So this is my current addiction...
... if you have not tried golden milk yet, you totally totally have to!
Winter is almost over and here in Germany these days are like the last ones of Winter. Its still pretty cold, its freezing at night and getting ok warm during the day. However, this weather is still perfect to cuddle up in a blanket at night and to drink some warm and spicy golden milk. Oh I love it!
So what is golden milk? Its a spicy "milk shake" or maybe more of a latte, made of black pepper, ginger, cinnamon and the magic ingredient - turmeric!
Turmeric truely is a magic ingredient, it is shown to be anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antiseptic,analgesic, to boost immunity, to be anti-carcinogenic, to promote digestive health, to detoxify the liver, to help against high blood pressure, to support memory and brain function to lower triglycerides and the list goes on and on!
Turmeric is basically what makes curry powder yellow. You can buy turmeric as a powder, or even better, fresh turmeric roots. I prefer the roots, but if you find it difficult to get hand on them, just go for the powder!
When you add black pepper to turmeric it enhances its bioavailability by 1,000 times - this is why black pepper is a MUST in the golden milk (also it gives this special taste...hmmm..)
Can it get any healthier? Of course! Add some ginger! Like turmeric ginger has anti-Inflammatory effects, induces cell death in cancer cells and is an analgesic, so it helps with pain relief (Try to drink golden milk next time you have a head ache!).
To add some extra antioxidants, I always add a little bit of cinnamon too - I also just love the taste of cinnamon!
Okay, so here is what you need to make my kind of golden milk (there are other recipes out there all slightly different):
Aprox. 1 Liter warm water
A handful of soaked cashews (soak them overnight or some 5-10 hours)
A handful of dates
Half a little finger os ginger root
Half a little finger of turmeric root
Some black pepper
Some cinnamon
Put all together in a high speed blender and blend it all up until you have a smooth milk.
If you do not have a high speed blender you can always use some store bought plant milk, like soy milk or almond milk and add some maple syrup for sweetness instead of using dates. You can also use ground ginger and ground turmeric. However, you get the most creamy, smooth and tasteful golden milk when you use fresh ingredients :)
Enjoy! And have a wonderful weekend!
Sending much love!
Recently I got asked what I actually eat in a day...
... so I decided to show you :)
I eat differently every day and every week, depending on the season, my mood, the time I have etc. so this really is only an example from THIS week. This week I am pretty pretty busy, I work a lot and did not have much time to cook. So there was no lasagna and not even a bolognese because it simply would take too long to prepare.
So here we go with the morning... I usually start my day with some warm lemon water. I like to add some turmeric to it, some pepper and a little bit of maple syrup (it gets this really orange color because of the turmeric).
My second course in the morning is a green smoothie. Currently I am always making orange-kale-dates but sometimes I also feel like having some banans smoothie with aronia and greens or some orange-fennel smoothie.
Then fiiiinally I am getting to the third course (I usually have like a 45 minutes break between the smoothie and the "real" breakfast) which is either muesli, semolina pudding or oatmeal. I like to add spices such a vanilla, cinnamon and cardamon to my oats and semolina, and I always have some ground flaxseeds with my breakfast (sooooo healthy!). Usually I do not add fruit to my oats or muesli because of better digestion, but sometimes I simply do not care about digestion and I just add diced apples and bananas :)
Around four hours after breakfast I have lunch. Lunch is the "big meal" for me. I spend most time in the kitchen when I prepare lunch. However, as I wrote above, this week is a busy one, so the meals stayed simple. I had quiona with a stew of pointed cabbage, turnips and poatoes on one day and mashed poatoes (both white potatoes and sweet potatoes), green beans and some mushrooms with smoked tofu the other day.
In the afternoon I always need something sweet... this can either be a big banana-almond-date smoothie, or some golden milk (I will make a post about this, so I am not going to say too much about what this is right now ;)) or some sugar free soy yogurt with agave syrup and frozen beeeeeeries. Love it!
For dinner we usually keep it very simple. We often have pasta for dinner. Like this week, we had whole wheat spagetti with a vegan "cheese" sauce (made with potatoe, carrots and nutrional yeast) and alfalfa sprouts. But often we also simply eat bread with veggies. We often bake our own bread, sometimes we buy it in our organic market and sometimes I get lucky a receive some alkaline bread from Alvito made from buckwheat, sweet potatoe and potatoe. There are herbs inside which makes it very tasty! You can find more alkaline products on the website from Alvito. If you want to know more about the acid-base balance and why I prefer to eat more alkaline foods, feel free to check out this post of mine.
So the other day we had bread with a homemade kidney bean spread and some alfalfa sprouts. I usually prefer to make my own spread or to eat avocado with bread, because the store-bought ones are always loaded with oil.
