Taste Bud Adventures - or my lunch

SALMON WITH ZUCCHINO, BELL PEPPER, TOMATOES AND COCONUT MILK

Aaaahhhhhh, I just love eating Paleo Style. This is what I came up with for todays lunch:


It's easy and fast and sooooooooooooo DELICIOUS and healthy.

Ingredients 1 person:
Salmon filet (fresh or frozen)
1 Zucchino
1/2 bell pepper
several cherry tomatoes
coconut milk (without any additives, just coconut and water should be listed)
coconut oil, freshly grounded sea salt and pepper

Method:

1. If you use frozen salmon, then thaw it (in oven at about 50°C for about 15min)
2. Clean and peel the zucchino, and cut to big dice, all should have roughly the same size.
3. Clean and cut the bell pepper and tomatoes.
4. Heat the pan with some coconut oil.
5. Cut the salmon to bite sized bits and sauté it in the coconut oil lightly and then take it out on a plate.
6. Now put the zucchino into the pan and sauté it, till it's mostly soft and then add the bell pepper pieces, again until the bell pepper is mostly soft and then add the tomatoes.
7. Sauté the mixture for 2 or 3 minutes at some coconut milk and then put the salmon back in.
8. Cook like for 2 or 3 minutes, season to taste and there you have this love meal.

Enjoy.


KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Taste Bud Adventures - Glass noodles with PURE BLISS PESTO

This is one of the recipes I made up while my parents were in Paris.

This was the first time ever I made my own pesto and as this posts title says, it's pure bliss.

Ingredients PURE BLISS PESTO:
Nutmix (ie I used almonds, hazelnuts, cashews and walnuts)
Hempseed
Fresh basil
Fresh cress
One ripe pear
Olive oil (extra vergine)
Pumpkin seed oil

Glass noodles (Dangmyeon)


Needed time: 20 to 30 minutes + 2 hours of soaking the nuts and hempseed

PURE BLISS PESTO Method:
1. First, and really do this, soak the nuts and seeds in water for at least 2 hours.
2. Rinse the nuts and seeds, shake them dry and put them in the food processor or mixing bowl to chop them.
3. Pick a handful of fresh basil (organic is best) and some cress, rinse it and add it to the nuts with a spoon of olive oil. Process, mix or blend it, whatever appliance you use. (Without the spoon!!! [Otherwise it's way too crunchy and your blender might be dead!])
4. Peel the pear and extract the core. Chop it into several pieces and blend it in with the nut-herb-mixture. Add some pumpkin seed oil for the taste and it is done.


You can enjoy it with pasta, ramen or glass noodles.

I did so with korean glass noodles, Dangmyeon which are made of a root, they come in those little nests, as you see in the next picture. This makes it pretty easy to keep an eye on your food intake. Easy portion control, love it.

Since they take about 3 minutes in the boiling water (my variety, look at the method that your glass noodle manufacturer tells you to use), you can leave a pot with boiling water on the stove and make one nest at a time, (use a laddle or colander for this, I used a ladle with holes, which was ideal). This leaves you enough time to think if you are still hungry and they are best served this way, so they don't get mushy or sticky.

This is one cooked nest, before I mixed it with the PURE BLISS PESTO. Don't let it fool yourself, this looks like nothing but it is very satiating. I just ate 4 nests when I was ravenous and I was full.


YUMMY!

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Taste Bud Adventures - cold Springrolls

Totally easy and fast and yummy and healthy and got to take for lunch the next day.

Ingredients:
lentils or quinoa
Some dip or pesto or dressing
Vegetables that you don't need to cook (I used carrots, tomatoes, radish and a pear)
Rice paper

Method:
Cook the lentils/quinoa and let it cool down. While this cooks, clean your veggies and cut them into sticks or cubes.
Now get find a bowl or dish which is big enough to soak the whole sheet of ricepaper in without breaking the ricepaper.
When you have everything ready (including the lentils/quinoa) soak the ricepaper for approx. 1 min until it's smooth enough. Now place it on a dish and fill it with the stuff you like, fold it and start with the next. Until you run out of veggies.

