograph: a panini with mozzarella, zucchini and aubergine. I even had one with green beans,mushrooms and cauliflower once) or we had a picknick with nice Italian bread, cheese,cherry tomatoes and fruit.

I think I enjoyed lunch most because that was the meal we got to choose ourselves. I’m usually a big fan of breakfast but the breakfast we got in the hotel wasn’t that great: buns with butter and jelly (if you got lucky you got a different jelly flavour than you had the day before). We did have breakfast in a cosy, little coffeeshop a couple of times which was awesome: a steaming cappuchini and a croissant, njam!

Typical foodstand with panini and drinks

Real Romans eat pizza!

And not just normal pizza, they eat giant pizza.

The best thing about dinner was that we got dessert every time, sometimes we got fruit  but most of the time we got some not very tasting looking pudding (sometimes it was actually meant to be pudding, other times it was meant to be pannacotta). I even bargained my way into getting some tiramusi from someone who was lucky enough to get a serving of that since they were all out of pudding.

And don’t forget about the gelati and the frozen yoghurt!

Love, M.

Tropicality

The sis had her wisdom teeth removed yesterday, I almost fainted, lovely day indeed.But hey, at least we found out Regina Spektor will be performing at Werchter the day we will be going, so that made everything all right again!

Breakfast today was cakelike and it was tropical tasting, an ideal boost  for a day of studying, reading mandatory articles and going for a quick run.  

‘Tropical Microwave Muffin’
makes one big or two small ones 

• 6 T of oatbran
• 4 T of soy milk
• half a container of yoghurt (I used a peach flavoured kind)
• 1 egg
• 1 T of grated coconut
• a handful of almonds,slivered
• a pinch of baking powder and a pinch of salt

Whisk everything together, pour in a big mug or divide over two smaller mugs. Microwave on medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes.

Love, M.

Got to have it all

All I could think about when I woke up this morning were oatmeal toppings!

I wanted granola, I wanted melted peanut butter, I wanted cottage cheese…
I did not want oatmeal however.

My craving for real Spring weather is not satisfied yet but my appetite has already decided that it is getting too much like Spring to keep on eating a steaming bowl of oatmeal in the morning.

Exit hot oatmeal, bring on the smoothies with oatmeal toppings!

In the smoothie: Soy milk, half a banana, 1/4 of an avocado and some lamb’s lettuce. Topped with: 5 t of cottage cheese and melted peanut butter.

This was really amazing!
You can’t call it a light smoothie by any means and I would not recommend drinking this (unless you’re used to drinking your cottage cheese, then go ahead) but it was a filling breakfast and it was really tasty.
I liked the texture as well, because I only used half a banana it wasn’t a thick smoothie but the cottage cheese made up for that lack of texture a lot.

Anyway, I think it’s time for cold oatmeal to make  a comeback, or else I’ll have to think of other, more Spring like breakfasts, all ideas are welcome!

Love, M.

Again with the Sweet Potato

Creamy, creamier, creamiest….

über-creamy!

Someone just had to invent a new word to describe the creamy factor of this bowl of oats.

‘Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Oats’

• 40 gr (half a cup) of oats
• some water
• some soy milk
• half a sweet potato, prepared in the microwave
• 1 T of cottage cheese
• cinnamon

Add the oats and just enough water to cover them in a bowl. Microwave for one minute. Add the soy milk, half  a mashed sweet potato you prepared in the microwave first and 1 T of cottage cheese. Place it back in the microwave for 2 a 3 minutes. Top with some more cottage cheese and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Now I can hear you think:
“What the hell am I supposed to do with the other half of that sweet potato??”

Well, you use it in a smoothie, simple as that:

Smoothie with half a sweet potato (mashed), half a banana
and some lamb’s lettuce.

So there you have it, sweet potatoes have made their return, consider yourself warned!

Love, M.