anulicious

What a lucky, lucky person I am… Oh my!

Some weeks ago I read on Facebook that my Number One Foodblog Rockstar Sarah Britton from My New Roots is giving a Cooking Class in Amsterdam. Of course I had to participate. I wrote an Email to the lovely lady that organized the class, Samantha from Happy Healthy, and although the class was actually fully booked, Samantha made some arrangements and made it possible for my husband and me to join. HAPPYDANCE!!!

So two weeks ago we drove to Amsterdam to have the most amazing time ever!

Sarah and Samantha both were so lovely. They arranged everything perfectly and made the day so much fun.

Sarah showed us some easy but clever recipes, that were all raw.

We learned how to make almond milk from scratch, raw walnut meat to use in raw tacos and the most divine Caramel Dip from Dates.

After the demonstration we all sat together on the beautiful arranged table and enjoyed the happy, healthy food.We couldn’t believe that all this yummy stuff in front of us was so good for our bodies, too. No sugar, no wheat flour, no meat, no dairy. It was incredible!

Of course we all seized the chance and asked Sarah sooooo many question, which she all answered patiently. We got so much great information about healthy eating and living.

The great thing about Sarah is that she makes healthy eating so accessible for everyone. Her recipes are easy but have this special twist and they always taste amazing. I was so grateful for her blog when my husband and I had our Raw Food Challenge in January because I could always find a recipe that I could fit in my busy timetable and that was totally satisfying to eat.

If you want to know how to make your cooking routine a little healthier, I highly recommend visiting Sarahs blog and of course her Cooking Classes if you have the chance to attend one. Check out Samanthas Facebook Page for more infos, because she told me, she is planning another session with Sarah this year.

Awesome!

xoxo

The most asked question when people get to know that you are Vegetarian or Vegan is:

„Where do you get your Protein?“

A lot of Vegetarians eat a lot of soy products, because  they are very protein rich. This is fine.

Although I am not a fan of all the products with isolated soy like fake-meats, soy milk, etc. and just like consume it in form of Tempeh, Miso, Tamari or a little Tofu.

So what are my favorite Protein Foods?

Beans and legumes. I always have beans canned or dried in my home.

My favorites are chickpeas and navy beans. I love to make hummus or bean puree out of them and eat it with everything!

I also like to add red lentils to my Veggie-Bolognese.

Then there are nuts and seeds: walnuts and pumkpin seeds are my favorite. And you can easily add them to your muesli or salad.

Why people often think that protein in meat is best is because it is a complete protein, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids. But we now know that it is not necessary to get all of them in one meal, so you can have  for example your nuts with your breakfast, beans for lunch, tempeh for dinner. AND there are actually plant foods, that contain all essential amino acids.

One of them is the wonderful Quinoa.

Often referred to as the Inca grain, it is actually a seed. It is very versatile and you can use it for example like Cous Cous.

A benefit is that it is glutenfree also, if you have issues with that.

Lately I discovered my love for quinoa as breakfast.

I just cook the quinoa, add  almond milk, some fruit (berries are wonderful for this) and a sweetener like honey, agave or stevia.

I even eat this for dinner. It is wonderful. Of course you can add more stuff like nuts or seeds or some flax or hemp oil for the omega 3’s.

xoxo

Hey you all.

Finally I am back on the blog.

The reasons for my absence:

1. been to Vienna

2. caught a bad, bad flu in Vienna and was ill in bed

This was not pretty I tell you. Fever, shivering, severe muscle pain and headaches. The first day I couldn’t eat anything at all and just stayed in my dark bedroom, slept and drank lots of water. Luckily on the next day I felt a little better and prepare myself some very healthy stuff for a quick recovery. That meant a lot of fresh squeezes juices and smoothies and soups.

My new favorite germ fighting Smoothie is this one from Angela Liddons Blog “Oh She Glows“.

It is so creamy and healthy and tastes amazing. Oh this clementines are soooo yummy.

You can find the whole recipe here.

Source: ohsheglows.com via Amber on Pinterest

It really worked wonders for me and I am very, very glad and thankful for feeling so much better this week.

