Chai Spiced White Chocolate Cookies from Kati – blackwhitevivid

Ohh these cookies!

As you already know I love to be in contact with other Food Blogger from all over the world! I love to share the same passion, to talk about food, blogging, food photography and…. cats. Kati is one of the first food blogger I followed on Instagram. She inspired me with her wonderful food creations and we share our deeeeeepppp passion for cats. She is a traveller and loves to live on different places all over the world. And everywhere she stay she find some cats around her.

I’m so happy to share her Chai Spiced White Chocolate Cookies with you as well as an interview.

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1. What’s your name?

Hey, my name is Kati and I’m the author and creator of the blog and Instagram account black.white.vivid.

2. Where are you living?

I’m originally from Germany, born in Stralsund, a small town situated right at the Baltic Sea. However I do live abroad since many years. In the last few years I’ve lived in Hong Kong and Cairo among others. Currently I’m enjoying life in Istanbul where I moved to last year, together with my boyfriend and our two cats.

3. Can you tell me something about you?

Since I’m young I have been dreaming of living an international life. After I graduated from High School, I moved abroad and never looked back. I did my Bachelors and Masters degree in Marketing and Management in Holland, the UK and France. After that I came back to Germany where I worked at Amazon for two years before I moved to Hong Kong with my boyfriend. And this is where my culinary journey begins. I became vegan when I was living in Munch and during that time I was already taking care of my diet and myself. But when I moved abroad again, the combination of my healthy life style and new cultural as well as culinary influences brought my approach to food to the next level. That was 3 years ago and it lot has changed in terms of food since then. I’m not vegan anymore but I do believe in a balanced and healthy life. It took me quite a while to start my blog black.white.vivid. and at first I didn’t know that one day it would be so food and since lately travel-focused. Today I work as a part-time e-commerce consultant from home for a German company and part-time blogger and photographer.

4. Wheat means healthy living for you?

For me, a healthy life is a balanced life. I disapprove of strict diets and food trends. I also think that not everyone needs to meditate or do yoga. Crochet can be equally relaxing and a good steak once in a while does wonders to some people. When it comes to sleep however, I’m very consequent. If I don’t feel well or have skin issues I usually have lots of water and go to bed very early. Sleep has real healing power. Of course, healthy living also means to live a conscious life. It’s still important to pay attention to you diet. If you add 10 tablespoons of sugar to your coffee every day, that’s probably not going to improve your well being in the long tern. But a sweet treat once in a while is perfectly fine. Apart from that, greens and fruits but also high-quality grains are very important for me.

5. What is your favorite meal?

At first I thought this question would be difficult to answer. But then I more or less immediately had an idea: Buddha Bowl. Just a short explanation in case. – A Buddha bowl is a bowl filled with raw, cooked and roasted ingredients. As a base you add a grain, I personally like quinoa. Then, throw in some fresh salad leaves, roasted pumpkin or bakes sweet potato. Hummus and avocado is an essential part of my Buddha bowl. I just love that you can easily create your bowl with flavors from different countries. Just add spicy Mexican beans, Asian spiced tofu or sweet cinnamon carrot from Morocco. There are now rules, really. Just be creative.

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5.0 from 1 reviews
Chai Spiced White Chocolate Cookies
 
Prep time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: treats
Ingredients
  • ½ cup / 100 grams coconut oil, soft
  • ½ cup / 115 grams coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
  • 4 tbsp aquafaba
  • ¾ tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1¾ cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp chai spice
  • 4-6 pieces of vegan white chocolate
Instructions
  1. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, pinch of salt and chai spice
  2. In a separat bowl mix sugar and aquafaba until smooth, then add the coconut oil and whisk for about 2 min
  3. Add the flour mixture tot he sugar mixture and then stir until well combined
  4. Preheat to 180°C / 350° F
  5. Line baking sheet with parchement paper
  6. Using a tea spoon, scoob about 1-1.5 spoons worth of cookie dough and form a ball in your hands, flaten it and place it on baking sheet
  7. Cut chocolate into small pieces, devide it between al cookies, springle it on top and gently press it into the cookie dough
  8. Bake for 10-12 min but don’t overbake
  9. Let it cool before serving

 

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Almond vanilla balls and my experiences in food photography

As you know I’m sharing my food photography pictures on Instagram as well as on my blog. Some people ask me why I’m sharing my pictures on Instagram as well. The main reason is to improve my food photography skills. To learn from others and to share my experience and to get experiences back from other food photographer.

