Give Me Bananas

Hey guys!

Thank you SO much for your kind words on my last post. You truly are the best!

I woke up this morning at 5:45am and felt extremely bright eyed and ready to go. Well this definitely isn’t me. I always feel a bit sleepy first thing but on most days I still drag my butt out of bed to do some running, walking or yoga. However, this morning I felt like doing a HIIT and so I sprinted along the river at 6:10am feeling utterly amazing (yeah I know.. WTF? In a good way ). I’m sure that being excited is some kind of drug.

I felt utterly bouncy all day long and caught up with my to-do list at 4:45pm. Hooray!
After work I did some last minute shopping – it’s always the same but I never learn anything! – and headed back home to make a lovely dinner with the boyfriend.

No, my food wasn’t blue. I just forgot to change the settings on my camera.

For some reason I really like veggie sausages but never liked the real stuff. Wonder why that is.

Apparently American Airlines has some extremely bad film system. There’s only a main screen on most flights and they only show two films or so. I’m the first to admit that I am a HUGE film snob when it comes to films on flights. I just need a huge selection to keep me entertained because there’s no way I can sleep on flights. (Everyone has weaknesses, right? )

I just hope that the info is completely wrong and they have personal screens and tons of films to choose from. (A girl can dream!)
Silvio is currently trying to load some DVDs onto my netbook in a very complicated way (that I don’t understand..). If that doesn’t work I still got some books to keep me entertained:

I know, it’s a shame that I haven’t read them yet.

“A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby is also in my bag but I’m already halfway through that. I’m also currently looking for some good audio books on iTunes, though I should slooowly go and crash now since we’ll leave at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning.

I won’t post any guesties this time but I’ll write as often as I can.

Take care sugarplums and keep on dancing!

Ps. Got a long distance flight ahead? Go and check out my tips!

I don’t particularly make lists for every little thing but when I’m busy and need to get certain things done before a deadline (aka in my case: the holiday) or just have to remember certain things such as what to pack.. I make lists.

Damn, I just remembered that I forgot to write down the PJs. See? That’s why lists are great. I’d forget tons of things otherwise. (“Wait a second, my passport is right..FFFFUUUUU..dge!”)

In the last couple of days I became a crazy lists-lady. I made lists for everything..
What to pack
What I still had to buy
Which projects I have to pass on to my colleague
What I must finish at work before I leave
What the names of my former boyfriends are

I really like ticking things off.

Tonight I wasn’t particularly feeling like going to pilates class so I went and had dinner with my sister (who ditched class too). We’re quite rebellious you see.

I love it when restaurants have good bread. This lovely piece was so moist and flavourful (tons of olives!)

The restaurant generally went a bit heavy on the sauce though..

Under the green leaves is a small sea of oil. I swear I could have taken a swim in there.

Gnocchi.. I love gnocchi.
I also love olive oil but boy.. do you see that lake?

Over the top.

It’s a bit odd.. I already took out my contacts assuming that I could simply put on my glasses. Well, I forgot them at my boyfriend’s place.
So I’m currently writing this while having my eyes oddly squeezed together. I probably look like I chewed on some lemon.

I will post a recipe tomorrow that still makes me think that I’m dreaming. I will test the final product in the morning but if it’s really as great and simple as I imagine I’m sure that it’s going to be the bomb dot com.

There, I said it. Bomb dot com. I’ve always wanted to do that.

Night kids!

Random veggie tip of the day:
Don’t order risotto (especially in Italy) without asking about the broth first. Even vegetable risotto is often made with chicken broth!

I don’t know about your family but mine is pretty… strange.
When my sister and I still lived at home we often did spontaneous taekwon-do fights or yoga pose “battles” after dinner.

Yesterday, at my parent’s place, we tried out the sports modus on our new camera.

Don’t worry, our neighbours are used to such behaviour.

I’ve been absolutely loving our new camera. It makes food look so much better .

I’m sure the boyfriend will miss it when I’ll take it with me to the states but hey, he gets to take it to Colombia in October and I won’t be able to use it for 3 months so I think it’s only fair that I steal it for 3 weeks.

