It´s official. I moved! My new apartment is all set up and now it´s time to get to know life in the new city. Although I´m still bummed that I had to move at all, my new apartment kind of tries to make up for it. For starters I know finally have my own oven!! I know, it´s amazing. In my old apartment, I had to use the common kitchen for baking, which involved me running up and down all the time, panicking about whether I will get the timing right or everything might burn. I also have those huge windows that face west which means that I have a lot of light. I´m really excited to get behind my camera and experiment with all that light but until then I have a recipe for you that has been in put on hold for quite a while. I think it fit´s this October just right: carrot cake muffins! Continue reading “Healthy breakfast carrot-cake muffins”
Healthy
Red currant vanilla muffins
Do you know that feeling, when you got something carefully planned and then you end up doing something completely different? My original plan was to try this blueberry-peach galette recipe that I´ve been thinking about for a while. So I went to the famers market to get some fresh fruit and that’s when I saw those red currants. Red, juicy, beautiful red currants that were just waiting to be bought. Of course I couldn´t say no so I found myself buying them without a big recipe in mind. It was the first time I had them this year and they are not my typical go-to fruit but you got to admit that red currants are some of the sexiest fruit out there. Just look at them all cute and delicious. I ended up making the galette as well, while I was thinking about recipes that could use some red currants. The muffin recipe was a spontaneous idea, which turned out be even greater than the galette and deserves to be shown first.
Baked oatmeal with rhubarb and strawberries
I´m a breakfast type of person. I do love dinner though. Actually, I think food is always great, regardless the time of day. But breakfast is very important to me. My Spanish roommates would always make fun of me when they saw me in the morning, eating my bread, eggs and orange juice. Then again, breakfast is not that big of a deal in Spain, typically consisting of coffee and a cookie. But here in Germany and in so many other places in the world breakfast is really important. I just can´t leave the house in the morning without a good foundation for the day. And I absolutely loooove me a good brunch. 
Continue reading “Baked oatmeal with rhubarb and strawberries”
Quinoa salad with fresh spinach, pomegranate seeds and feta cheese
Since I like to combine my travel reports with some recipes of the typical cuisine I present you: quinoa salad with spinach, pomegranate and feta cheese. A lot of you might be thinking now – what does that have to do with Canada? You are right; Quinoa and pomegranates are not the first thing you might think of when it comes to typical Canadian food. Still, it is the food-experiences I made during our trip that results in this recipe. Local, fresh, organic – those were the keywords, that followed us everywhere, restaurants, supermarkets, farmers markets, you name it. This new trend, that people are developing a higher interest in a healthy lifestyle, nutrition and regional products can also be seen in Europe but in Canada (and I guess also in the USA) it is huge. My last trip to the states was 7 years ago and I remember eating pancakes, pancakes, burger and even more pancakes during my stay. This time it was much easier to find rather healthy recipes, no matter if we stayed in big cities like Seattle or Vancouver or had breakfast in a tiny town on the way. Continue reading “Quinoa salad with fresh spinach, pomegranate seeds and feta cheese”
Breakfast muffins with walnuts and raspberries
I know, I know, there have been quite a few muffin recipes on this blog lately. But I just had to share this one with you. We are talking about breakfast muffins. That´s right: dessert for breakfast. Plus, these are guilt-free healthy muffins. Meaning they are made without wheat flour and sugar. Say whaaat? It´s a crazy world we are living in.
Usually, I am a bit skeptical when it comes to super healthy vegan, gluten-, sugar- and fat free desserts. Don´t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of eating healthy. I have at least 5 different types of flour in my kitchen, I love whole grain bread more than anything and I can´t go to the farmers market without buying tons of fresh fruit and vegetables. But when it comes to dessert I was always more of a “the more the better” kind of person. Life is too short to not eat dessert. And the best cakes are just the ones made with tons of butter, cream and chocolate. Also most of the super-healthy-low-carb-sugar-free recipes require a lot of ingredients that are (a) hard to get and (b) kind of expensive. That being said, I was very interested when I saw the recipe for breakfast muffins over at Green Kitchen Stories. They are made of things you usually have at home or can easily find at the supermarket, like walnuts, oats, bananas and dates. And the combination sounded really great. So I decided to give this whole healthy-baking thing a try.
The result was AMAZING. The muffins are soft and fluffy and surprisingly very sweet. They taste like a mixture between granola, oatmeal and pancakes. So they really are perfect for breakfast. The original recipe is with turmeric and blueberries. I adapted it a little by using cinnamon instead of turmeric and adding raspberries. I also altered the granola topping by adding some caramelized walnuts. Because things are always better when caramelized!
Makes about 18 muffins:
100 g walnuts
85 g rolled oats
130 g buckwheat flour, spelt flour or whole grain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp freshly ground cardamom
½ tsp sea salt
160 ml buttermilk or plant yogurt
80 ml oil or butter
2 ripe bananas, mashed
5 fresh dates, mashed
3 large eggs
Raspberries, frozen or fresh
For the granola topping:
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp runny honey
1) Using a food processor or a blender, mix walnuts and oats into a coarse flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and mix with the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom and salt. With a blender or a food processor, mix buttermilk, oil, bananas and dates. Mix with the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl for a minute before carefully adding them to the batter. Add raspberries.
2) Divide the batter among the muffin tins. For the granola topping, mix all the ingredients and let them caramelize in a pan. Add on top of the muffins. Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes at 180°C.
Bulgur salad
I think there are two very different persons living inside me. One is the inner fat kid that is constantly craving for cookies, cake and ice cream. The other one is a health-junkie, obsessed with fresh and healthy food. If I eat to much cake, bread and pizza, my body desperetaly longs for salad and vegetables. If I try to stick to an all-healthy diet, my body wants cake. The two balance each other out I guess. The health junkie in me makes sure I eat well and take care of myself. The inner fat kid helps me not to take everything to seriously and enjoy life and sugar every once in a while. Maybe it´s not the worst system after all.
So since I can´t be living off of cookies and cupcakes, my daily cooking consists of a lot of salad (technically speaking…is that even cooking?) Anyway, I love salad. I tried a bunch of different recipes and ingredients throughout the years and at the moment, my all time favourite ingredients for salad are avocado, tomatoes, green onion and feta cheese. These are the basics for almost all of my salads and from there I start adding things I like, like nuts, chickpeas, cucumber or corn.