Social media is a good place to interchange.

To be honest. Working as a food blogger in your free time means to focus on your favourite tasks. Otherwise you can burn yourself out really fast. Food blogging is such a big field where you can work hours and hours to get more follower and traffic on your page. Everybody need to find his real passion in this niche. Mine is taking pictures. Not getting more and more follower.

I like to share a little bit of my food photography journey as well as my recipe today. I won’t go into the details. This is only an idea how my journey has been.

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Food photography

Food photography is a big part of my life and I’m always really thankful to find time for it. I’m only taking pictures when I’m sure I have no other obligations during the day to focus myself completely. It’s a kind of creativity and silence for me. Something where I can stop thinking.

Some of you follow me since I started my blog or my Instagram account 1,5 years ago. As you can see in my pictures my results getting better and better. To be honest. I invested a lot of time and patience to learn how to take good pictures. Why? Because I love taking pictures. I love to look at stunning food photography and I love to realize I can do it as well.

Example 1: Turmeric cashew smoothie with lemon

One of my very first pictures was my turmeric cashew smoothie with lemon.

Kurkuma Cashew Smoothie NEU I

As you can see this picture isn’t really clear. Ist blurred.
It is overexposed and the props are really simple. But when I shot it I was so proud of it. Haha.

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I took this shot a few days ago with my new skills. My new lense and I edited it in Lightroom. This picture has a nice  depth of Focus and the probs are so lovely. It isn’t too loud. As you can see it looks much more professional in total. But it takes 1 year to learn how to shot it.

Inspirations

First of all I got a lot of inspirations from other cook book authors, bloggers and Instagramer. I always have a look and think about which kind of food photography I prefer. I read a lot. I bought books to learn how to start. I could tell you in detail how I improve my skills. But it’s so much better to have a book on hand and learn it step by step.

My German recommendations for good books: Food-Fotografie: Leckere Bildrezepte für Einsteiger and  Food-Fotografie – Essen perfekt in Szene setzen (Digital fotografieren)

Natural light & Props

I started using natural light early because I read it everywhere! Natural light is one of the most important things to follow in taking good food pictures. I didn’t use man props like napkins, towels or different cutlery in the beginning. My first pictures were really simple. But I was really proud of every single one because I took it. LOL. Later I discovered my pictures looking better and better when I use some props.

Example 2: A simple smoothie in a small jar

Look at the difference between these two smoothie pictures. I didn’t used probs in the first one. It looks so lonely and not inviting. Sad smoothie.

Kakao Amaranth Smoothie I

In contrast you feel the athmosphere when you look as this simple banana almond smoothie. I try to avoid too many colors but I added some green in the backround and red from the figs to create a nice view. It fits perfect to the wood I used in that picture. Wooden boards are always a good idea.

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Camera Equipment

I started with a good DSLR camera. Maybe this was the reason I had so much fun when I began. You can easily take pictures with your mobile phone as well but trust me the results with a good camera is so important to improve your skills. And when you decide to take pictures in the future and to invest time to learn it, the camera invest is appropriate.
I use a Nikon DS5200 with a 50mm f/1.8D Lens .

Editing program

In the beginning I used a freeware program to edit my picture. It is from google and the name is picassa. You have the possibility to start editing your pictures without buying an expensive program like Lightroom. You can play around and try out how you can edit your picture to make it looks better. One year later I spend all my money and bought an Apple IMAC with Lightroom. I use it 2 month now and it is the best I ever bought. My results are so much better! I’m also really happy to use Dearnas Food Fotography Guides to learn how to take good pictures and how to edit them in Lightroom.