Now finally, when the little one is in bed and I am sitting on the sofa, writing a blog post about what I eat in a day, I like to snack on some dates and sliced apples. And to have some tea :)
Sometimes I also have other snacks at night, like sugar free brownies (currently there are some black bean brownies waiting for me in the kitchen...) or banana nice cream or some hot chocolate (sweeteend with agave syrup).
Well, thats it. Thats an example of what I eat in a day... I think I eat around 3000 kalories a day, but I never count so I am really not sure. Anyway, I just enjoy and always try to eat as much as I can - because the more I eat, the more nutrients I get ;)
Did you find this post intersting? I could make one like this every once in a while, if you like!? Do you eat similar things or completly different? I would love to know!
Sending much love!
Have you ever tried bliss balls?
Bliss balls are sugarfree, raw, healthy alternatives to all the junk candy out there. Being healthy does NOT mean to do without sweets. Oh no no no. It means eating sweets without feeling guilty :)
I make bliss balls around once a week and have a few almost every night. I have my favorites recipes which I make again and again. However, there a tons of other recipes out there. I am just a lazy person so I stick to my simple ones ;)
To make bliss balls all you need is:
Nuts of your choice (I recommend almonds or walnuts)
Dates
A little bit of agave syrup
Spice of your choice (I like to use cinnamon and vanilla)
And/or
Cocoa
And/or
Superfoods of your choice
Add nuts and dates to your food processor and mix until you get a creamy texture (add water or agave syrup or even maple syrup if the texture is too dry). Add spices or cocoa or both. Add superfoods or roll the ready made bliss ball in some powdered super foods.
On the picture above you can see:
Cocoa-peanut-agave syrup bliss balls
Walnut-dates-vanilla-cinnamon bliss balls
Almond-dates bliss balls with the superfood mix Protect from Greenic, matcha, aronia powder, and a blossom blend
You can play around with all your favorite ingredients and make bliss balls with chai spice, pumpkin pie spice, with plums, raisins, or mulberries, all the nuts you like, and different alternatives to sugar. I love my walnuts and almonds and I love dates, cinnamon and vanilla. So thats why the ones I show you here are my favorite ones :)
In case you ever tried bliss balls - whats your favorite recipe? I would love to know and to try it too! In case you did not try bliss balls so far, I highly recommend making some and eating them at your next movie night instead of sweets and chips! Its such a delicous and healthy alternative!
Sending much love to all of you!
Lets talk acids and alkalines...
... in my last food post I talked a little bit about acids and alkalines when I told you why I decided not to eat any white flour nor any refined sugar for (at least) a year. Some of you asked why sugar and white flour is bad for you so I thought it may be a good idea to write a little bit more about acids and alkalines (which are only PART of the story of why white sugar and white flour is bad - the other part is all about the gut flora which I may write about someday too).
Now, what is the story with acids and alkalines? Your body maintains a delicate acid-alkaline balance and everything, truely everything, in your body (and outside too actually - like water, soil...) is affected
by pH. PH stands for “potential hydrogen” and it is the measure
of hydrogen ions in a particular solution, like your blood for example.
The pH scale measures how acidic or alkaline a
substance is and ranges from 0 to 14. Seven is neutral. Below 7 becomes
increasingly acidic, above 7 increasingly alkaline. Proper
pH varies throughout your body for many reasons. For example, your
bowels, skin and vagina should be slightly acidic – this helps keep
unfriendly bacteria away. There is a constant balance throughout your body when it comes to acids and alcalines. Hence, acids are not always bad and alkalines not always good - its all about the balance.
By far the most important measurement is your blood. For optimal
cellular health, your blood pH must be slightly alkaline with a pH
between 7.365 and 7.45. Your body will maintain this range no matter what, since even the
slightest dip or rise in pH can have seriously dangerous consequences.
Now here is where food comes in: when you eat loads of acidic substances and foods, like meat, dairy, highly processed food
products, white flour, and refined sugar your body has a looooot of work to do to keep up with a healthy pH.
To keep up the pH between 7.365 and 7.45 your body is forced to borrow minerals—including
calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium—from vital organs and bones
to neutralize the acid and safely remove it from the body. Because
of this strain, your body can suffer severe and prolonged damage due to high
acidity — a condition that may go undetected for years and can lead to various symptons, such as cardiovascular damage, bladder and kidney conditions, including kidney stones, immune deficiency, premature aging, osteoporosis, joint pain, low energy and chronic fatigue.
By eating a more alkaline diet (leafy greens, veggies,
sprouts, fruits) as opposed to an acidic
diet (high in animal products, white flour, refined sugar, soda, etc), you will give your body more alkalinity, vitamins and other nutrients.