So take good care of yourself. Winter is almost over and so is Flu season.

We nearly made it.

xoxo

No food journals from the last week, sorry. It was just to busy.

Also I bumped my head very badly and had awful neck and shoulder pain from it. But luckily I am feeling a lot better today. But what I realized was that when I don’t feel well, my eating habits go a little crazy. I couldn’t stay away from some nasty stuff, what bothered me, but I cannot change it anyway.

I can only learn for the future and try my best. You shouldn’t be so strict with yourself anyway, but I just notice immediately now, when I ate food that is bad for me. I get stomach pain or reflux and stuff. So that shows me even more, I was on the right track of Eating and I should stay there.

Today was really crazy, so I am planning just Smoothies and Juices for tomorrow to get the body back in balance. That is the most important thing: even if there are days where you are dragged to nasty foods and overeat, it is much easier to get rebalanced when you know which foods are good for you. And I know which ones are.

For today I want to leave you with a lovely recipe from canadian nutritionista Meghan Telpner. She has a wonderful website and educates people about healthy eating. I stumbled over her Tempeh recipe and wanted to give it a try and I have to say it was so, so good!

Actually my first experience with tempeh wasn’t a good one. I ordered it in a indonesian restaurant and it had almost no taste at all. I was very disappointed.

But because I always read about the wonderful benefits of tempeh, I wanted to give it another try.

What is tempeh anyway?

It is made of fermented soybeans (so a probiotic food actually, which is always great for your gut) and it is a complete protein, which means it contains all of the essential amino acids (my veggie heart says hurray!).

You can buy it in whole food shops and I would always recommend to buy soy products organic, because soy can be so genetically modified. Don’t be repelled by the looks. It doesn’t look very pretty.

Like with tofu and many other things, tempeh gets great when you do the right stuff with it, like marinating it in a yummy sauce.

And that’s where Meghans brilliant recipe comes in. The marinade is sooooo amazing, I couldn’t believe it.

It is made with balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, olive oil, tamari and thyme. Addictive!

So get yourself some tempeh and bring it on! Here you find the original recipe.

I served mine with brown rice, broccoli and sprouts. Super healthy.

And I tell you, even hardcore meat eaters can be satisfied with this. Promise!

xoxo

So, as you know, on Friday I ended the Raw Food Challenge.

But I can tell you, I luckily didn’t fell in bad old habits, which I am quite proud of.

Although we went out to eat on Friday and Saturday, I ate healthy options, resisted white flour in form of delicious looking Pizza Bread, that was served to us prior to our Meals on Friday and I didn’t have any alcohol, no glass of wine, nothing.

I really wanted to keep this “clean” feeling I achieved over the last weeks. So now here is my food journal from the last days:

Friday I had:

Green Smoothie

Banana

Baby Spinach Salad

Potatoes with Rosemary

On Saturday there was:

Banana

Two Apples

Handful of nuts

Veggie Red Curry with Rice at MoschMosch – soooo good! Here is a pic:

The sauce is just divine! And the great thing about the MoschMosch restaurants is that they have so many veggie options and even a lot of vegan ones. This is not common here. Thumbs up!

On Sunday I enjoyed:

Green Smoothie

Veggie Soup with Cauliflower

Sushi Salad

two raw chai cookies

The Sushi Salad was inspired by this recipe from the Green Kitchen Stories blog. I made some changes: I skipped the Tofu and had marinated oyster mushrooms and added broccoli, red onions, avocado and nori to it, served on brown rice. This was awesome.

The Green Kitchen Stories blog is totally worth a visit. I always find inspirations there for recipes.

It is written by David and Louise, a super cool couple from Sweden. They put so much love and effort in every post and make beautiful pictures as well.

On Monday I munched on:

Green Smoothie

Salad with Avocado, Sauerkraut, Cucumber, Tomato, kalamata olives and Tahini

three slices Quinoa bread with nut butter

half a salad bowl with cucumber, cashews, red onions and black olives and maple vinaigrette

And yesterday I had:

Green Smoothie

Salad with tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, avocado and Tahini

Gluten-free Pasta with Tomato & Olive Pesto and steamed Broccoli and Zucchini

So you can see, the raw food still is very present in my daily meals. On weekdays I hope I can make it up to 70-80% raw.