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My journey isn’t at the end

I’m sure I can learn so much more about this amazing creative hobby. I’m so happy I discovered my passion of food photography because it’s a place I can turn myself off.
I love to share this recipe today because I’m proud of one of my absolutely first action shots. I watched a guide from Dearnas Food Fotography Guides how to take this kind of pictures. And these balls are really delicious, easy to prepare and healthy. My plan was to make almond butter with peeled almonds. But is don’t works. So I decided to convert the paste into balls.

So let’s go!

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Almond vanilla balls
 
Author:
Recipe type: Treats
Ingredients
  • 100g almonds (1 cup)
  • 100g desiccated coconut
  • 400g medjool dates (2 cups)
  • 3 tbsp coconut oil
  • 2 tbsp ground vanilla
  • 4 tbsp raw cacao powder
Instructions
  1. Mix up all ingredients (except the cacao powder) in a food processor.
  2. Form the paste into balls.
  3. Sprinkle the balls with cacao powder or icing sugar.
  4. Enjoy!

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FAVORITES OF THE WEEK

Marta, a mum, is sharing this easy and healthy Little Polenta Bowl with onions

One of my favorite Bloggers, Sara, creates a Basic recipe for overnight oats and chia seeds!

I just discovered this cute shirt, perfect for cat lovers: Cat Lovers – meaningfulpaws 

YOU COULD BE INTERESTED IN THESE POSTS AS WELL

You like to try out a healthy Version of snickers? Here it is: Healthy Hemp Snickers

Everybody loves chocolate! Try out this Nutritious Choclate Mousse

My new disvovery – coconut yoghurt, used in a 2-minutes breakfast bowl

 

Fast good! 2 minutes coconut blueberry bowl

What’s that? Fast Good? Sounds funny, right?

To be honest. Nobody find the time to cook hours and hours. But everybody likes to eat more healthy and fresh. The solution?

Fast Good!

More and more restaurants discovered a new trend. To prepare fast, delicious and healthy food for everybody. If you are open-minded you will recognize more and more healthy possibilities in the food market. There are more and more fresh alternatives instead of meat burger or fatty french fries. In the last years it was really difficult for me to eat something healthy when I was on a business trip.

The Change

But I see the world is changing and I love it! I find more healthy sandwiches, spelt pasta, vegan and vegetarian burger as well as raw desserts. It’s amazing to see how people change their mind and take care of their selves. I’m also recognize a changing in the supermarket portfolio. There are more fresh juices, vegan bread and I was so lucky to find the first coconut yoghurt in my supermarket as well. You need to know I don’t live in a big city. I’m living in a small village and the next city is 30.000 people big. I prefer to buy from a local shop instead of buying food in the internet. Are you feel the same?

Was can you learn from this fact?

This fact and this food trend can help you to live more healthy step by step. As you can read in one of my last posts “Dietary change for a better wellbeing”. I recommend to change your diet not completely. You need to change it step by step. Try to find more healthy alternatives and be open-minded for new food ingredients you don’t know. A healthy diet don’t need to be really difficult.

If you open-minded to cook something easy and healthy you find some idea here:

A vegan idea! Sunflower seed tzatziki sandwich

Fast, healthy and tasty! The 10 minute mushroom ragout

This simple banana almond smoothie is a great breakfast idea!

Spiritual Food as a Lifestyle?

I read about the Food Trend “Spiritual Food”. Have you ever heard from this? It sounds also really funny.

When we talk about spiritual food we talk about ethic and social engagement. We talk about to think about what we eating. To think about the origin, the production conditions. We talk about animal farming and labor conditions. The fact is that we need to eat every day. To think about what we eat is really difficult. We need to learn how we can change our view.

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Start thinking

Sometimes I know what I eat and I know it isn’t really “spiritual” but I eat it and I repress the memory. But sometimes I don’t eat anything in particular because I know more about ethical aspects. For example chocolate. I watched a German video about the production conditions of chocolate. I learned about child labor and I never never never bought conventional chocolate again since this experience. And I am really proud of it. We all can do little steps to make the world a little bit better. Build up your level of awareness and you will change little things as well. I am sure you can and you feel satisfied with your decision.