My friend Christine is currently house-sitting her aunt’s place and they have a lovely apricot tree. I had to go and help her with those as they were ready to be eaten.

She sent me back home with a huge bag of fresh organic apricots.

I’m thinking about making agave sweetened jam, does anyone have a good recipe?

5 days until Seattle! And my to-do list is continuously growing!
No need to hyperventilate. Yet.

xoxoK

It’s Friday.

It’s been raining a lot.

And I had a vegan whole spelt chocolate chip brioche for breakfast.

And a chocolate protein smoothie too.

Needless to say that life is good when chocolate is involved.

In one week my friend Simone and I will leave for the US of A and I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. So much more is happening right now and I can’t wait to share it with you all but you’ll have to stay patient for a bit longer.

Anyway, we will fly to Seattle on my mum’s birthday, 31th July. My parents will drive us to the airport at 6am. Aren’t they crazy? Aren’t they fantastic? No wonder why my genes are so nutso. Haha!

It still feels like the holiday (or in American English: "vacation" ) is so far away. Is it really true that we will drive down to San Francisco in less than two weeks? Will we really stay in New York for one day on our way back? It all feels pretty unreal right now.

Simone and I have planned everything, besides the exact route we’ll take. We just know that we want to visit Mt. Rainier, Yosemite and Napa Valley on the way. Everything else is still unsure.

Do you have any insider tips? Which restaurants in Seattle, San Fran and New York do you like?

I only know a bunch of (apparently) great places in NY (Pure Food & Wine, Candle 79, Babycakes NYC…) though Simone and I already talked about eating our way through NY. I like that.

It’s odd, I’ve never been that far west before. Also, it doesn’t really feel like I’m leading my life right now. I’ve never travelled that much before (Rrmember Japan in January, Florence on Easter and London in May?) and you know what? It’s getting even crazier! But that’s still a secret. I hate secrets so I’m really sorry that I can’t share it with you right now.

Oh well, I work my butt off so it’s time to get a breather.

I usually spend most of my money on food (who would have guessed) but I LOVE travelling. Cheap. I stay in hostels and do lots of camping which allows me to "save" some money and travel a bit more. Maybe it’s my multicultural background but I always have an urge to pack my bags and explore the world.

On an other note, my lovely friends Christine and Janine came around for dinner. We made some whole wheat pasta with tomato/zucchini sauce, served with garlic bread and salad. I was feeling a bit carby you know .

Tomorrow I’ll go hiking with my besties Livia and Daniela. I can’t wait! It’s my first hike this summer and it’s already the end of July!

Do you like travelling? What’s been your favourite place you’ve ever visited? There are so many great places I’ve seen, it’s nearly impossible to choose one. But I’d have to say that I really love my grandmother’s place (in Japan). I always feel extremely “home” there even though I’ve never lived there. The countryside is breathtaking (except for in winter ) and thinking about it makes me miss it so much.

Meet my new friend:

He’s been hanging out at my place for a couple of days now. He (yes it’s a he) is a bit dusty and doesn’t pay any rent so that kind of sucks.

Let’s call him Dusty, shall we?

Well Dusty has been loving that red pot and has been walking his rounds quite diligently. He likes to work out.

He didn’t help with dinner though which was kind of lame. I don’t mind having guests over for some time but he didn’t even bother joining us for dinner. How rude!

That’s why Silvio and I had to make our eggplant Zucchini lasagne for ourselves.

The idea for that dish came up when I was thinking about what I had at home. Zucchini, eggplant, carrots.. LASAGNE! The non-traditional way that is.
(Is it just me or do you also think about food at work?)

So we started with the layers. Layered food is our thing – it’s what we did on our first date! We made tomato mozzarella salad, lasagne and some sort of layered dessert. When my then-soon-to-be-boyfriend suggested that we should make a layer-themed dinner I knew that he was a keeper.

That’s my story to layers.

Let’s get the layers party started!

fascinating, isn’t it?

Cheese!

Dusty my old friend, you totally missed something. Ha!

Have you ever tried doing HIIT outside?