That would be great.

xoxo

The official last day of our raw food challenge is here. It is very strange that the time past so quickly because I can still remember how I felt when we started and I thought “Oh my God, raw food for four weeks. Am I crazy?” But as it always is in life: you can achieve everything if you just really want to. I am also very proud of my hubby, he stuck with the challenge bravely. And we both had just very little slip-ups when we went out to eat and had some Avocado Sushi, which happened three times over all. And this slip-up is still very healthy.

Now here are the things we stayed away from the whole time:

All animal products (which wasn’t a challenge, because we do this most of the time anyway)

Refined sugars & flours & artificial sweeteners

All processed foods

All cooked food (with the exceptions I mentioned above)

Alcohol

So, what did we consume?

Fruits (Bananas, Apples, Orangejuice, Pears, Berries, Papayas, Figs, Dates, Avocados, Raisins, Cranberries, Pomegranates…)

Leafy Greens (Spinach, Kale, Broccoli, Beet Greens, all kinds of salad)

Other Veggies (Carrots, Beets, Fennel, Celery, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Zucchinis…)

Mushrooms, Shitake

Nuts / Seesds & Nutbutters (Almonds, Hazelnuts, Cashews, Walnuts, Tahini, Brazil Nuts, Pine Nuts, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds)

Nori, Wakame

Fermented Foods like Sauerkraut and Miso.

I have no idea, if I forgot something, but I think that’s quite it.

What I learned & achieved:

A raw diet is not dull at all

I think my normal diet is very clean, because I only had mild detox symptoms

I realized, how often I don’t eat because of hunger but other reasons like being bored, being used to eat at a certain hour, seeking comfort, etc.

My tastebuds changed. I even can appreciate an apple now and eat it with joy

My mind was very clear on raw foods

I didn’t get tired during the day (like usually after Lunch)

 I was actually very light hearted all the time

My cravings weren’t to bad. When I craved cooked food it was something simple like Quinoa or a Pasta dish

Over all this experience was awesome and I even decided that I will stay on the raw path and try to eat about 70% raw and the rest cooked. I will let you know how that turned out and I will keep the food journal so you can see how I am doing.

Speaking of which, today I had:

Two apples, a banana

Sauerkraut with tahini

Avocado

Green Juice

Nuts

I leave you with a little treat, with this lovely video of raw chef Ani Phyo, who shows you how to make super easy apple pie. Enjoy!

xoxo

I am a Summer girl. I love the  sun, the heat, blue skies, the beach, FlipFlops, sunglasses, watermelon,… I could go on for hours.

But unfortunately it is still winter and it is cold, wet and grey and dark most of the time. So when I came home from work I was longing for something summer-ly.

Luckily I had bought a papaya two days ago that was waiting for me in my kitchen.

So I created a Happy Hippie Summer Dreamin’ Smoothie. That’s how it’s done:

Throw together papaya & figs (or other exotic fruit of choice, Mango would be great, too), Nut milk, Nutbutter (I used Hazelnut), honey to taste, chia seeds and ice cubes. Blend well and enjoy!

I really love Smoothies as a Dinner replacement when you come home late and don’t want anything heavy. This was really satisfying.

Today I also had:

Two apples

Banana

A huge rainbow salad at work

Almonds

The Summer Smoothie

xoxo

I can’t believe that these are our last days of our Challenge already.

On Friday we are meeting two friends at a new restaurant in Düsseldorf, so this will be our official End of the Raw Food Challenge.

But I really have to say, even if it sounds weird, I am a little sad about that. I feel better than ever and I am really enjoying the food and got so much used to it.

Let’s take today for example. I made this wonderful lasagna for me and my husband and it was so good. It is just zucchini, tomatoes, olive oil, mushrooms and cashew cheese. No noodles, no cheese, no carbs and bad fats. And it was AMAZING and so filling.

Simple & beautiful!

But before I get all sentimental, let’s recap the last days.