The Influencer

I recognized a big healthy food blogging trend in the last years. All these amazing souls helps to inform the world. They help to build up awareness. They share own experiences. I’m proud to be a part of this community and I’m proud to share my ideas and I’m proud to learn from others as well. I learned so many new thing about awareness, healthy food and living in the last year. I could write a book about it. But unfortunately I don’t find the time. Haha.

What are your experiences with food trends? Are there any who helped you to change something in your life?
I would be happy to read a comment from you.

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2 minuts coconut smoothie bowl

To share a simple and easy recipe idea I choose my coconut blueberry bowl with coconut yoghurt. I use frozen berries because I have them on hand at every time when I need a fast breakfast. Coconut yoghurt is such a great and healthy alternativ for dairy yoghurt. I am really lucky I found it in my supermarket. I see more and more healthy alternatives are coming. I topp this bowl with my coconut granola. You can find the recipe here: Coconut Granola

Fast good! 2 minutes coconut blueberry bowl
 
Prep time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: Breakfast
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • 170 frozen blueberries
  • 4 dates
  • 1 tbsp coconut flakes (or desiccated)
  • 150 g coconut yoghurt
  • 100 ml almond milk
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients until smooth. If the smoothie bowl is too cold add a pinch of really hot water.

 

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Favorites of the week

A health Coach’s 5 Favorite Pre- and Post-Workout Snacks

The Goodmanproject wrote about “Awareness the Presence of Being” and how to reduce stress

You could be interested in these posts as well

Learn how to change your diet step-by-step: Dietery change for a better wellbeeing

You need more energy in everyday life? Juicing is the solution!

Learn how to make your smoothie more filling

A simple banana almond smoothie

Banana

Super easy and healthy

I recognized I haven’t shared one of my absolutely easiest and delicious smoothie with banana and almond butter (or raw almonds). When I haven’t much time in the morning or forget to prepare my breakfast in advance I mix up this smoothie. It Is full of healthy ingredients and makes me full for longer because I added some oats. As you already know I always stock a jar of self-made almond butter. If you like to know how you can make almond butter by yourself, read more on this post: Vanilla Almond Butter at the end from the post

One of my favorite smoothies every is my Cashew Lemon Smoothie with turmeric . I drink it 3 times a week because I haven’t find another smoothie which is more delicious for me. You only need to soak the cashew nuts a day before and simple add banana, turmeric, dates and vanilla. It’s soooo good! But to be honest it is really hard to decide which one is better. This banana almond version or the cashew lemon version. I love both. In the past I added lots of superfoods to my smoothies. In the meantime I don’t do that because I’m not really sure if I need them. My option changed. I think we don’t need lots of superfoods to live more healthy. It is totally enough to use natural superfoods like kale, beetroot or linseeds. A few superfoods are still in my kitchen. One is maca. I still eat it because I like the taste not only it’s healthy.

 

Banana 

Some people ask me if I get full by drinking a smoothie. YES! Because I add some filling ingredients as well. If you like to get some ideas read my blog post: perfect smoothies.
I’m sure you find some ideas you didn’t know yet.

Thank you all for your nice feedback for my running Blog carnival “healthyfastfood4. I didn’t know so many people would be join so fast! It is still open until 30th September. If you want to participate it’s not difficult. Read more easy instructions here: Blog Carnival

If you using bananas in a smoothie it is really important to use ripe ones. My biggest tip for preparing smoothies is to freeze bananas in chunks. You have them ripe on hand in time. Perfect!

I bought coconut butter and use it in this smoothie. You can also use oil instead of the butter.
The butter is thicker and includes the flesh as well. It’s more like almond butter and it’s more creamy. Like a creamy puree.