Now, you can eat. Enjoy.

If you nead an exact folding technique look at My New Roots. There you find also a lot more delicious and healthy recipes. Especially for a nice pesto.

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Korean style lunch with "photoshoped" Picture

Hey,

today I took some wonderful, delicious, fantastic, yummy, extremely well tasting lunch with me to class.

See here:

The colors are saturated and it drifts into sharpness. I played a bit with iPhoto 2009. I like it.

Back to the lunch. I used the quinoa which I had prepared yesterday evening (I've got enough left for another salad tomorrow). Then I cut the remaining radish, bell pepper, apple and cheese, added some freshly cut tomatoes and stirred it with a tablespoon. Done. No spices or dressing. I put all of it into my new blue lunch box and topped it of with few rolled eggs. Perfect size indeed.

When I ate it around 1PM, the tastes of the veggies and fruit had merged with the quinoa. And let me tell you again it tasted fantastic. Healthy and really sating, just how food should be. Loved it.

Tomorrow I'll use different veggies and cheese. And since it's Friday it's farmers market, so I'll get some fresh produce for the weekend. Which will have fabulous weather and that I will enjoy at a special place. More about it on Sunday.


The neutralizing baths seem to work, so I'll keep going for the next days. To get the detox going and finally lose some weight.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Pentecost or WAIT: today is Monday? - Taste Bud Adventures Week 3

I think the title says all. We've got Pentecost or Whitsun in Germany now and today, MONDAY, is public holiday, so I lost track of time and didn't post the Taste Bud Adventures yesterday evening. SORRY.

To answer AZs question. Yes, I'm fine again, some cough here and there but except for that... AND what's even more important: I am FREE from my nasal spray addiction!! HUGE thanks to my GP / Homeopath! Since this worked the other stuff he did will work too and that means.... ahh, that's too private. Let's just say, he cleaned out some psychological issues of mine.
He also gave me homework, I had to read a book and I did it already and put its suggestions to work. So far, everything works out fine.

TASTE BUD ADVENTURES WEEK 3: Cheese without bread

Weird name, huh? Well, as you know I cut out bread from my diet, but I still like cheese, especially fresh creamy goats and sheeps milk cheese. And since this stuff needs something to go along with I came up with this "recipe".

"Ingredients"
1 pear or apple
your favourite creamy fresh cheese (Try "La Tur Alta Langa", yummy!)

Kitchen appliances:
knife, cutting board or plate

Preparation Time:
2 minutes

Meal:
Lunch or Dinner or as appetizer (depending on your hunger and the amounts of cheese and fruits)

Preparation:
1. Wash the fruit thoroughly.
2. Cut it in quarters or eighths (depending on the fruitsize), free it of the core and arange it with the cheese on the plate.
3. To eat smear some of the cheese on a piece of fruit.

Et voila.

Have a great new week.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!!

Taste Bud Adventures - Week 3 - Mini Tomato & Mozzi Salad

Good evening.

Welcome to our weekly Taste Bud Adventures. Todays recipe "Mini Tomato and Mozzi Salad".


But before we begin: the obligatory Sunday bike ride review.

Chris and I met at 10:15 at her place and oh wonder: she was already out and ready! So we decided to drive around the Cospudener Lake again. This time we had our cameras with us and we stopped every now and the then to take pictures. I will post mine throughout the week. The weather was lovely, sunshine but cool enough to not overheat. Summing it up, I was happy to be out there with her. It's always hard to get up in the first place, but as soon as I hit the road I'm glad that I left my bed.
Here are todays stats:
distance: approx 20 k
time: 2:05 hrs (including several photo stops)
in zone: 1:07 hrs
HR: 123 bpm

One thing I'll do differently next Sunday is: I'll make my bed before I leave the house! It's a huge difference if you come home to an uncluttered room or not. Today I came back to a cluttered room and it drained me off all the good energy. Not a feeling I want to experience again.