So far so good. But what is an alkaline diet and how many acids do you need?
The most acid foods are animal products of any kind, white sugar, white flour, all processed foods, soda etc. The most alkaline foods are all fruits (except for cranberries), all veggies, all greens, almonds, quinoa, amarant, wild rice etc. However, some foods are somwhere in the middle - like oats, corn, or potatoes. So even on a plant based diet you will get some acids. And this is good! Because you need SOME (around 20%). However, you only need SOME! When eating animal products, white flour or sugar you will easily come up with muuuuuch more than 20% of your total food intake as acids and hence, you will be out of balance.
This is why I decided to stop eating white flour and refined sugar on top of eating a vegan diet :)
Does this sound too complicated to you? Its not! Its easy - just eat all the good whole plants out there and you will have so much fun in the kitchen, feel full of energy, save the planet (animal production is responsible for 50-85% of emissions!) and be happy :)
And in case you need some help to begin with, there are tons of awesome ready made products out there which are truely healthy for you and the planet. I recently tried this yummy quinoa mix from Alvito which is composed to help you to get your alkalines. Its full of alkaline ingredients such a herbs, veggies, quinoa, amarant and millet. Plus its really tasty. I added some extra veggies to it and had some chicory and chili-soy-yogurt with it. Delicious!
Feel free to check out more alkaline products on alvito.com (German only as far as I can tell)
Writing my Thursday posts is always so much fun! I am really happy with the decision to post only twice a week instead of three times. I have more time to prepare my posts and I enjoy writing these long posts on Thursdays. I am already looking forward to next weeks Thursday post (it will be beauty related...;)) and for the one the week after (which will be sweet and yummy ;)).
But now tell me how you liked this post and if you were familiar with the topic before! Are you now able to understand better why I decided to stay away from refined products such a white flour and sugar?
Sending sooooo much love to all of you wonderful readers and friends!
Today I want to talk about one of my New Years resolutions...
... I told you back in this post in a sidenote that I have this little challenge going on for the year 2016. I will not eat any white flour nor any refined sugar during the entire lenght of year! Oh yes! Today I want to tell you a little bit more about this challenge and why I decided for it :)
Maybe you have heard of the term acid-base-balance!? In case you havent, let me just tell you a little bit about it... our blood basically needs the right balance
of acid and basic (alkaline) compounds to function properly. Kidneys and lungs work to keep the acid-base balance. So food is digested in our bodies and is broken down to a kind of ash residue, which determines alkaline vs acidic foods.
This ash residue can be either neutral, acidic, or alkaline. In general alkaline foods contain higher amounts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron,
and will leave an alkaline ash, while acidic foods contain higher
amounts of sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine and leave an acid ash.
Food such as meat, eggs, dairy products, sugar, coffee, white flour, and soda ar highly acidic! A diet high in acidics is responsible for various diseases such as arthrosis, gallstones, high blood pressure, depression, fatigue, etc. etc. etc.
Now as you may guess I am already doing pretty good eating loads of alkaline foods, since I am not eating any animal products (which are all highly acid). However, I still used to eat white flour and refined sugar from time to time. Because I want to get an even better balance when it comes to my acids and alkalines, I decided to stop eating refined sugar and white flour - for now I say for one year, maybe it will be forever after this one year :)
Now that I wrote a little bit about the background let me continue with how the challenge went so far. First of all, leaving out the white flour and the refined sugar I realized that I end up leaving out all the empty calories, so this challenge somehow also became a no-empty-calories-challenge to me. Since January 1, everything I put into my body is rich in nutrients and can actually be used by my body - it does not stress my organism (as meat and dairy products, sugar, white flour, etc. do). Do you wanna now how I feel since?
Its been three weeks so far and I have to say that the first few days without sugar have been a little hard for me. Those of you who have babies too, you know how much you are craving energy when you are breastfeeding. And sugar is the fastest and easiest way to get energy. When I left out the sugar, I ate even more to get all the energy I need. The first few days this was difficult to me but now, three weeks later, I feel great with it! I do not have any cravings for sugar and I enjoy eating a loooooot of carbs to get the energy I need (without gaining any weight). I do not miss white flour at all, to be honest. I love my whole wheat pasta, my whole grain spelt pancakes and my whole grain bread. I need to find a place where they have whole wheat brezels though, cause I begin to miss pretzels ;)
So I feel GREAT and I am happy that I decided for this challenge... but this does not mean that its easy or even possible not to eat refined sugar and white flour! Why? Let me tell you!
