Give Me Bananas

I’m glad to hear that you liked my London recap . Still got 3 more days to go until I can collect my lomo pics.. ah I can’t wait! It seems like you like old cameras (and lomos) as well . Good to hear that! I really like vintage things and still think it’s uber sad that my old typewriter doesn’t work anymore. Are you sometimes nostalgic as well or is it just me being all grandma-ish?

Today was pretty low-key. I met up with my lovely friends for brunch which was great. The weather was fantastic and very fit for a brunch in the yard of a lovely alternative restaurant (90% of their food is organic, woohooo!)

I then spent the rest of the day taking care of my sick boyfriend. That poor guy looks miserable (but I forced him to eat risotto so that he got at least some food into his system ).

Seeing him ill makes me feel kind of helpless. Is it a women thing that we feel sad when we see someone we love feeling utterly miserable?

To the picture on top.. It’s actually part of a wrapping of a bar that I had for lunch the other day (along with some fruit and crackers).

I LOVE the bars that you can get at Whole Foods in London (and I imagine everywhere else as well). Those nakd bars are great, we basically lived on them during lunch time on our canoe trip last July.

I also love what they write on the bars..

It makes eating a bar so much fun for some reason .

I got a ton of bars in London by the way.. I’m a foodie after all!

I also got some nut butters..

..which I had to try out of course.

Well ok I cheated. I didn’t try the almond butter because I still have some “old” one left and I topped the slices with almond butter and pumpkin seed butter with a bit of honey.

But oh my god. The chocolate peanut butter is to die for and the pumpkin seed butter is so fresh and.. natural. It will be a sad day when I finish them.

I also got a boatload of tea, especially Pukka tea which I love (but which we sadly don’t have over here..).

This tea is a lifesaver. Seriously. Last year we went on a canoe trip in Sweden (but stayed in London a few days before, which is why we had all these bars and teas) and on one day we got surprised by heavy rain and had to go on land and wait in the freezing cold (under pine trees to be precise) until the rain wore off. Two hours later we decided to pull up our tent and make some tea.

It felt like pure gold.

That day was so rough and I will never forget to always appreciate that I’ve got a roof over my head. Thanksthanksthanks

So much for the canoeing.. there are more stories though I don’t want to bore you with those since I could probably write a book about it.

Back to food!

While in London I also got some Nairn’s oatcakes that I often see on Tamzin’s blog. Oh my goodness they’re crazy addictive. I almost ate the entire package in a few days.

They’re really good with herb and garlic paté btw.

I also got some other things like Nature’s Path cereal that is like crack as well – my box is almost empty! I’ll cry when I run out. I’m serious.

So.. I will leave now and check on the patient. I hope your Sunday is a bit more exciting than mine!

Why do days off always seem to fly by? I bet there’s someone who secretly steals a few hours.

Anyway, my Monday was super busy and active. I got back home from my boyfriend’s place at 9:45am-ish and started cleaning the apartment. It’s something that really relaxes me for some reason. "

Afterwards I did the 20 min strength workout of the “fit in 5” DVD, followed by this 20 min workout video that Tracy Anderson made for Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, I don’t really know what to think about Tracy since you hear all those weird stories (baby food, anyone??) but I adore Gwyneth and so I thought that giving this workout a try wouldn’t hurt me. Well, it kicked my ass. I wonder if leg workouts 2 days after a 10 miles race are smart (guess we’ll find out tomorrow) .

Lunch was a salad, black beans and a boiled egg.

After that I continued my cleaning-party. It was much needed, trust me.

Snackeroo came in the form of an apple and almond butter. You can’t go wrong with that combo. You just can’t.

Yes, that table’s supposed to look kind of messed up. It’s art. Seriously!

…Theeeen I walked to the train station (because the shops there are open today everywhere else) and got some essentials at the organic food store (aka lettuce, tofu, ginger lemon tea and onions).

In the spirit of the 20 minute workouts I decided to do the dance and yoga workouts of the fit in 5 DVD after I got back home. The dancing was a bit awkward. Even though I used to do ballet for 10 years I’m not really used to Latin moves. I’ll probably never warm up to “yeah! that’s fun! give me a smile!!” (–>super enthusiastic instructors) either. It’s probably motivating for some people but I just feel silly.
The yoga segment was a bit weird to be honest. It wasn’t real yoga for some reasons.

Dinner will be some sort of millet/chickpea dish. I’ll just throw everything together and call it a meal .