TASTE BUD ADVENTURES - MINI TOMATO AND MOZZI SALAD

Ingredients:
Cherry Tomatoes
Mini Mozzarella Balls
Olive oil (extra virgin)
Fresh herb for example chive
Spices

Kitchen stuff:
Cutting board
knife to cut the tomatoes
oven-safe portion bowl
oven-mitts
Spoon
Oven

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven if you want to eat warm with molten mozzarella. (180° C = 356° F)
2. Wash the tomatoes (take however many you think you need, hungry you are and depending on the size of your bowl)
3. Give a little bit of the oil into the bowl (max. 1 tablespoon) and swirl it around so that the inside of the bowl is oiled.
4. Cut the tomatoes into small quarters or smaller, depending on the tomato size, cut the mozzarella too.
5. Now "layer" the ingredients. First some tomato quarters, then some mozzarella, then add spices (freshly grinded pepper, salt, spice mix, chives). Repeat until bowl is full or you run out of tomatoes / mozzarella.
6. Put the bowl into the preheated oven for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on your oven and how molten you want the mozzarella). Be careful and use the oven mitts!
7. Take it out, using your oven mitts, when the cheese is molten and put it on a heatsafe surface.

Bon Apetit!
(Careful it's hot!)

You can also eat this as a cold salad.

I hope all of your races were successes and your training went well too(Marits did!). If you have time have a look at Tri Diesels wonderful Mothers Day post. I used this weekend to clean and get rid of old stuff. And I thought about how to write my application letter for my super job. I'll be writing and sending it out before Wednesday.

Have a good start in the new week. In Germany it is fortunately a short one. Thursday is public holiday.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Taste Bud Adventures - Week 2 - Buckwheat Salad

Good evening my lovely readers.

Time for the weekly recipe. In this edition I want you to give you an easy, healthy and fast dish for taking with you to work or class, a buckwheat salad.

But before that come the stats of my wonderful Sunday Morning Training ride, which took us this time to the Cospudener Lake. The weather was perfect for this training ride, cool and cloudy but without rain. Though it seemed like it would start a few times. And it is raining now. In any case we had a fantastic time, I stayed in my zone directly under the red line for a very long stretches, high training effect if you ask me.
Okay the stats:
distance: ca. 15 to 20 k
time: 1:34 hrs
in zone: 1:04 hrs
HR: 129 bpm

Back to this weeks recipe.

Buckwheat Salad

Ingredients:
buckwheat
water
cherry tomatoes
fresh herbs
spices
some Aceto balsamico cremoso or pumpkin seed oil

Needed kitchen stuff:
knife, cutting board, a bowl, a colander, a watertight container to take the salad to work with

Time:
with the soaking two hours or over night
without the soaking 10 to 15 minutes depending on your knife and kitchen skills

(My) Preparations:
In the evening I washed the buckwheat in the colander to get rid of the really fine particles. Then I put it into the bowl and added so much lukewarm water that the buckwheat was covered but didn't float. Test out how much water you need with your bowls and your taste. Due to osmosis a lot of the important minerals wander out into the water, these minerals is what our body needs. You have to keep the water and the minerals! So try to get the right amount of crunchiness of the buckwheat for your taste, without giving your buckwheat swimming lessons.
Now close the bowl off (a plate of the right size does the job) and put it in the fridge until the morning.

In the morning take the bowl out of the fridge on the way to the bathroom, so it can warm up a little bit.

Time for the cutting. Cut the tomatoes in really small cubes, add them to the buckwheat and stir.


Now get the fresh herbs, clean them and chop them.



Add them to the buckwheat and tomatoes, stir again. Season to taste and put it into your container for work. Done.


One word of advice. The fresh herbs really, really, really add taste to the salad over time. So don't season too much, because the taste will develop over the next few hours. And remember to bring your spoon. ;-)

Bon Apetit!

Have a good new week and I hope your weekend was as enlightening as mine.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Food series - Looking for the name

Morning peeps.