Banana

A simple banana almond smoothie
 
Author:
Recipe type: smoothies
Ingredients
  • Recipe
  • Banana Almond Smoothie
  • Serve 1
  • 1 ripe frozen banana
  • 1 tbsp almond butter (or 3 tbsp raw almonds, soaked if possible)
  • 1 tsp coconut butter
  • ½ tsp ground vanilla
  • 250ml almond milk (or any other milk you prefer)
  • 2 tbsp rolled oats
Instructions
  1. Add all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
  2. Enjoy!

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Banana

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Favorites of the week

What is your favorite cookbook? Mine is “At home in the whole food kitchen” from the one and only Amy Chaplin

Have you seen Lynns “Plum Cake with Buckwheat & Spelt Dough”? I love love love the plum time!

Because I don’t made many chia breakfasts I highly recommend Melanie’s “Passionfruit Chia Smootie Cups

You could be interested in these posts as well

Learn how to create the perfect smoothies with „Make the perfect smoothie more filling

My absolutely favorite smoothie! With Lemon and cashew nuts and turmeric! Excellent superfood!

Kale is such a great natural superfood to add in a smoothie. This one is really sweet and tasty: Creamy Kale Detox Smoothie

Apple Pie Smoothie from @klaraslife

 

Who gets mouth watering by reading apple pie? You will love this smoothie for sure!

I’m totally happy today because I introduce you to a special girl I met on Instagram. I love to share my passion of food and blogging with others who feel exactly the same. It is really special to learn all this blogging and photography stuff and it is really helpful to talk to each other and learn. Klara is a person living in Germany with her dog and her chickens (aww I love them!). She is a quiet and balanced young woman who shares her passion of food in her blog and Instagram account. I adore her recipes and love every single one. It’s a dream from us to visit a food photography course together sometime. It is a bit difficult because we live far away from each other. I’m so happy to publish an interview as well as one of my favorite smoothies from her. Her apple pie smoothie. This creamy filling smoothie is a base in my weekly breakfast routine. It is easy to prepare, super healthy and tasty so good. Thank you Klara!


Interview with Klara

What’s your Name?

My name is Kathrin Salzwedel.

Where are you living?

I live in a small town near to the beautiful university town of Tübingen.

Can you tell me something about you?

I love to be in nature, preferably on horseback or while hiking in the mountains. I also go running regularly during the week. You can enjoy your workout and your head will be free.
On my blog Klaraslife I share my passion for healthy, simple and delicious dishes.

Wheat means healthy living for you?

Besides my passion for nature. I live a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Healthy living means to me, that you can hear what your body wants and needed. He knows very well what we needed.
If possible avoid stress and hectic to take time for themselves and learn to appreciate the little things in life. This has all to do with each other. I always like to eat a lot of vegetables, fruits, legumes, plant based or coconut yogurt or vegan cheese. Everything fresh and without additives. If I’m sweet tooth have, then I eat a piece chocolate or homemade cake.
And I´m happy. One should not put under pressure, it is „only“ eat 🙂

What is your favorite meal?

I’m a total breakfast lover. I prefer to get up earlier, than I start my day without my breakfast. My favorite food is overnight soaked oats and porridges in different versions; with fresh fruit, nut butter or with matcha or baobab powder. And smoothies like my Apple Pie Smoothie.

Recipe
Apple Pie Smoothie from Klara

Serve 1

200ml almond milk (or any other milk you prefer)
2 small apples (pelled)
5 tbsp rolled oats
2 tbsp hemp seed
1 tbsp almond butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preparation

  1. Place oats and the milk into your blender and let it soak for 30 minutes. The oats should be soften.
  2. Now add all ingredients into the blender. Blend until soft. If it too thick add more milk.

*NOTES: If you don´t have time in the morning, soak your oats overnight!