Q: Do you know the Tracy Anderson Method? If yes, what do you think about it? I’m not very familiar with the method itself but that leg workout is a keeper.

Back to reality tomorrow…

Ten minutes after writing yesterday’s post I collected some DVDs to take with me to my friend’s house but didn’t see the glass of water on the shelf. Well, I did notice it after it fell on my big toe.

So I really hope you don’t mind me posting a picture of my toe, otherwise just close your eyes and scroll down .

The glass didn’t even shatter but I still got a cut.

After hopping around like an idiot I decided to skip the run. However, I will try to run my 10 miles this afternoon.

Yesterday’s girl’s night was so much fun! We watched Love Actually (Hugh Grant’s dancing scene is hilarious!), The Notebook (makes me cry every time) and The Holiday (I wish Jude Law weren’t that handsome!).

We also had lots of goodies to eat.. It was a huge food fest to be precise!

Crudités

Olive tapenade and dipping sauce

Tortilla chips and guac

Cucumber tortilla rolls

Tomato mozzarella sticks

Brownies

Carrot banana mini-muffins that I made earlier in the afternoon.

We definitely weren’t lacking food. Or white wine .

A few people asked what the white frilly thing in my last post was. Well it’s cheese!

I haven’t done much today which is rather heavenly. I’m currently watching Avatar. I really like the message of the film even though the story’s a bit weak. Have you seen it?

Ugh. It just started raining. Running in rain is ok but still not my favourite thing to do (especially when it’s pouring down like right now).

I’ve got to get ready for the run now and drink some more water!!

Q: How much water do you actually drink each day? I usually drink 2 litres of water (and tea) but make sure to drink even more when I work out a lot.

It’s been raining cats and dogs since yesterday afternoon.

Sun, come out please! We miss you!

It seems like some of you run races and some of you don’t. Well that’s perfectly fine of course . I never thought I’d ever run a race because the thought of getting chased by thousands of people wasn’t that appealing. But then I signed up for a 10 miles race because it seemed like “fun”. Erm, 10 miles for my first race without any proper training? Yes my stubbornness sometimes gets beyond logical thinking.

In fact I’ve always had to deal with my impossible stubbornness.  Passing the driving test on the first try? It just had to happen. Quickly finding a good job? Check!

Being stubborn is great if you want to reach certain goals. However, this could also become a problem because you can tend to focus too much on the goal without listening to your gut feeling.

You just have to reach that goal, no matter what.

I’m a little less stubborn these days but if I want something (non-material of course) I just have to have it. I accept my character as it is, which also includes stubbornness, but I just make sure that I don’t want to reach goals that are too crazy

Are you a stubborn person? Do you see it as something positive or negative?

Sometimes I’m also stubborn when it comes to meals. If I crave something I just have to have it. Like quinoa porridge for example.

So I went into the kitchen and made some .

Tamzin sent me a bar some time ago (I won it in a giveaway) and I just had to try it in the afternoon. I’ve had other 9 bars before and have always been pleased. This one was fantastic too!

Thanks hun! I loved it! Too bad that it’s gone though

We skipped our run because of the heavy rain. I usually don’t shy away from rain but you should have seen the weather yesterday.. It was insane..

Instead we made mushroom risotto, topped with a fried egg and some rice.

We went and had a few drinks (well.. water and a cappuccino for me) and said goodbye to our friend who goes to the US again. Hehe, it was fun though!

Today I’ll just enjoy my time off . Btw: this is Ascension Day.

I started my day with some chakra balancing yoga which was lovely. I should go and make some tea and take a shower now.. we’re heading to my friend Daniela’s workplace for brunch (she’s a baker). Then afterwards we’ll pop by my grandma’s house as it’s her birthday . Afterwards I just HAVE to get that run in .

Anyway, enjoy your day lovelies!!

It was an other busy day in the magical land of Karinawhooo and again it’s almost 10pm. Well I got back home at 9pm and had to work on a secret project (that I will write about tomorrow) and couldn’t start typing my little heart out earlier.

Anyway, it seems like most of you think that sleep is important but you don’t get enough of it. What shall we do now ? I for my part really need to do more meditation. Or maybe we should go the traditional way and let someone sing us lullabies. Mum, are you there??

My day started harmless with a glorious breakfast.

I topped three pieces of sesame seed bread with

1) almond butter & honey
2) almond butter & apple slices
3) soy margarine & agave sweetened jam

And I also had the rest of the apple slices on the side..