I've already got two recipes for you lined up. This Sunday it will be "Vol-au-vent Elisabelle". Next week... hahaha, wait for the surprise, it's something I invented all by myself and I hope it tastes good (it's my lunch today).

In any case I've been pondering the name question for this series and I'd love your help with it. Here are some ideas that I've cooked up this morning in the streetcar:

- Weekly Adventures in Stone Age Food
- French Stone Age Food
- Stone Age Gourmet
- Discovering Stone Age Food
- What's with the food?
- The fun of discovering foodland
- The food sense
- Tongue Fireworks
- Pleasuring your Tongue
- Pleasuring your Taste Buds
- Taste Bud Adventures
- Food traveler
- Adventures in Taste
- Cooking Adventures

The two I favour are bold. What do you think? Any ideas?

Except for a 3 o'clock cookie adventure this morning, which was mostly due to habit and/or sleep walking I've been eating really healthy yesterday. No popcorn at the movie theatre and no chocolate after getting home, I didn't want to eat. I'm so proud on myself.

I've prepared todays lunch yesterday evening and this morning. It contains buckwheat, herbs and veggies. It hopefully tastes well. Tonight I'll go grocery shopping with Dad, since I need new pumpkin seed oil and maybe some other stuff too. I'm thinking on making my Freddy Krüger Eggplant for dinner. Now I just have to come up with food ideas for tomorrow. Maybe an easy salad for lunch, since I'll be home pretty early.


Yesterday I went to watch "Dorian Gray" with Chris. It just started this week in German cinemas as opposed to 9.9.09 in Dublin, Irland. I can't say that I enjoyed this movie. To much gore and bad mood for my taste.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

The 'Freddy Krüger' Eggplant

Good morning, before we get to the eggplant recipe (19! pics, I think I enjoy photography way too much these days ;-) some stats.

Monday is SCAL(R)E Day.
weight: 64,3 kg (=141,75 lbs)
body fat: 29,4 %
muscles: 34,2 %

Yesterday Chris and I were actually running at our local track again, one track has been freed of snow and ice. It was freezing cold - 10° C = 14 ° F but it felt more like - 25° C = -13° F
Stats:
time: 1:17 hrs
in zone: 42 min (wahoo)
HR: 145 bpm

The Freddy Krüger Eggplant recipe
based on Babaganoush

Ingredients (for one hungry girl):
100 g = 3.5 oz feta cheese,
1 lemon,
1 eggplant,
1 large bell pepper,
Baharat spice mix (oriental spice),
pumpkinseed oil,
spices you like

prep time needed: ca. 45 minutes depending on the eggplant size

Manual:

1. Switch on your oven, choose the highest temperature.

2. Wash your eggplant and take a knife and call upon your inner Freddy Krüger! Grrrrr!!

3. Stab the eggplant several times. (Cuff your Freddy and put him back into his Azkaban cell! [I know I mix them up.] ;-)

4. Take some aluminium foil and put the eggplant on it in the oven. Carefull don't burn yourself.

5. Let the eggplant bake for 35 to 45 minutes!

6. Take a small lemon and juice it, if it's a big one use only half of the juice. (If you like it sweeter you could also use orange juice (never did it, though, just thinking).)

7. Break the feta cheese into small pieces or dice it and give it to your lemon juice.

8. Add the baharat and other spices, take as much as you like. Cheese will take some of the taste, so you'll have to season to taste before you serve it.

Now for the chocolate sauce...

9. Ahahaha, got ya. It's the pumpkinseed oil. To me absolutely delicious but not exactly inexpensive. Add some of it.

10. Blend it all carefully. If you haven't got a standing blender and want to buy one of these, make sure that you can separate the motor part from the blender like this.

Otherwise cleaning it is quite tricky.

When finished leave the mass in the blender. (Another reason for a separable blender, you can leave it standing in the food for a few minutes without it becoming unbalanced. [depending on the swell ;-P])

11. There should be several minutes left of baking time, take the time to prepare your bell pepper (wash, slice, display) and your table.

