Buddhabowls

You might have already heard of the #Buddhabowl trend and I recently jumped on the bandwagon and I'm telling you it's worth it! They are delicious, nourishing, quick and easy and you have endless options of creating them! Also they are an awesome way to use up leftovers and small amounts of vegetables that don't really fit into anything else.

To make a Buddhabowl you need a bowl with a wide rim as you lay all the ingredients in a row to create a fancy looking dish.

Start with a base of a wholegrain or grain alternative.
My favourites: brown rice, quinoa, millet, couscous, buckwheat
I like spicing things up with a little garlic and chili (cook'em right in)

Add some kind of legume
My favourites: sprouted lentils, sprouted chickpeas, adzuki beans, small black beans

Add a whole bunch of vegetables and herbs. You can bake, steam, fry ... or leave them raw. I usually make a mixture of steamed, fried and raw veggies.
For frying I use peanut or sesame oil and shoyu (soy sauce) to add flavour.
Fried favourites: bell peppers, mushrooms, red onions, zucchini
Steamed favourites: green asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, green beans, cauliflower
Raw favourites: shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, avocado, spring onion, cilantro, shredded red cabbage, sprouts

Add a healthy sauce or dip. Even a nut butter or simply shoyu or ume vinegar would be great!
Favourites: guacamole, hummus, tahina-umeboshi-dressing

Top it all off with a sprinkle of your favourite nuts or seeds.
Favourites: sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, crushed pecans

I love getting creative with these bowls and always make it a little different!
My son loves them too! :)

For a toddler bowl I use smaller quantities of each ingredient and cut some veggies small enough to spoon-feed him and leave others larger for him to munch on by hand.
He usually eats approximately half of it for lunch and the other half for dinner. That way he gets a whole rainbow of veggies into his diet! :)

You could also make sweet Buddhabowls for breakfast with a whole bunch of fruits. You can skip on the legumes and add dried fruit and more nuts and seeds instead :)

Enjoy!

A word on sprouts

You've most likely seen different sprouts in the produce section of your grocery store. Or at least soy bean sprouts at the Chinese supermarket.
And while they are tasty, they do get pretty expensive if you include sprouts in your diets regularly, which you definitely should do as they are
1) really tasty
2) add a little special something to a meal
3) are really healthy! I don't want to get into too much detail here, but a sprout is essentially the youngest form of the plant and is never richer in nutrients. Sprouts add important micronutrients to a meal and can help balancing out any deficiencies if you have any. Personally I feel healthier and have more energy even though I'm still nursing in most nights and don't get to sleep through the night!

So sprouting seeds at home is very easy, fun and actually a great thing to do with kids! Especially if you don't have a garden. Within a few days you grow little plants in your kitchen without big effort. Even my one year old toddler seems to find it interesting to watch them grow! Of course I do some explaining but sometimes I catch him standing in front of the sprouter just watching :D

All you need is a sprouter or sprouting jars (there are even tutorials on how to make a sprouting jar at home with old jars), seeds and water.

You can eat most sprouts raw, but have to cook any kind of legume sprouts (beans, chickpeas, peas, lentils) for 5-20 minutes. The larger the legume the longer you cook them.

My personal favourite seeds to sprout are:
Radishes (on bread, avocado, hummus, salads..), chickpeas (make awesome hummus), lentils (for soups and daal), buckwheat (great for breakfast instead of oatmeal), arugula (on bread, avocado, hummus and salads), broccoli and mung beans (for stir frys and any Chinese recipes), red clover

So as you can see, there are plenty of options. Make sure to buy organic seeds and legumes!

You can find photos of meals with sprouts on my instagram account as well as when searching #sprouts #sprossen

Do yourself the favour!

"Tropical" / piña colada smoothie

Another rather simple but rich and filling recipe for a busy morning:

Blend:
1/2 pineapple
2 bananas
1 cup frozen mango
Shredded coconut or coconut butter (not oil, use butter like nut butter!) to taste
Lemon juice (optional)

It'll send you straight away to your tropical dream holiday ;)

Also it makes a yummy vegan cocktail. So for a party you could even add alcohol to this as it tastes a bit like piña colada! Be careful though as the fruit sugar will increase the impact of alcohol!