At the same time my vegan rice bread was steaming away. Yes steaming. I made it in a rice cooker!!

I followed this recipe but used 50g rice syrup instead of sugar. I kind of thought that it would be a bit crumbly since rice flour is like that and the result turned out just as I thought..

Still ok to eat. But very crumbly. I have to use some xanthan gum the next time (aaah!Janetha hun! Thanks so much! I got it in the mail the other day. Love you!).

Work was nuts as usual and lunch rolled around soon. I made the mistake to make chinese noodles with carrots and zucchini. It was good but way too filling. Now I get headaches when I think about it..

Ugh get that picture out of my sight! I didn’t know that the noodles were only made of mung beans and pea starch. Ewwwww! (I wikipedia-ed it. I wasn’t aware that it was starch only… I thought that it was just peas and mung beans. Ugh)

(insert huge space so I don’t have to look at the picture anymore)

My dessert of sorts was so much better. I’m kind of obsessed with these armanth “cakes” with chocolate. So good! I had one of those and went groceries shopping afterwards. (Yes I had room for one. I’m weird, I know)

My afternoon snack was an other beauty. Soy yogurt with almond butter and some raspberries.

Only morons would take a snack bowl outside to take a picture of it with a flower.

5:15pm came quickly (thank god!) and I raced back home, put my groceries into the fridge and headed back out. I went to hear a few speeches on sports nutrition with my dad. The event was organized by the organizers of the race that I’m participating in and the Insel hospital, which is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) hospitals in Switzerland.

To be honest: I heard nothing that was new to me.

However, it was still fun and made me realize yet again that I did EVERYTHING wrong last year .

Also.. when I was walking from the bus stop to the hall where the speeches were held I saw this tall gangly guy in front of me and laughed out loud when I realized that it was my dad. He lost 13kg or so in the last 6 months and it’s really weird getting used to his skinniness. He’s always been “normal” but didn’t do much sports. In the past few months he started strength training and now does much more running and yoga. He also completely changed his diet. It makes me so happy to see that he’s feeling so positive with his healthy lifestyle. He told me that I was an inspiration to him which totally made my.. year! It’s so amazing to make people aware that it’s not boring or silly to live a healthy life.

Have a good one! The weekend’s near!

Q: Have you ever “inspired” friends or family members to make healthier changes in their life?

What a birthday! We started prepping everything at 9am and were still at work when the first guests arrived at 4:15pm but we luckily didn’t stress ourselves and took it easy.

I just realized that I didn’t take any pictures of all the people, not even the birthday boy! Boooh!
Guess I was too busy eating food and talking to everyone .

Some people probably thought that we were nuts.. preparing all that food and such but I was having the time of my life.

Here’s what we made:

Stuffed mushrooms with herb cream cheese with pepper (I had no time to make hummus)

..which was then baked..

Focaccia

Puff pasty “snails” with cheese and bacon

Some.. meat.. rolled up.. something.. (which –needless to say- my boyfriend made )

Mini sandwiches (filled with guacamole, red bell pepper, grilled aubergine and basil)

Tortilla filled with cream cheese and cucumber

Bruscetta (the bread is obviously unpictured)

Crema catalana cupcakes! (Without the caramel topping – we stopped trying after burning the sugar 2x)

I actually forgot to take pictures of the guacamole, salmon appetizers, tarte flambée and prunes with bacon. Bad bad food blogger!

I should start catering or something .

It was such a lovely but exhausting day. I couldn’t believe it when the alarm went off at 6:30am this morning. I’m not feeling like cooking dinner (ha!) and so I’ll go and have dinner with my sister and her friend. Afterwards we’ll go and see “Date Night”. I can’t wait! I love Tina Fey and Steve Carell.

My internet at work has been annoying since the security got upped a bit. It’s always been super slow but now it’s even slower. Seriously, it’s much more fun to watch the grass grow. Unfortunately I can only read blog entries on my google reader but I usually get an error message when I try to comment. So frustrating! What should I do on my lunch break?

Hope you’re having a good Monday!!

Q: Have you ever thrown a bigger foodie/dinner party for your friends?

Every time I pack for a trip I’m worried about food. I always think that we haven’t packed enough when in fact the whole lot could feed a small army.

Forgot a towel or the toothbrush? That’s ok as long as I’ve got the sandwiches and bananas for everyone.