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Ohne Titel

Website: klaraslifeblog
Instagram: @klaraslife


You could be interested in these posts as well:

  1. Make the perfect smoothie more filling
  2. Spirulina Smoothie Bowl with green
  3. Blueberry Amaranth Smoothie
  4. My latest baby – walnut oat cream with baked banana – sooo good

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Juicing – more energy in everyday life

Juicing! What a mess when you try it out by yourself without a good juicer. Haha. Okay maybe I should have start with beetroot ;o). So I decided to buy a juicer. I was concerned with juicing the last two weeks and can’t be more happy with my learning effects. Since I drank fresh pressed carrot-celery juice on the Maldives this year I planned to buy me juicer as well. Half a year ago. After receiving my juicer 4 weeks ago I started directly with juicing and was totally excited with the result. Everybody who match a supermarket juice with a fresh pressed juice will never drank a supermarket juice again. Fresh pressed juice is so much fresher than bought one. And it contains much more vitamins and minerals like stored one.

Juicing and Detox? What’s the context?

Detox means to detoxify your body. To clear your body from toxins and other harmful substances. They are many different ways to detoxify. One way it to use your diary another way is to use cosmetics and help your skin to detoxify. Detox means also to avoid any harmful things like smoking or less sleep. I implement a few detoxifying components in my life. One example is drinking warm water the whole day long or sleep enough. For me it’s very important to feel good with all I’m doing. I need to have fun and I need to live the right balance between living “unhealthy” and “healthy”. I recognize a big wellbeing since I relax more often during the day. Meanwhile I even meditate and can’t live without. An no meditation has nothing to do with esoteric ;o). Maybe the following app is helpful for you: Mindapps

I write about two Detox opportunities in this post.

  1. Detox juicing

  2. Detox juice recipes

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1. Detox Juicing

Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables and fruits. Fresh pressed juices are an excellent easy way to support your immune system with vitamins and minerals. You can easily press a fresh and healthy juice with the right juicer. I tried out a slow juicer in the last weeks and I’m absolutely convinced. Does speed really matter? Yes it does. Slow juicers are slow because they need to use a pressing force to get the juice through the filter without creating too much heat and friction. With juicing you can vary your vegetables easily. Many people eat the same vegetable dishes every day.

1.1. Difference between smoothie and juices

My first questions was if fresh juices are better than smoothies and what’s the difference? It’s important to understand juices are not a replacer for smoothies. You can drink juices alone as a juice cleanse but most of the times you can drink fresh juices additional to your normal diet. Both have great health advantages. Smoothies and juices are pure nutrients in a jar. They give you an energy boost and taste amazing. To make fresh homemade juice you need a juice machine. Juice is the water and most of the nutrients that have been separated from the fibrous pulp. The body requires little effort to absorb nutrients in juice when fiber is removed. I try to drink my fresh pressed juice additional to my regularly diet to clean my bowels.

Juicing

1.2. The biggest benefit to drink juice

When you drink juice, highly concentrated vitamins rapidly enter the bloodstream absorbing all of the nutrition’s of the fruits and vegetables. Bottled juices from the supermarket are pasteurized. They are heated and processed, which can kill vitamins and minerals. Drink life with fresh pressed juice! You can simply add whatever you want in your juice. If you prefer it sweeter add more sweet fruits. If you prefer it more special add some wild herbs. You can combine many different vegetable, herbs and fruits.

1.3. Juicing techniques

I decided to use a “Slow Juicer”. I want to explain a little bit about exactly what a “slow juicer” is, for those of you who don’t know it. This technique is also called cold juicer. For beginner, you will have to cut your vegetable and fruits into smaller pieces and feed the pieces slowly enough to not overwhelm the machine. This can be a little more time-consuming, but I love it. For me it is a kind of meditation. I don’t want to hurry up while preparing my juice. I clock how time-investing it really is to make my own juices with my machine and I only need 15 minutes to cut my vegetables and fruits, to produce the juice and to clean the machine. To be honest, that isn’t much time.

1.4. My choice – Hurom Juicer

After my research I was sure I will use a Slow Squeeze Technology which functionality is similar to how you would hand-squeeze an orange instead of shredding fruits and vegetables. This technique minimizing damaging ingredients and keeping natural taste and nutrition intact. The Hurom Juicer isn’t the cheapest juicer in the market but for my it is important to have fun and a high quality machine to make sure I will not damage nutrition. The Hurom Juicer rotates at just 45RPM, ensuring an even gentler process of squeezing the juice from your fruit and vegetables. What results is the purest of juices that preserves even more vitamins and the best possible taste. The model I use is really easy to clean. I didn’t expect it’s so simple.