Give this workout a go the next time you lace up your running shoes:

• 30 min warm-up jog / easy run
• 1 min sprint, 2 min jog (repeat 6x)
• 10 min cool down

I did this yesterday morning and started my day feeling refreshed and ready to go. Of course you can also just run for the first 30 minutes or just skip that part. I just decided to take it easy because it was 7am and I was still a bit sleepy.

What I really love about doing HIIT outside is the variety of sprint intervals. The first one went straight uphill which was a killer but it made me push myself more. The third interval went downhill and it made sprinting so much fun and felt like flying. It kind of gave me the feeling that I could tackle everything. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the skyyyyyy…

On to FOOD!
 

What on earth did I do before I discovered hummus?

I must admit that I like hummus so much better than seitan. You know, I really like this good source of veg protein but it’s kind of.. rubbery. I’m still not sure what to think of it.

However, it was pretty good in tonight’s stir-fry which I made for dinner.

I’m currently cooking some quinoa for tomorrow’s breakfast. When I go to the gym in the morning (as I do tomorrow) I really like to have all things (workout clothes and food) ready so I can grab my bag and go. Otherwise I maybe would sleep in.

The next few days are going to be busier than usual. The Gurtenfestival starts tomorrow and I’m super excited. It’s a very relaxed/fun/happy festival on the Gurten hill which is right next to Bern. You have an amazing view from up there.
Tomorrow I only want to go and see Jet and Babyshambles. I’ve seen them both before but I’m looking forward to their gigs anyway (well as long as Pete appears, I’m happy). The Babyshambles concert ends at 0:45am and I guess that I’ll be at home at 2am-ish. Well the only problem is that I have to work on Friday.

Oh well, aren’t festivals all about lack of sleep, a bit too much beer and sunshine? I hope that I’ll get at least 5h of sleep from Thursday to Friday because I’ll need the energy to dance the night away then . I just have to make sure not to fall asleep at 12pm. I wish I weren’t such a grandma.

Q: Have you ever been to a festival? If yes, which one was your favourite? I’ve been to a bunch of festivals. There are TONS in Switzerland, it seems like all we do in summer is to go to festivals. My favourite will always be the Gurtenfestival though. Not only because it’s in my town but the feeling up there is really special. You should all come and see for yourself, it’s an amazing atmosphere!

PS: I went and saw Eclipse last night with my mum and sister. We giggled like morons. WHAT A CHEESEFEST! I can’t wait to see it again. Haha!

Even though we have an amazing farmer’s market in Bern I have to admit that I rarely go there.
Come on! Who am I? Isn’t it the “it-thing” of the health food bloggers? Shame on me!

Well after a long absence I steered to the organic veggies on Saturday. I now only have one zucchini, some radishes, half a head of cauliflower and some celery stalks left. And it’s only Tuesday. I guess I’ll have to go there again tomorrow!

My two day long absence can be explained quite easily. I spent the entire Sunday checking my boyfriend’s thesis for grammar mistakes. I now know everything about electrical engineering. Yep.

We worked until 11pm and was really lacking sleep. That’s why I decided to take yesterday evening off. I had dinner, read my book and went to bed at 10pm. Heaven!

Random fact of the day #1:

I’m slowly eating my way through the bars I got in London.

Random fact of the day #2:

Eating hot oats on a hot day really isn’t cool (ha!). I somehow don’t seem to have any conventional breakfast food on hand.

Tomorrow I’ll make a COLD smoothie.

Brace yourself, tonight’s dinner was beyond (!!!) creative.

Tam tam taaaaam…..

I’d say that this is a meal to remember!

JK. Do I really need to mention that I felt like a lazy bum tonight?

Have I ever told you that I HATE gyms in the evening? They’re so crowded! I still went to my gym after work though

I usually go to the gym in the morning which I like so much better (even though it means that I have to get up earlier). There aren’t many people around and the free weights section isn’t “filled with testosterone” (if you know what I mean ).

Today I did a very basic HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) on the treadmill:

• 5 min warm-up run
• 1 min sprint
• 2 min run/jog
• repeat sprint and jog 6x
• 10 min cool down jog

(Try doing 5-8 sets)

I hate interval training and feel like dying the entire time but I somehow start to like HIITs because they make time fly by. Also, they’re fantastic if you have little time and want to make the most of your workout.