Is this something that foodies do or is that some weird motherly instinct that wants to make sure that everyone’s got enough food?

Today I got up at 5am and got to work on the sandwiches for the road. Just like with salads I am bored to death by boring sandwiches (cheese and butter anyone? No thank you.)

Aubergine, Almond + sesame tofu, tomatoes, spinach.

I also packed some other things. 30 seconds after taking this photo I filled the bag with produce and other goodies.

Got to finish packing now. Have I packed my toiletries?

Q: How do you pack for a trip?

ps: Yes, my friend Karin made that cake. Isn’t she an artist?

Good morning!

I hope you all enjoyed your Mondays (more or less) . I have no idea why I felt so odd though it might have been a mysterious mochi..

On Sunday I realized two things:

1) It’s not very smart to eat mochi and salad two hours before a run. During the entire 10 km run I thought that I was (more or less) going to die. My poor dad had to be totally Galloway with me. The walk/run helped me but when I got back home I sprinted to the bathroom and prayed to the porcelain gods. It was.not.nice.

2) It’s not uncommon to meet a cat in the forest. We weren’t sure what to do with that cute  kitten but then we met a woman who told us that the cat’s often in the forest. Weird weird. I hated leaving him (her??) though – he (she??) was so adorable!

And yes, I forgot my camera at my parent’s place (I sent my dad a panicked e-mail and he replied with –and I quote- “Stopp: Newsflash: yes, yor camera is here”) yor camera. Jeeeez dad, are you totally into weird slangs now??

I mentioned yesterday that I used my sister’s camera. Ahem. I love you sweetie but your camera really isn’t that great.

It (more or less) took me years to take a rather decent photo so please bear with me and my not so stellar pictures.

Breakfast

What did I say??? Last time I checked “blurry” wasn’t IN..

For some reason my porridge was rather small that morning.. Here’s what went into the mix:

• 1/3 c quick oats
• 1 c water
• 1 scoop protein powder
• some rice syrup
• toppings: flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, pecans

I’m not saying that my camera’s perfect.. but I can not help but miss it.

Lunch

Some muddy water split pea and leek soup (which I had in the freezer)

Plus banana + AB and a mixed grains cake

Snacks

Carrot and banana bread

Black sesame crackers

There was more though as I was (more or less) Ms. Snacky Snackeroo all afternoon long. Nothing was safe from me. Argh!

At 5:15pm I fled from the office as quickly as possible. My tummy started to have some weird party again (and now you might understand my mochi reference.. or not ). Clearly I had to eat something. Seriously, sometimes I think that I’m pretty weird. My stomach was dancing and all I could think about was food. So dinner it was…

Dinner

Random stir-fry (cabbage, zucchini, tomato, mushroom, curry burger, garlic)

Black rice noodles with pesto sauce. Though they look purple. Hmmm. (I think that this is the most amazing picture of the lot, don’t you think? –WARNING: Heavy sarcasm alert!!—)

I managed to snap a picture of today’s lunch before my sister took the camera away (boooh! Unfair!!)

• Approx. 1 1/2 cooked quinoa
• 2 carrots
• big handful of chickpeas
• 2 radishes
• 1/2 fennel bulb
• sunflower seeds

That’s it. I might have just lost 50% of my readers with those horrible photos but I hope that I didn’t ruin the day of the other 50% .

Quick race training update: Going good (except for week 29 March – 4 April). Today before work I did 5 x 800 5-K pace (30 min incl. cool down), upper body strength training (20 min) + bike (10 min) – I just realized that I forgot to stretch. Oops.

Anyway, I hope you’ll have a wonderful Tuesday! Hang in there, the weekend isn’t too far away .

Q: What kind of camera do you use? I use a Samsung that has some great Macro options but sucks in the dark. Of course I’d love to get a super fancy camera but I guess you all know how expensive these babies are. However, I would love to get one for our USA trip…

Hello and welcome to April!

Sorry for yesterday’s no-show. Let’s just say that I can’t wait to go to Florence tomorrow .

I haven’t run at all this week but I’ll make sure to race around in Florence. It just seemed like there was always something going wrong (like a stuffed nose, completely sore legs because of that damn “No More Trouble Zones” DVD..). You know, I won’t sweat about it. I try to follow my training plan as closely as possible but I also listen to my body. I must say that the blog world can also put pressure on people and they feel like they might have to prove that they’re not lazy. Well, I can happily say that it doesn’t bother me at all that I didn’t run this week. I know my limits and don’t want to get injured.