In almost every processed product there is sugaar! Go to the wholefood shop and take any hummus, any vegetable broth, any sandwich spread - in every second of the products you will find SUGAR! So far I was not able to find a vegetable broth without sugar so I cannot say that I am doing perfect in my challenge, because I still use the broth. Also white flour - in Germany, when a bread is declared as "whole grain" it must only contain 80% whole grains so the 20% left is white flour in every second bread. Also, there is sugar in almost all breads. Hence, in case you do not do EVERYTHING by yourself, it is more or less impossible to go 100% sugar and white flour free!
I realized from the first day on that I will not be able to make this challenge 100%. I do not yet know great alternatives to vegetable broth that do not contain sugar (any ideas?), I cannot bake my own bread every day (we do aorund once a week but sometimes we also buy organic whole grain bread) but I am getting better every day :) I am totally fine with the fact that I am not doing it 100% because I know that I do my best and I feel already a difference. Also I know that those traces of white flour and sugar will not have much impact on my acid-base balance nor on my intestinal flora (which is the second reason for who I do this challenge - a healthy intestinal flora is key to good health and wheat and sugar are destroying the healthy bacteria down there (as do animal products by the way))).
By the way, there are of course also some processed foods who are very alkaline and I am definetly going to share a few with you on the blog throughout the year :)
I will also share more background information on why sugar and white flour, next to animal products, are bad for your intestinal flora and for your health in general - so be ready for that ;)
So far, I hope you enjoyed this post! Have you every thought about if your acids and alkalines are in balance? What do you think about my no-empty-calories-challenge? Could you do without refined sugar and white flour for a year or even longer? I would love to know!
Sending muuuuuch love!
This is a post I wanted to make for a looong time...
... about a year ago, I wrote a post about eating a plant-based diet during pregnancy (you can find the post here). You can actually find a lot of information about what to eat during pregnancy on the net, also loads of info about a vegan diet during pregnancy, but for some reason the period of breastfeeding is less popular. Its harder to find information about that actually- as if it is less important! I think it is AT LEAST as important what you are eating during the period of nursing as what you eat during pregancy. So here are some info about this topic.
First of all: it is absolutely easy to get all the vitamins, minerals, all the protein and all the calcium you need, when you are vegan and breastfeeding. It is actually much EASIER than when eating an omnivore diet. Because when you eat meat and dairy this automatically means that you eat less fruits and veggies and since meat and dairy is less nutrient-dense than fruits and veggies you get less nutrients (on an equal amount of calories). That said, let me go into the details :)
Breastfeeding is very exhausting for your body! You need loads of energy (food) and loads of nutrients to make sure YOU get enough of everything. Your baby will take what it needs, it comes first - so make sure there is always enough left over for you!
Eat 300-500 calories more than before pregnancy. Of course you do not have to count calories. Just always eat in abundance and you will get the right amount! Never restrict yourself, always eat until you are fully satisfied. And do not be afraid of gaining weight: as long as you eat healthy foods you can eat as much as you like and you will not get fat. Look at me - I often eat up to 3000 calories a day and I do not think that I am a fatty!?
When you eat healthy (low fat, plant-based) you will loose your pregnancy weight automatically because your little one will suck it all out of your body, dont worry. My current weight is below me before-pregancy weight (-2kg) even though I eat really a loooooot... but my baby also drinks a lot ;)
Now there is this craze about proteins and that you may not get enough on a plant-based diet. One question: have you ever heard of someone with protein-defiency? No? Well, it will be difficult to find someone because only when you go hungry for weeks, you risk to become protein-defienct. Here is a quote to explain further:
“When your caloric needs are met [by eating whole foods], your protein
needs are met automatically. Focus on eating healthy natural foods;
forget about trying to get enough protein. Your protein needs increase
in direct proportion to increased caloric demands and your increased
appetite. Guess what? You automatically get enough. The same is true
during pregnancy. When you meet your caloric needs with an assortment of
natural plant foods, you will receive the right amount of protein- not
too much and not too little.” -Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live
The same goes for calcium by the way - more and more studies prove that too much calcium (loads of dairy products) actually harms the body and we get right the perfect amount when we eat a diet based on fruit and veggies.
Iron? Not to worry about, as long as you eat ENOUGH! The key to getting enough nutrients really is TO EAT ENOUGH! Now you may say that I am crazy and that you learned your whole life that you should eat less!? Well, just think about it - the more good food you eat the more nutrients you get, the less you eat the less you get. When you decide that you want to eat only 1300 or so calories per day than better make sure that those are superfoods only so that you get your nutrients. In case you do not only want to eat superfoods, just make sure you eat enough during the day, loads of veggies and fruits and you will get everything you need. During pregnancy, during the nursing period and beyond :)
This said, I have a few recommendations for you, representing the way I eat during nursing period (and beyond):
1. Eat vegetables in abundance!
Your veggies are life! Make sure to eat loads of green veggies such as salads, kale, broccoli, spinach, swiss chard, etc. etc. they are extremely nutrient dense. One great way to get your greens is by making green smoothies! Just blend your greens in a high speed blender with your favorite fruits and voilà; you have a nice healthy snack!