Option: If you are really hungry or if you prepare for two, you can fry some tenderloin, while the eggplant is still baking. And slice them.

12. When the eggplant is ready it should look like this or darker. Take it carefully out of the oven and put it on a plate.

13. Cut it in half and leave it for a few minutes to cool down.

14. Take a spoon and scrape out the pulp to add it to your cheese mixture.

15. Blend it again and season to taste for the last time. Et voila.

Enjoy your meal!

KEEP RUNNING and EAT WELL!

Dr. Wallpaper and Beetroot soup

Hi there, I love it when the weather and my body contradict me and my anouncements! When I got up yesterday morning, we had fabulous sunshine (but it was breath cloud cold) and fine legs. Unfortunately I didn't have time to run, because we had to drive to my grandma's house to repaper her kitchen.
Here are some pics of yesterday. Enjoy.

I took those pictures before we started with repapering the kitchen. Originally the weather was better, but my grandma lives 1 1/2 driving hours in a small village and they mostly have different weather from us. But the sun still showed several times. In the evening it rained. So I had no guilty feeling then.

Now, now, the repapering. First of all let me present: Dr. Wallpaper (my dad) preparing for the good deed.

And now Dr. Wallpaper (Dad) and his fancy, extremely goodlooking assistent (me) repapering the ceiling:

(Pictures taken by mom.)

At 6 o'clock in the evening the whole kitchen was looking shiny new and my grandma gave us big hugs and eloquent thank you's.

Mampf Diary Saturday:
BF: 350 ml chocolate protein shake, 1 golden kiwi (I love them)
Lunch: diced turkey with mushrooms and Brussels sprouts (Have a look at the picture) cooked by my mom

Dinner: 1 Dream Apple, 1 golden kiwi and a butter roll late at night (I know! But I was hungry and had forgotten that I had a bag of nuts left. )

Snacks: 1 boiled egg

Now, let's get to something really tasty and not really paelithic, todays lunch:

Beetroot Soup!

Now before you keel over, I never liked beetroot, but this soup is delicious. I mean look at it!

It's delicious, I've got the recipe from a former flatmate (Thanks Julia!) and changed it a tiny bit, to accomodate it more to the paleo diet.

Ingredients for 3 persons:
1 kg of pre-cooked beetroot
2 onions
1 lemon
200 ml cocos milk (as a substitute for the dairy versions, it actually gives the taste a nice twist, yummy) or sour cream or creme fraiche
some spices you like (BTW go for organic spices. Spices are dried and this means everything is in higher concentration, including toxins and pesticids. So make sure they are organic.)
Olive oil, vegetable broth, Water, fresh Parsley if you like.

Utensils: Pot, stove, a blender, spoons, knife, apron, goggles, radio or iPod or other mp3-player (are there others? ;-)

Preparation (ca. 1 hour for the first time):

Dice the beetroots and onions (don't have to be neat or small, you'll blend them anyway) and sauté them in some olive oil. The temperature shouldn't be too high, if the olive oil starts to fume it's way too hot.

Get some vegetable broth to boiling or water (ca. 500-1000 ml) and give it over the sautéing beetroot-onion-mix. If you used just water get the mixture to boiling before you put in the vegetable broth powder (couldn't find the right english expression). Spice it with pepper and other spices you like. Then you let the whole soup simmer for about 10 minutes.

Time for the blending. Before you do it, let the soup cool down a bit, you don't want to melt your blender! And since beetroot stains are a nightmare, don't wear your best white dress or anything remotely lighter than black and get an apron or something like it.
This is what a blending master in mom's 20 years old apron looks like:

Muahh.

Now blend it carefully, till it's smooth.

Now you can add the juice of the lemon, blend it again. Time for the cocos milk or your dairy product of choice.

The hand belongs to my mom.

Blend it again. Season to taste again. If need be reheat it. And then serve it with parsley or basil.

Enjoy your beetroot soup.

Oh, it's getting late and dark. Time for my 15 km Sunday training march.

Keep Running.