Anyway, cheers to Karla and Sophia for explaining that my plantain wasn’t ripe enough. Well I thought that too at first but was too impatient to not try dehydrating them . I’ll be wiser next time.

Another thanks to BBC for telling me how GORGEOUS the weather in Florence is going to be. Or not. Whatever, I’ll pack my umbrella. Nothing will damper my spirits.

I’ve been prepping snacks like a madwoman the past few days and yesterday I got to work on some cookies. I had the recipe for the thumbprint cookies of The Kind Life for ages and finally got to make them.

I followed the recipe to the T nd they turned out great. However, 1/2 cup is too much oil and I’d recommend using 1/3 cup and maybe a bit more if it gets too sticky.

My cookies kind of melted away…

..but were still scrumptious! I’ll definitely make them again as it didn’t take that long to make them.

While they were baking away I packed some clothes and did the dishes. Domestic party!

For some reasons I was busy until 12pm and so I decided to skip the gym this morning because I really didn’t feel like getting up after 5 hours of sleep. So I gave in and crashed for an other hour & did the “No More Trouble Zones” DVD again. I’ve had the DVD for a long time but haven’t done the workout and I was really surprised at how tough it was! I read on some blog that it was a good workout for a “day off”. What the eff?? I was a mess afterwards. I like this DVD much more than the 30 Day Shred (but Jillian, you are cruel!)

Other eats of the past days:

Leek + split pea soup. So good and simple.

This was a new to me pudding. I simply mixed some silken tofu, cocoa powder and agave until it felt just right.

There were also many many salads and other unpictured snacks. Nothing too exciting.

After my plantains disaster I dehydrated some real bananas and some apples. Sweet, ripe bananas should take over the world!

I’m definitely on a dehydration kick.

So.. that’s it! I haven’t done many exciting things (besides packing of course ) but I’m so looking forward to the long weekend. Also, I’ll go and see Mika tonight! Aaaah, I see an other short night in the future !

Q: Do you “celebrate” April’s Fool’s Day? I actually don’t really like the 1st of April because I always expect someone to trick me or something.. It has never happened before though .

Btw, check out that page: The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.

A spaghetti tree would be fun! And handy!

I thought this one was hilarious:

#3: Instant Color TV

1962: In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station’s technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

Yesterday I really wanted to run and go to yoga. But I simply couldn’t do it.

It’s not that I’m stressed out.. but I’m so overwhelmed. Literally every minute is planned out until I leave for Florence and it’s just so exhausting. I walk fast because I know that saves a few minutes. Sigh.

I know it’s my “fault” and I simply shouldn’t do that much. The only problem is that I like being busy because there are so many great things that I want to do. Anyway, I really don’t want to complain here .

Actually I only wanted to “explain” why I had time to cook a proper (and great) dinner. And since I skipped any sort of activity I decided to organize my DVDs and clean the living room a bit.

A friend of mine gave me some pasta ages ago and I decided to try it for dinner.

They always seemed too cute to cook

I ended up making them with a bit of olive oil and garlic and I also added some carrots, broccoli, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes to the party. Simple and delish.

Before I made dinner I got to work on some plantains. You know, as a lover of bananas (TWSS ) it’s almost embarrassing to say that I’ve never tried plantains before!

But I was prepping snacks for our Italy trip and so I thought that making plantain chips would be fun.

So I bought some at the groceries store….

…peeled them…

…cut them into bite-size pieces…

…added salt and 1 tsp of olive oil…

…put them on trays…

…and let my lame dehydrator do it’s job during the night…

This morning I had a bite and spat it right out. God was that awful! It still tasted.. well so.. not ripe. Could anyone tell me what I did wrong?? (Though I’m still hoping that they maybe –through some magic hand- got better during the day).

Oh boy, what a failure.

But I won’t give up. I will make perfect dehydrated plantains in the future. In the mean-time I think I’ll stick to dehydrating fruits or something like that .

Ps: Of course I’ll take photos in Florence! I would never never NEVER forget my camera for such a precious trip *knock on wood* .

Q: Have you ever made plantains?

Q2: What are your favourite snacks to pack for a trip? I think I always have some snacks on hand (I get cranky when I’m hungry ) and my favourites are nuts, fruits, bars, rice cakes, baked goods… what else? Well, basically everything that doesn’t need to be refrigerated and that doesn’t go bad super quickly.