Almost Easter Time!

Hey there!

It's almost Easter, that mean's time for a wonderful food party ;-)

Hereby some tips for your morning Easter Brunch

Try out the gluten free crackers for a wonderful bite snack, the pear & pecan treat and Carrot Cake Oats as a sweet side (make a big tray of both so everyone can spoon in) have a lovely healthy side salad so you won't be over eating the "bad" stuff. And for Easter it means it has to have some chocolate, so why not the healthy bounty's as a wonderful dessert?

Serve with, tea, fresh juices and/or my homemade Chocolate smoothie in small glasses for everyone!

Have a lovely Easter

 xoxo

A Pear & Pecan Breakfast Treat

Good morning all,

I finally start to feel better again, yay! I just took my last antibiotic pill so I hope everything is back to normal again now. I was still really nauseous and tired the last few days, but it was probably from the antibiotics the doctor told me. Ah I certainly hope so!
But since I woke up feeling really energetic I can't wait to finally hit the gym again. Especially after having a perfect pre-workout delicious breakfast this morning, ooohhhh my that was finger licking good, I scraped out the entire jar haha. Anyyyyyway guess what kind of recipe I'm posting about today ;-) Hmm.. where I was I? Ah yeah gym.

After the gym I'm going to get me some Probiotics, I always do after having a week of antibiotics. I hate any kind of medications, in particular antibiotics because yeah it makes you better and kills all  the bad bacteria, but it also kills all the good ones that are so important for having a healthy well-functioning body.

I don't have special weekend plans, though. We are cleaning up the house. I live here now for about a year and it's time everything is ready now, you know there are always things you say you will do but you never do. Recognizable? The balcony was one of those things. So yesterday we cleaned up our 2 balconies, so much work but amazing to see the difference, summer I'm ready for you haha! After cleaning all day we had a big Indonesian treat. I get take aways as well and that's kind of difficult with me not eating white pasta, pizza, bread and all. So Indonesian is something we often turn to, it's a lot of work to make your self and it's all authentic and not incredibly unhealthy. Although, the deep-snacks with the meal were not that healthy haha. But hey, I believe in the 80/20 % rule, for me that means I'm trying to eat completely clean and healthy 80% of the time and enjoying a bit too much cheese, wine, nuts or other treats for the rest of the time. That makes it much easier to live 80% of the time completely healthy as well.

SO back to my breakfast. The reason why I'm writing this blog for you. I woke up early and thought of what to make. I have been eating my Sugar free granola (link) for days in a row now, just to good. But it was time to eat something else. I looked in to the fruit basket and noticed a pear that had to be eaten, like now.

So I whipped up a little healthy treat for my boyfriend and I, a perfect Saturday breakfast treat under 300 calories and that takes just 10 minutes for prepping and about 20 minutes for baking while you can hit the shower ;-)

Ingredients

For 1 person

30 gram oats 

125 ml almond milk (unsweetened)

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of see salt

a big pinch of cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg white

1 tbsp raisins

1/2 a ripe pear

a few pieces of pecan nuts

1,5 tbsp maple syrup

coconut/oil/butter for greasing 

Preheat an oven on 180 degrees Celsius. Lightly grease a small ovenproof bowl. Get a small bowl and combine the oats, milk, baking powder, spices, egg whites and 1 tbsp of maple syrup and combine until you have a very well combined mixture (this is very important otherwise your egg white can separate from the mixture and you are left out with baked egg white ;-)). Now add the pear, chopped in pieces, and the raisins and mix again. Sprinkle some pecans on top and bake this yummy breakfast treat for about 20 minutes.

Nutritional information: 245 calories.

Difficult: Not at all, takes about 30 minutes.  

Berry stuffed fluffy oats

Gooooooodmorning!

I already mentioned I love oats and that they are full of health benefits.. (check out my overnight oats post as well). And I love breakfast, huuuuge breakfasts because I always wake up hungry.
So when I want to give myself a treat, it's all grey and rainy outside, I make myself this comfort bowl: A huge bowl of fluffy oats. It's huge, be prepared, but you will happy to see it doesn't contain that much calories. Isn't that a win-win situation? You get protein-good crabs-fruit, all round perfect combination.

Ingredients

30g old fashioned oats

1 egg white

1/2 cup frozen berries

5 fresh strawberries

handful of blueberries

1 tsp agave

1 tsp cinnamon

150ml unsweetened almond milk

Nut sprinkle on top

1 tbsp sliced almond, a few pecan nuts roughly broken, a teaspoon of hemp seeds (or your favourite combination)

Slice your fruit and set it to the side. Bake your nuts mixture in a clean pan until browned a bit (don't add oil). Then it's time to cook your oats in a bit of water until they are a bit softened, then add the almond milk and cook until done. In the meanwhile whip up the egg white in a clean bowl until amazingly fluffy (you can whip the bowl upside down without any of the egg white falling out). Now mix the frozen berries with the oats, sweeten it a bit with stevia if you like and add the cinnamon. Mix until the berries are not frozen anymore and then add the egg white, mix it well and let it cook for about 1 minute so the egg white is not raw anymore. Serve the oats in a big bowl and serve with the fresh fruit and nuts sprinkled on. Bon appetit!

Nutritional information: approximate 345 calories.

Heavenly Carrot Cake Oatmeal

I wanted to try out a carrot cake kind of breakfast for a while. But I just didn't look forward to stand in the kitchen for over an hour to just get breakfast on the table. Well, this dish is easy. I had a brunch at my boyfriends parents please, like I mentioned yesterday and I wanted to bring something with me. I thought this would be the perfect occasion, just hoped it didn't fail big time. But oh my the entire family loved the dish. YES! New favourite in town and hallelujah for the big batch ;-) Oh and the great part of the dish? It's amazingly low calorie, filled with healthy good stuff for your body and completely without added sugars and lactose free. And delicious, amazingly delicious but I mentioned that already, didn't I? haha

Because I was in a bit of a hurry I didn't really measured all the ingredients. I used a really average juice glass for measuring, and my hands! ;-)

Ingredients

Serves 6

1 juice glass filled with rolled oats (so flakes) huh
1 juice glass (quick) oats
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cookie spices
a drop of vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt
1 huge carrot, grated
a handful of raisins, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes
4 tbsp linseed's
2 medium sized eggs
300 ml water
200 ml soy milk (I always use Aplro soya light)
about 3 drops of stevia

For the top layer
2 tbsp apple sauce
4 tbsp goji berries
1,5 hands almonds and pecans mixed, roughly chopped
about 50g of mixed seeds (sunflower and pumpkin seeds)

Preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius. Get a baking dish and fill it up with baking paper or grease the base of the dish with coconut or olive oil and set the dish aside. Combine all the dry ingredients ( so everything except the eggs, water and soy milk and combine in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and the milk and water until well combined. Now it's time to mix everything up so you get a really watery mixture, yes it's supposed to be like this. Get the baking dish into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, in the meanwhile you can prepare your top layer. Mix all the ingredients for the top layer in a bowl until well combined, get the baking dish out of the oven and gently divide the layer on top with the bottom of the spoon you can flatten out the layer so everything is coated with this sweet and crunchy layer. Get the dish back in to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes. When it's done, the oatmeal should be set and the top should be browned and crunchy. Leave to cool a bit before digging in, I know it's hard ;-) Enjoy as it is or serve with a swirl of soy yogurt.

Seriously try it out!!! TIP: You can save the leftovers in the fridge and reheat this amazing dish in the oven the next day until warm and damp again, and repeat this the day after and the day after the day after.. ;-)