Time to do some yoga now!

Q: Do you know/like/hate/?? HIITs?

What is it about this day that makes me so H.A.P.P.Y.?

It might be because it’s the weekend. Or because I finished the cleanse.

Speaking of it.. Here’s how the last day went:

Breakfast started off with soy yogurt, sliced banana & nectarine and hemp & chia seeds.

Oh and almond butter. Let’s not forget about the almond butter.

Surprise surprise it didn’t hold me over for too long and so I had some blueberries and an egg.

Still hungry. Grr!

I basically ran to the health food store to get some tofu and veggies to throw together a salad for lunch. Then I grabbed my food, book and a chair and enjoyed my lunch outside. At least until some dude started mowing the grass. Oh the joy!

Yes, that’s a close up of tofu.

Work – snack on apple and AB – work…

For dinner I dug out some frozen food – millet with chickpeas, carrots, onion and raisins that I made some time ago. I forgot how amazing this dish is! Need to make that again soon.
On the side I had some edamame. I love edamame.

Kinda look like grandma edamame though.

…And then I had dessert.

Oh my freaking goodness!!

Well I will tell you all about my baked baby tomorrow but let me just say that this was so good (and perfectly cleanse-friendly).

But how did the cleanse make me feel?

Well, as expected, I didn’t feel much different. I mentioned before that I mostly eat that way anyway so it wasn’t a “real” cleanse for my body. However, I noticed the following things:

• No bloating, weird feeling whatsoever
• No chocolate cravings
• “Clear skin”-feeling

Well the last point surprised me. It felt like my skin could breathe (!?!?). Has anyone ever felt like that before? I didn’t particularly feel more energized but my skin felt (and still feels!) great.
What shocked me lots though was that I didn’t miss chocolate. So strange!

Got to go now! Will meet up with my friend Christine for dinner at Punkt. I think I’m going to order the Pad Thai .

Q: Favourite cookbook? It’s some sort of an out of the blue question but I was just wondering..

Have a GREAT Friday!

It’s been a rough day so I’ll keep this short and sweet.

Even though it’s been incredibly hot in the past few days I was craving oatmeal for breakfast. Talk about weird. That’s like taking an ice bath in the depth of winter.

1/3 c oatmeal, 2/3 c rice milk, 1/3 c water, cinnamon, 1 sliced banana / topped with hemp seeds and 1 tsp almond butter

Work was incredibly busy and I snacked on an apple mid-morning. –>Nothing exciting happened here .

It’s been so nice out so I’ve been eating my lunches outside for the past few days, while reading Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. It’s so relaxing!

For lunch today I had a huge salad (lettuce, carrots, broccoli and an egg) and some blueberries and an other egg on the side (I actually prefer eating eggs on their own and not particularly in salads).

Sunshine sunshine, I love you.

Unfortunately I had to go back inside and continue working. Oh sometimes I really hate being a grown up. Work continued to be crazy (I’m currently organizing things for a small exhibition and it’s driving me NUTS!) but I snacked on a nectarine in between.

I really needed to go on a run and clear my mind after work, so I ate a dried date because I was feeling tired and hungry– I believe that dates are the perfect pre-exercise snacks if you only need a small boost of energy.

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE red lentils? They’re exactly what food should be like – nutritious and delicious!

I cooked 1/2 dry lentils in water with a bit of salt and served them with baked sweet potato “fries” and steamed broccoli & savoy cabbage.

I feel like I’m going to explode now.

Workouts of the day:

- 1 hr Tracy Anderson Method Mat Workout DVD (will write a review soon)  before breakfast
- 40 min run (don’t know how far I ran because I didn’t wear my Garmin) after lunch

I will probably finish watching “Narnia: Prince Caspian” and then do some yoga before hitting the hay.

Hope your Wednesday was good too!

My friend Kirsty told me yesterday about a cleanse she’ll do, starting today. It’s quite simple: Lots of veggies, grains, protein in form of fish, chicken, eggs and tofu. Well I don’t eat chicken or fish (and neither does she) but decided to join her. Mainly because I like “experiments” like these –> Challenges that aren’t too challenging .

