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.

Like a kid in a Candyshop

That’s how excited I get when I find new things in the stores and when I get to eat/ cook with them for the first time.

New and excited foods you can find in my pantry as of now:

Zonnatura bar with peanuts,almonds,honey and raisons

The first chai tea I have ever owned

A lovely rice combination: different kinds of rice with barley and wheat

The first time I’ve ever seen or eaten okra

I really enjoyed the okra raw and it was nice as well when it was cooked, just a bit more slimy (if you’re a food texture- nazi, you probably should not try to cook it). I really like these with tomato ketchup, is that strange? Is that blasphemy?

Put together the cooked rice with okras, soy beans, carrots and mange touts. Eat. Enjoy.

I’m sorry for this diffuse kind of posting, it’s my first week back at college and I’m a bit weary and tired and doing a thousand things at a time, one of them is eating okra with tomato ketchup, don’t mind the ketchup stains on the keyboard.

Love, M.

Rice Paper Pockets

Yesterday evening a friend came over and we decided to try out a spring roll recipe with zucchini, carrot, red bell peppers, hot peppers and a dip.

We both weren’t blown away by the ‘rawness’ of it, it just tasted very bland.
For the second batch we first fried the veggies in a skillet and the result was much better.

This lunch I tweaked the recipe a bit more (we still had 16 rice paper rolls over after we finished eating yesterday night, what the hell am I supposed to do with all that rice paper?!).

‘Rice Paper Pockets’
Makes 2 pockets 

You basically have 3 options with this recipe: you can eat it all raw, stir fry the veggies before you fold them into the paper or fry the pockets in a skillet in some olive oil after you added the stir fried veggies to make them a bit crunchy.

• 2 rice paper leaves
• 2 handfuls of soy sprouts
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• half a hot pepper
• a piece of zucchini, about 5 cm
• half a carrot
• (leftover) brown rice (it has to be cooked before you add it!)
• other options: bell peppers
• some soy sauce
• 2 t of Greek yoghurt
• pepper

Chop up the zucchini, carrot and peppers (if you’re using those). Add some olive oil to a skillet on high heat, toss the veggies in and stir fry them (or add them to the rice paper while they are still raw).

Place the rice paper in cold water for about a minute (one by one, otherwise they might stick together), dry them on a paper towel.
Add the veggies to the centre of the rice paper, add a dollop of Greek yoghurt on top and fold it (I just folded them the way I would fold tortillas, I’m sure there are more elegant ways to do this though;)).

Fry the pockets in some olive oil if you want to. Serve with soy sauce.

This is what a fried pocket looks like

Does anyone have any ideas what to do with the remainder of the rice paper, I can’t keep eating spring rolls for lunch and dinner for the rest of the week?!

Love, M.

Some Ginger Tea to call my Own

I decided to make things less pricy for myself (and my parents, they are the ones that provide me with my food budget after all) and brew my own ginger tea instead of buying a cup every now and then. (I actually stole the idea from Lexie, who posted a cup of ginger tea a couple of posts ago).

You can do the math: instead of buying a cup of ginger tea for 3 euros (so expensive, but it tastes so good) I now bought some ginger (3 pieces to be exact) for 1.39 euros. Even if I could only make one cup of tea out of that, it would still be beneficial!Granted, I don’t get to drink it out of a lovely take away cup, but you can’t have it all .

The first try went pretty well, just cut op the ginger, cut it in small pieces and place the pieces in a tea sift. I added some honey to it as well. It wasn’t spicy enough just yet, so next time I’m going to add a bit more ginger, but taste-wise it is definitely pretty close to the stuff I used to buy.
I only used 1/3 of that really small ginger trunk that is hiding underneath the other two on the photograph shown above, so it is much cheaper for sure!

Here’s what I had for lunch, it has absolutely nothing to do with ginger or tea at all, but I wanted to show it to you guys anyway 😉

Mushrooms and zucchini, sautéed in some olive oil with added soy and brown rice, sprinkled with soy sauce.
So that’s that, I’m back off the enjoy my tea and then I’m going to change for a yoga class, namaste!

Love, M.