On Friday I enjoyed:

Green Smoothie

Dates, Almonds

Sauerkraut with Tahini

Asian Shiatke Salad with Cucumber, Carrots, Avocado

 On Saturday I had:

Two Apples

A “Hawaii” – Smoothie with Berries and O-Juice

Apples with Nuts and Hazelnutbutter

3 Avo-Sushi & Tofu (yes, cheated again!)

On Sunday I ate:

Green Smoothie

One apple

Raw Macarons (Yum!) with Hazelnutbutter

Salad with Broccoli, Zucchini, marinated Mushrooms, Avocado and Carrots

Yesterday I munched on:

Smoothie with Mango, Banana, Cacao, Hazelnutbutter

Dates, Almonds

two apples

Sauerkraut, Tahini, Bell Pepper, Cucumber

Smoothie again

And today I had:

Green Smoothie

A date and a handful of almonds

Sauerkraut, Tahini, Nori, Cucumber

The lovely raw lasagna

On the next post I will give a summary on the Challenge, the pros and cons, how I felt, what I learned and so on.

So stay tuned

xoxo

TGIFriday!

The last days were a little busy, which is why this is my first post this week – sorry!

I can’t believe it is only one more week to go. Time has been flying.

Staying raw this week was pretty easy, except one little cheating on Thursday, when I went to the Sushi Bar with a friend and had some Avocado Maki with my salad. But that was the only little slip-up.

I don’t remember every thing in detail I ate the last five days, but I can tell you it was a lot of Smoothies, Avocados, Sauerkraut, Salads, Nori, Wakame, Nuts and Dates.

But one dish really surprise me so positively, that I have to tell you a little more about it.

On Sunday I wanted to make some  comfort food, something decadent, if you will. A real treat!

So I searched the Internet for inspirations and finally I found this recipe from the website Choosing Raw. It is a raw carrot cake. Yes, that’s right! Isn’t that awesome? I was really excited because me and my husband both LOVE carrot cake and I was curious how this would turn out.

So I thru all the ingredients together and put the “dough” and “icing” together in little glasses. Pretty!

So, here is the truth: This carrot cake was so YUMMY, I couldn’t  believe it. Just like the real thing.

BUT it was so sweet (I already put less dates, so next time a will put even less) and it was soooooo filling that I couldn’t finish more then half of it. Also my husband couldn’t finish it. It really was ridiculous, because we are actually very, very good eaters.

We put the rest in the fridge and ate the rest the next day. So if you are planning on trying this recipe, reduce the dates and be prepared that this is a whole meal!!! But it is a dream come true, I promise.

xoxo

Half time for our Raw Food Challenge and two more weeks to go.

I has been an amazing journey so far. Not only because on the different Food and Eating, but because of the experience itself.

How clear my mind is when I am on raw foods, but also how addictive cooked food is. So speaking of that, I have a little confession to make…

Yesterday my husband and I went to town to do some shopping and just wanted to stop by our favorite Sushi Place to eat a little wakame salad. We really had the intention not to eat anything cooked. But after two weeks of just raw foods and a hard time on Wednesday, where we both almost fell of the wagon, the craving was to strong (or we were to weak, if you want to put it that way).

We ordered the Wakame Salad, as you can see here:

BUT after that followed some Edamame, plus Avocado & Shitake Maki.

We enjoyed every bite without guilt. We just said to ourselves that this was the reward for our the first two weeks without a failure.

And honestly: there could have been worst foods we could have eaten. We also felt good after that, but we realized, although the portion was not huge and we shared it, we both were very, very full and immediately had this stuffed feeling that we are so familiar with when we eat “normal” food.

So, that was our little Cheating Story. But hey, nobody is perfect, right? We got back on track right after this and we are sure now we will also hang in the last two weeks of this challenge.

Here is what I ate yesterday:

Green Smoothie

Fresh Juice

Some bites of my hubbys Salad with dried tomatoes, olives, fresh tomatoes, walnuts, cucumber and olive oil

Our “cheating” lunch at the Sushi place

Salad at our friends home (bell peppers, pomegranates, Avocados, red radish)

Enjoy your Sunday!

xoxo