Winterporridge

I know it's summer, but the weather is more like fall most of the time so I'm already very much in comfort-food-mode!
So today I came up with a new combination for porridge and it tastes a lot like Christmas :)

I cooked it in my rice cooker to make it a hassle free meal but you can make it on the stove top as well!

- 3/4 cup steel cut oats
- 1/2 cup ground nuts (I used almonds and hazelnuts 1/4 cup each)
- Cinnamon
- 1 handful of dried fruit, chopped (I used apples, but would've added raisins as well if I had any)
- 1-1.5 cups plant based milk (I used oat milk)
- 1.5-2 cups of water
(You need a total of 3 cups of liquid, you can divide them as you wish or even use water only, it's not as creamy though!)

Mix everything together and cook for 5-10 minutes. If you're using a rice cooker make sure NOT to close the lid!! Then switch your rice cooker to "warm", close the lid and let sit for 20-30 minutes until your oatmeal is soft :)
You can add fresh fruit or nuts if you like! I'd say banana and pecans would be a great addition ;)

I'm so looking forward to having this for breakfast tomorrow!! :)

Quick pickles

Recently I started experiencing with quick pickles and I became a quick pickle junkie!
If you've never made quick pickles, let me tell you, they're way easier than you might think they are!

All you need to do is thinly slice up some veggies and either make a brine or sprinkle the vegetables with enough sea salt so they release enough water by themselve. Then use some kind of cloth to cover the jar and let sit outside the fridge for 1-3 days to let fermentation do its job. By then you can store them for a few days in the fridge and add them as a little something special to any meal. Personally I love a bowl of fresh rice with a selection of homemade pickles! It brings me back to basics and calms the digestive system.
In macrobiotic "medicine" pickles are used for several health problems as they're supposed to have a healing effect on mind and body.

For making a brine I simply use 1-2 parts of water and 1 part umeboshi plum vinegar (you might find this in your health food store, if not order it from a macrobiotic online store!) - I use the Clearspring Ume Su. Ume Su has a salty sourly taste and a beautiful pink colour.

Veggies I make with Ume Su brine:
- carrots
- radishes (any kind of the radish works great!)
- red onions
- spring onions

You can mix them up or pickle them separately. I don't recommend combining red onions with other vegetables though as they overpower the taste of everything.
You can reuse the the brine 1-3 times when making a new batch or use it as a condiment over fresh rice. (Add some finely chopped fresh tomatoes and avocado!)

For "salted" pickles I use:
- cucumber
- the white long kind of radish / daikon

For a 500ml jar I use approximately 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, sprinkled in between layers of vegetables. You might want to shake the jar up every now and then until enough liquid is released.
Cucumber pickles are ready to eat within a couple of hours.

Your pickles will get saltier the longer they ferment, but if they're too salty you can just rinse them in cold water before eating.

I might add veggies to the list when I try other veggies :)

Ginger-Lime-Shot

This Ginger-Lime-Shot is your new coffee! It wakes you up with its sour and tangy taste and nourishes your body with vitamin C and ginger's anti inflammatory properties! Ginger is also helping if you suffer from indigestion. For pregnant women ginger can help reducing if not cure morning sickness. For me personally it did help a bit, but I had an extrem case of morning sickness and there's only so much homemade ginger ale you can drink!
Limes contain flavonoides which have an anti carcinogenic, antioxidant and disinfectant effect. Also vitamin C lowers the body temperature and can help when you're having a fever.
Also limes regulate digestion and help with weight loss when consumed regularly.
So this juice is basically a combination of two easily accessible superfoods and will have a nourishing and even healing effect in your body!

Juice:
- 1-2 limes
- 1-2" piece of ginger

If you are new to juicing ginger make sure to go light on it until your stomach adjusts. The essential oils in ginger are pretty strong and you wouldn't want to upset your digestive system with something that's supposedly good for you!

If it tastes too strong for you, you can water it down by adding 100-200ml of water or add the Ginger-Lime-Shot to a 1 litre bottle of water and add some fresh fruit, mint or even cucumber for a flavour infused drink throughout the day.

If you're not a fan of limes, you can swap 2 limes for 1 lemon or 1 small apple to make it a ginger-something-shot.

Enjoy!

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 ;)