2. Eat Fruit in abundance!
Fruits
are the highest quality source of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients!
Plus they are super sweet and yummy. Have you tried to make a whole meal
of 1000 kalories from fruit only? Its fun and yummy! You can find loads
of inspo on the net.
However,
I know that those of us living in the northern hemisphere have a hard
time to find an abundance of fresh and ripe fruit in Winter. This is why I recommend for anyone who feels its difficult to get hand on an abundance of fresh fruits (which is the case in Germany):
3. Add nutrient dense juices and super foods!
In Summer its easy to eat loads of fresh and ripe fruits but in Winter it is difficult here in Germany. Its important to eat your fruits fresh and ripe to avoid bloating and problems with the digestion, but except for apples, bananas, oranges, and a few others, you will have a hard time to find ripe fruit during the German Winter. This is way I like to add Barley Grass to my daily routine. I wrote more about why I LOVE barley grass back here. I also like to add a little bit of nutrient dense juice to my water. Juice from e.g. aronia, acerola, cranberry or sea buckthorn have loads of vitamins and minerals plus they add some flavor to my water ;) As with the barley grass and with everything else, quality is very important to me. I get my barley grass from Jomu and I love the high quality demeter (organic) NFC juices from Voelkel. Please do not misunderstand me here - I do not recommend drinking loads of fruit juice! I recommend adding small amounts of high quality, carefully pressed, nutrient-dense deliciousness :)
4. Eat enough calories!
This really is so important! When you are breastfeeding you. need. to. eat. enough. Really! When you loose too much weight at once during nursing period, the toxicants stored in your fat will go directly to your milk and, hence, to your baby. Toxicants are always stored in fat, so be careful about it :)
Further, as I wrote already above; you can only get enough nutrients and energy when you eat enough. Dont worry about your shape, it will come back automatically when you eat healthy!
Plus - make sure to always supply vitamin B12! The baby will not get any of your stored B12 reserves through the milk but only the one you actually EAT!
Wow, what a long post! It was so much fun to write! A huge thanks to Voelkel for the juices and to Jomu for my much loved barley grass! I am such a lucky women, I am! :)
By the way, most of you know, but I still would like to repeat, that I only recommend sustainable, organic brands here on my blog. And I only recommend products that I really USE in my everyday life and that I really like!
Now, this said, I guess this post is a wrap :)
Sending muuuuuch love!
Let me share our vegan Christmas menu with you...
... Christmas is over but before the holiday spirit is completely gone, I would love to share our vegan Christmas menu with you. Maybe it will inspire you for your New Years menu or even for next years Christmas - plus, I really want to show you that you can eat a delicious, filling and healthy menu for Christmas, where you do not feel like missing ANYTHING and all of that without eating ANY animal products, ANY sugar ANY oil! True story :)
I am sorry for the terrible quality of the pictures - candle light is still a tough one for my camera.
So here we go with the starter; we had a soup with savoy cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and apples, seasoned with cinnamon and vegetable broth. We sprinkled some smoked tofu and some roasted red onions on top. I prepared the soup for lunch and we had some for lunch and then some as a starter for the Christmas dinner. Since I prepared it for lunch already, there was less work at night :)
The main dish was a baked sweet potatoe, filled with roasted onions, smoked tofu, cranberries and walnuts (yum!!!), as side dishes we had kale in maple syrup (just a little bit of maple syrup of course), red cabbage with lemon, orange and pomegranate seeds, and mashed turnips with coconut milk and ginerbread spices. This was delicious!!!
I prepared the red cabbage and the mashed turnips the night before so that I only had to make the stuffing for the sweet poatoes and the kale on December 24. Like that we did not spend much time in the kitchen on Christmas eve and we had loads of quality time spent together as a family.
And now the desert... I am terrible sorry about the bad quality of the picture - its totally not worth such a bad quality, since it was a desert that should be presented in some fancy high quality food magazine; it was that good! We had almond pudding (almond milk, coconut sugar and agar agar) with vanilla pine seeds and maple syrup. Oh my! This. Was. Amazing. It was more or less the best desert I EVER had. And it is completly vegan and free of sugar!!! I ate like three portions and felt great, because I knew there was nothing bad in there - how cool is that? I think its pretty cool ;)
So my husband and I fested on these tasty dishes the night of the 24. On December 25 we went to see my mother for a Christmas brunch and on December 26 we went to Berlin to celebrate Christmas my brothers and a few other family members. The holidays were filled with love, laughter, hours spend on the sofa, reading the books I got as gifts, quality time with my husband and my daughter, loads of long walks through the woods and parks of my city and a whole lot of very good vegan food. I did not feel like missing anything for even a second.