Enjoy.

The "Orange is the new vegetable soup" juice

Whenever I feel like a cold is coming on I like to make a big pot of vegetable soup. It always makes me feel better, delivers a bunch of great nutrients to help my body fight the cold and it's good to have something healthy on hand to eat if the cold really kicks in.
Though it's nice to have the soup several times a day (yes, it's that good!), I still enjoy my morning juice. So whenever I feel a cold coming I make this bright orange juice. Also it's my favourite and my son loves it too so we actually make it all the time! ;)

Juice:
2 apples
6-8 carrots
1 lemon
1 orange
1-2" of ginger (optional, but definitely a must have if you are having a caugh)

Enjoy!

The "Back to the roots" juice

For this juice you need a bunch of root vegetables. As the recipe makes a smaller serving (300ml) I suggest doubling it up or blending a banana and 1/3 of an avocado in to make it a meal:

Juice:
1 medium apple
3-4 carrots
1 beetroot (peeled for a milder taste / unpeeled for an earthier flavour)
1" piece of ginger
1 lemon

I just added this recipe to favourites recently as I didn't try beetroot before. I'm sure there'll come more beetroot recipes in the future!

The juice is not as sweet as others and has an earthy taste to it. I prefer it on mornings that I'm craving something heartier and like to eat some veggies and fresh sprouts along with it.

Enjoy!

"Banana-Mango-Tango" smoothie

It takes two to tango or so they say and two ingredients is all you need for this recipe. This one's a quicky!
It's very filling so it definitely makes a meal and I like it when I overslept and need to get going!

Blend:
2-4 Bananas with
1-2 cups of mango  (I like using frozen mango for this recipe)
Add water for the desired consistency

A squeeze of lemon juice would round it up, but it's great on it's own already!

Enjoy!

Beginner's Guide to juicing / blending

As you might know from previous blog posts I love having fresh smoothies for breakfast. Usually I like to add juices to my smoothies but since I'm not a big fan of the packaged stuff (also they don't give you as many nutrients as freshly homemade juices and you are quite limited on the combinations of fruits and vegetables) I bought a juicer a few months ago.

I found quite a few recipes that I love and so I usually make more juices than smoothies for breakfast now. For the most part I make a juice and blend in a bit of fruit like a banana or 1/4-1/3 of an avocado. I either have that on it's own or eat some nuts/nut butters, dried fruit (dates or cherrys) or some veggies, sprouts and fresh hummus with it. I usually drink this on it's own though as I don't have time to sit down for longer in the mornings (seriously, I'm  a single mom of a busy toddler ;) ) also they usually fill me up until lunch. (I have 750ml- 1250ml for a meal)

My favourite ingredients for juices are:
root vegetables (carrots, beets, ginger), citrus (lemons, oranges), other fruits (apples, pears, pineapple), cucumber (peeled)

My favourite ingredients for smoothies are:
Berries (all sorts you could possibly think of), stone fruits (cherrys, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots) bananas, mango, avocado, baby spinach, baby kale, lamb's lettuce

Any combination of these will create a rather sweet drink.
I'm not a fan of broccoli or other stronger veggies from the kale family for eating raw. I love all these vegetables in my cooked meals though!
Personally I don't like celery at all in any meal or combination. If you like it, you  should try juicing it though since many people seem to like it and it's certainly a healthy option on the food market!

My rule of thumb for juicing vs blending is: juice harder fruit & veg and bigger leafy greens as well as citrus (because of the white skins) and blend softer fruit and young / baby leafy greens.

Use a good balance of fruits and vegetables to avoid ending up with a too sweet drink. Root vegetables add a lot of sweetness themselves!
If your drink doesn't taste as good as you've hoped for, try adding lemon or ginger. They usually do the trick!

I'll post some recipes in the future, so make sure to check back for those ;)