I don’t expect it to make me feel completely different because it’s only for three days and I usually eat the same food anyway (I just have to give up on wheat, chocolate and dairy – which is easy since I can live a few days without bread, pasta and chocolate and I rarely eat dairy anyway).

But yeah, I’m doing a “cleanse”.

Tam Tam Tam

When people hear that word they first think of ridiculous juice fasts or other silly things (master cleanse anyone?). I don’t believe in starving, even if you’ll feel “great” afterwards. Fasts/Cleanses that are based on juices might be do-able for some people but not for me. I like chewing.

So in spirit of the cleanse I decided to turn this blog into a food journal for three days. Are you ok with this?

Yes?

Good.

Breakfast was a massive bowl of cold oatmeal (1/3 c oatmeal cooked with 1 c water and ½ banana the night before) with soy yogurt, the other half of the banana, hemp seeds and blueberries (as well as two lone raspberries). You know, I REALLY don’t like berries in hot oatmeal. Something about that bitterness makes me gag. In fact, the only fruit I like in hot oatmeal is banana.

Mid-morning snack was a wonderful nectarine that was incredibly sexy to eat.

(It kind of pretends to be an apple in this picture.)

Ok, I know that white rice is like blasphemy in the healthy food blogger world but my boss and co. had a lunchtime meeting and my colleague and I decided to order sushi as well. That was last week when I didn’t know anything about that cleanse back then. Oh well. It was a huge but great lunch . (And actually also completely fine with the cleanse rules)

I had another “impossible-to-eat-in-front-of-other-people” afternoon snack. Watermelon. Hot.

No surprise that the watermelon left me starving when I got back home so I nibbled on some gluten free & vegan crackers that I recently found at the organic food store.

Oh god. I’m addicted. I had approximately 3x of what’s shown above.

Dinner was with my sister Selina before Pilates class. We went to the good old tibits and I got all sorts of yummy things and a green juice!

Workout for the day:

-1 h pilates class
-lots of walking (actually more than usual..)

Other “rules” of the cleanse are as follows (in case you were wondering):

How to eat
*Meals should be regular – three a day, and a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack.
*Eat moderate helpings of good lean protein with main meals: fish, eggs, chicken, tofu
*Dandelion coffee, ginger (in tea or added to juice of food) and nettle tea all good for cleansing/supporting the liver.

NO to
alcohol
processed food (except tofu)
no sugar
no red meat
no caffeinated drinks
no wheat or dairy
very little salt

Yes to:
drink at least 2 litres of water/herbal tea a day
eat plenty of vegetables except white potatoes
good veg for detox = artichokes, beetroot, bean and seed sprouts, carrots, pumpkin, red cabbage, spinach, sweet potato, tomato, watercress
Cruciferous veg = broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts – important in supporting the key conjugation pathway to the liver
Eat fruit. Esp good for detoxing – apples, fresh apricots, berries, cantaloupe, melon, citrus, kiwi, papaya, peaches, mango and dark grapes.
Grains – a half tennis ball sized helping of brown rice, corn, millet, oats or quinoa
Pulses
Nut & seeds (great for snacks with some fruits)
Oils – use extra virgin olive oil or flaxseed oil.
LEMON WATER

Each morning, start the day with half a lemon squeezed into a glass of hot water.

Here’s how Day 1 is supposed to look like: (The other days are really similar)

Day 1
First thing: Lemon water
before you shower or bathe: – skin brushing
During the day : a brisk walk to help circulation
Treatment Body scrub
Bed: Try to be in bed by 10pm- read or listen to restful music if you can’t sleep

Dang. No skin brushing was done. And it’s already 10:41pm. Oops! Time to go to bed!

Q: What do you think of cleanses? Ok I’ll admit it; it’s quite silly to call this (in my case) a cleanse since I mainly eat that way anyway. However, I’ll just take it as a chance to be more aware of what I eat – in a good way. Sometimes I nibble on things mindlessly – who doesn’t? – but it’s nice to focus on good food for a few days.
As for cleanses: I’m not a huge fan (since I’m lacking major will power). Other reasons for my dislike are stated above