Now, we are in between holidays and it is the time of the year where most people (including myself) think a lot about the past year, the coming year, and life in general. I will share some of my thoughts about the past year and the coming year with you on the blog soon.
Until then, I am sending lots of love to all of you! How was your Christmas? How does this Christmas menu look to you :)?
The day after tomorrow is Christmas!
And I am still making gifts and am far from done with wrapping the gifts I already have. What about you? Are you done with everything?
In case you still need a DIY idea for a Christmas gift I have one for you - a superfood topping for muesli or oatmeal! It is very easy to make and a great gift for everyone who likes muesli or oatmeal, who eats healthy or who wants to eat healthy :)
I came up with this idea because I still had some cocoa beans from Keimling left over after I made the filled dates (see post here) and I did not really know what to do with them... but then I thought about all the mueslis out there made with cocoa nibs and I came up with the idea of making a muesli - but I thought its even better to make a superfood mix that can be used in muesli, oatmeal, buckwheat, groats or whatsoever :)
What I put into the superfood mix:
Pumpkin seeds
Goji berries
Chokeberries
Chia seeds
Cocoa beans
Popped amarant
Popped quinoa
In case you use coca beans make sure to remove the skin before shredding them! I removed the skin from my cocoa beans and put them into my food processor so that I get small pieces that are like the ready made cocoa nibs who can buy in stores. You can of course also just use cocoa nibs - will be less work for sure ;)
Would you like to get this as a gift? I would - this is why I made some for my husband and me too ;)
So, are you on holiday yet? Or still working? I hope you are free and ready for Christmas :)
Its my birthday tomorrow so all my thoughts go to my birthday instead of Christmas right now. These days are soooo busy with preparations, gift-making, grocery shopping, card-writing and sending etc. etc. but I feel wonderful and I am soooo very happy!
Sending you all much love!
I am continuing with my healthy alternatives to Christmas cookies...
... today with something special: raw vegan glutenfree sugarfree super healthy super yummy most delicious and awesome pumpkin pie! Pumpkin season is not over just because thanksgiving is over and the delicious taste of ginger and cinnamon is perfect for the Advent season.
This pumpkin pie is super creamy, crunchy and tasty and you can totally feel good about eating it - because its super healthy.
All you need for this pumpkin pie are these few ingredients:
A Pie Pumpkin
A RIPE Khaki (make sure you use a ripe khaki, it should be really really soft!)
Dates
Walnuts
Some Ginger
Some Cinnamon
You will need approximately as many dates as walnuts and the amount depends on how much you wanna make. Maybe around 200 gram of walnuts and around the same quantity of dates (since dates are heavier than walnuts it will maybe be 300 or even 400 gram) for a regular sized pie pan.
For the crust you put your walnuts and 80% of your dates (leave around 4-7) in a food processor and process until you get a nice crust. Put the crust into your pie pan. - You may notice that the crust gets very oily, like you can see on my picture here, its all natural walnut oil!
For the filling you put around a small teapsoon of cinnamon, a fingernail size of ginger, pumpkin (cut into small pieces) and the khaki into your high speed blender and blend everything up until you get a very creamy golden filling. Add the rest of your dates, or less or more, depending on how sweet you like it - also add more ginger or cinnamon if you like :)
Et voilá - your raw vegan pumpkin pie is ready! So easy, so fast, sooooooo good!!!
We had this delicious pie on the weekend to celebrate the third Advent Sunday. My mother and her husband came to visit and even though they were a little sceptical in the first place, they both loved the raw vegan pie and both of them asked for second slice - which made me very happy of course :)
Have you ever tried some raw cakes or candies? I love to try out new healthy recipes, especially when they do not contain any sugar. I need to practice to make sweets without sugar because I have a little bit of a challenge planned for next year... will tell you more about it soon.
For now, have a great Monday!
Sending much love!
Happy Monday!
Today I have another healthy alternative to the usual Christmas cookies for you - namely baked apples!
I love baked apples and I make them several times every Christmas season. Now, we just got a new oven and since I need to try out all it different functions, I made baked apples like three times in the past seven days - yummy :)
It is very easy to make baked apples and all you need are these few ingredients:
Apples (choose a big and sour kind, I usually like to use Boskop apples)
Raisins
Almonds (buy chooped ones or chop them yourself)
You can also add marzipan if you like - it will be less healthy of course but its also very very very very delicious with marzipan :)
You need to core your apples before baking them - I use a seeder to do this and I highly recommend using this nice little utensil since it makes it so much easier to core apples for both baked apples and for dried apple rings.
When the core is gone you can put the raisins and almonds inside the apple. You can also put the marzipan if you choose to add it. I like to make a bottom out of marzipan so that the raisins and almonds do not fall through.
Preheat your oven to 180°C and bake the apples for around 18 minutes (or until soft).
I like to eat baked apples with a raw, vegan, and sugarfree vanilla sauce. The sauce is as easy as it can be:
I just put some dates, almonds and some vanilla bean in my high speed blender, add a little bit of water and blend it until I have the sweetest, creamiest, most healthy vanilla sauce ever!
Try it - you will not regret and you will not even notice that you are eating something super healthy :)
Have you tried baked apples? Do you like them as much as I do? What is your favorite recipe for baked apples? I would love to know!
Sending much love and wishing you a wonderful week ahead!
Its getting cold...
... very coold acutally! We had the first snow of the season yesterday and I am layering bunches of sweaters and cardigans on top of each other these days. In this weather, I like to treat myself with yummy smoothies (okay, to be honest, I like to treat myself with yummy smoothies in every weather and in every season ;)).
Here are my favorite smoothies for Fall and Winter.
One reason for why I love the cold season is - KALE IS BACK! I looooove kale in my smoothies and now its so easy (and cheap) to get organic kale everywhere. I add kale to almost every smoothie I make. One that I love is made with the ingredients above: kale, apples, pumpkin (yes, you can eat pumpkin raw and it is really good actually!), cinnamon and dates... loads of dates to make it very sweet and yummy :)
Two other fruits that are back now that it is getting cold are khaki and oranges. And they make the PERFECT match! I like to add kale and some superfood powder from Greenic (this one here is with goji, rosehip, barley grass, grape seed and hibiscus - how does this sound to you?) to this smoothie, but its also absolutely great and delicicous to just blend up khaki and orange with some water. You can also add cinnamon to the smoothie. I actually add cinnamon to almost every smoothie in the colder time of the year :)
By the way, Greenic makes those really great superfood blends 100% organic, vegan of course and all natural. They produce in Germany and so far their website is in German only, but those of you who know German, you should totally check them out here.
Another delicious one is a blend of cinnamon, physalis, dates and banana. Okay, banana is not at all anything typical for Fall or Winter, but since they are easily available all year round, and they are imported anyway, no matter if Summer or Winter, I like to add them here too. Bananas are great in any smoothie, they are sweet, they make the smoothie more creamy and they are super healthy. I also like to add some superfood powder from Greenic here. This one here is maca, cocoa, guarana, lucuma, hemp and wheat grass and it goes very well with this smoothie (and most other smoothies ;)).
My current favorite is a very simple one - apples, dates, cinnamon and almonds... hmmm! I have it for breakfast every day these days and I love it! You need a good blender when you use cinnamon sticks instead of the grinded one, but its totally worth buying your cinnamon in sticks rather than in powder, since the taste is much better. To get a nice date and almond milk you also need a really powerful high speed blender, since both dates and almonds are hard to blend up to a very very fine consistency. But you will get an equally good result by just using ready made almond milk and date syrup instead.
Now thats about it for my favorite smoothies for Fall and Winter. I make a few others too, here and there, depending on what I have in the house. Like today I had a banana-apple-kale one. But I guess these four here are my favorites and I can totally recommend trying them :)
What are your favorite smoothies for the cold season? I would love to know!
Sending much love!
Its Friday, its time to go back to Iran!
This Friday, next Friday and then again for one more week, I will take you back to Iran where I spent the most wonderful vacation ever back in October this year. Todays post is all about fooooood :)
The first thing you notice when you go to Iran is that you will not find any tables anywhere. There are carpets all over the houses, but not tables. I loved that! When its time to eat people just take a tablecloth (stupid to call it tablecloth in this context), put it on the carpet and sit down all around the tablecloth.
We had the most amazing food in Iran! Already prior to our arrival our friend told everyone that we are vegan (everyone means everyone who invited us to dinner - we had dinner in a different house almost every night) so whereever we went, we got delicious vegan food. For every meal people eat a very thin kind of bread. When its good, its very soft and delicous, when its a little old, its completly dry and hard and not that good ;)
We also had salad for every meal. Mostly just made with cucumber and tomatoe but sometimes also with onion, cabbage, carrots and lettuce. For most meals we also had olives in all different varities and figs (soooo good! We brought a whole lot home with us). A meal is usually taking quite some time and its very nice just to sit and snack on bread, salad, olives and figs :)
We also had rice basically every day. There is this thing with rice in Iran - when cooking it, they put some potatoe slices on the bottom of the pot and leave them there, while the rice is cooking so that they get somehow burned and very crunchy. When eating, everyone is fighting about this crust since its perceived as the most delicious part of the meal :)
Another thing I found very intersting was that the herbs (thyme, rosmary, basil, etc.) where not used for cooking and they were not part of the salad but they were just put on a plate and eaten in between two bites. Like a whole stem of thyme or rosmary! It was somehow strange to me but also very good! And so healthy!
Concerning the dishes we had, we had loads of eggplant and zuccini, mushrooms in all varieties, beans and lentils, okra, some greens I didnt know (and I dont think you can find them in Germany) and most of this in a kind of tomatoe-curry sauce. We had rice with safron, fried raisins, bread filled with mashed potatoes, small spicy bell peppers, falafel etc. etc. etc. seriously it was gerat! In Germany when someone invites you for dinner and you say that you are vegan, many people will find it very difficult to cook something for you and they will maybe complain that you are a complicated guest. In Iran it was not at all like this! Everyone was happy to cook something vegan for us and they also found it easy to cook (they mainly made dishes that are usually eaten with meat but they left out the meat - easy :)), sometimes they were surprised how good a dish tasted when using e.g. mushrooms instead of meat and two of our friends actually are vegetarians now! They felt so good after two weeks of eating vegan only with us that they decided to stop eating meat!
Next to all the great food we had for lunch and dinner, we also had endless tea breaks. Whereever we went, we haf some tea and some dates or figs. I loved those small breaks, where we just sat down on a carpet, the little one just next to us (she loved that we were always sitting on the floor!) and relaxed for a few moments, drank tea and talked about this and that. When we went somewhere by car and there was a place with a beautiful view, we stopped, got the carpet from the trunk, sat down and had a glass of tea while enjoying the view. It was just wonderful!
We also had loads of fruits. Since we travelled in Kurdistan it was easy and cheap to get fruit everywhere. Kurdistan is the region of Iran where all the veggies and fruits for the entire country are grown - like the apples, I worte about in my last post about Iran.
I hope you all had a wonderful week so far and I wish you a most amazing weekend!
Sending much love!
Wanna know an easy way to get plenty of vitamins in Fall?
In Summer its so easy to eat loads of fruits, because they are available everywhere and they are mostly much cheaper than in Fall and Winter. But when Summer comes to an end then very soon only apples, pears and plums are left (okay, this is exaggerated but you get the idea ;)) and most people actually eat fewer fruits and more unhealthy snacks as soon as it gets colder. One easy and fast way to get plenty of fruit, vitamins and color in your life if to drink high quality organic fruit juices - like this rainbow here :)
Voelkel is a brand that I know since childhood (ita actually exists since 1936). I always used to drink their organic juices as a child and I loved them. Since, the brand developped loads of new interesting products and I would like to share a few of them with you. One is the fair to go series with different super yummy and healthy juices.
I love these small delicacies with their rainbow colors, their cute labels, their all organic ingredients and their awesome taste. Plus they are really perfect to take on the go because of their small size. I tried six different kinds (there is a new one called superfoods that I would love to try but did not get the chance yet - have a look at it here) and my favorite is the one with guava and aloe, it is made from organic aloe vera and chokeberry and from Demeter
quality grapes and guava pulp and all of the ingredients come from controlled organic or biodynamic farming (plus it tastes like Summer at its best and you forget all about the grey clouds outside when drinking it!).
As some of you know, I get most of my vitamins through smoothies that I have everyday (by the way, I will share my favorite Fall and Winter smoothies with you very soon!) but when I am travelling I really enjoy good organic juices as an alternative to my smoothies. For those occasions the fair to go juices from Voelkel really are perfect. They fit in almost any pocket, do not weigh much and are fairly produced.
They are the perfect small breakfast or ideal snack in a handy 0.25 litre glass
bottle. This weekend my husband and I enjoyed some of them on our Saturday afternoon walk to the market when he had a break in the park to get some vitamin D (sunshine) :)
What I really like about Voelkel is that they are not only producing sustainable, organic products in reusable glass bottles but they do also care about others - they philosophy is all about responsibilty for nature and mankind. Please feel free to read more about this here (yes, its English ;)). On their website you can also have a look at the variety of juices and drinks they have. Maaaaybe I will also show you a few more of their products here on the blog, cause I love this family-owned company and I think its totally worth supporting it to the max :)
Have a great start in the new week everyone! And thank you so much for yor sweet comments on my Iran look :)!
Sending much love!