I have this model: Hurom Juicer

2. Detox Recipes

Red cabbage pear juice

¼ small red cabbage
2 pears
1 piece fennel

Cut all vegetables and fruits in pieces and place them in your juicer.
Enjoy!

Apple fennel juice

2 sweet apples
½ fennel

Cut all vegetables and fruits in pieces and place them in your juicer.
Enjoy!

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Cooperation Partner

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Creamy coconut lentil curry with veggie meatballs

Veggie meatballs? My hubby asked me about the association between meat and vegan / vegetarian Food. He think it’s stupid to bring vegetarian or vegan food in connection with animals. I need to think about my opinion. Vegan or vegetarian food often get names like “Veggie Tuna”, “Veggie Chicken” or something like that. For me vegetarian food has nothing to do with meat. Sure, it sometimes tasty similar but never complete equal. The reason we vegetarians or vegans call our meals sometimes like this is to show people the big range of possibilities in the vegetarian and vegan kitchen. Sometimes the meals looks like a “meat meal” but it isn’t one. I really thought about the name of this new recipe and decided to use veggie meatballs because I’m sure lots of people who haven’t ate a lot of vegetarian or vegan food in the past will take notice of this recipe when they read “meat”. The people were raised by eating meat and some people have problems to change their diet. Names like this helps people to find a way to test new ways of cooking.

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Thank you by the way

Lots of people leave a comment on my last Blog Post about „How to grow your Instagram Following„. I hope people who didn’t use Instagram aren’t upset I talked about this topic as well. For me Instagram is a big part of my life and I want to share my experiences with all these lovely people who supports me at any time. I had the feeling to give something back. So this food blog is more than food and sharing recipes. This blog is a place where I share my experiences about my food journey and Instagram is a big part of this.

I definitely will write down a second blog post about the details of my (food) Instagram growing. Lots of you asked my about the details as well. These details are more about the food Instagram in a special niche. But I’m sure the most of my follower are food lover as well. Not a surprise right. Haha.

About the recipe and veggie meatballs

Back to the recipe. This creamy coconut centil curry with veggie meatballs was a spontaneous creation from me because I need to use my leftover I have at home when I was hungry. I always stock some lentils in my kitchen as well as coconut milk or cream. So it was easy to prepare a coconut lentil curry with some spices. It is such a fast and healthy meal. As you maybe know I’m still experimenting with tofu in my kitchen. By the way you find the best tofu scramble on my friends blog. In this way I also have some different kinds of tofu in my fridge. Herbs in the garden are a standard base as well. I got the preparation tip for these aromatic veggie meatballs from a good friend and decided to try them out as well. Really good stuff ;o).

This meal is full vegan and really healthy because of the high quality fatty acids from the coconut milk. Lentils are such a big source of protein. They are quick and easy to prepare when compared to other dried beans and you can stock them always in the kitchen for a long time to have them on hand when you need them.

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RECIPE
CREAMY COCONUT LENTIL CURRY WITH VEGGIE MEATBALLS

Serve 4

For the veggie meatballs

400g Tofu (natural one)
200g breadcrumbs (I use whole grain)
1 red onion
1 bunch of fresh parsley
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp Italian herbs (dried)
2 tsp salt
Black Pepper
Coconut Oil

Preparation
veggie meatballs

  1. Pick up the parsley leaves
  2. Roughly cut the onion and the tofu
  3. Mix all ingredients in a blender or with a immersion blender
  4. Form 12-15 small balls
  5. Heat coconut oil in a pan
  6. Fry the balls over medium heat for 2-3 min each side
  7. Set aside

For the creamy lentil curry

800g canned tomatoes (I use cocktail tomatoes)
400ml coconut milk
120g red lentils
100g cherry tomatoes
2 tsp grated ginger
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 bunch chopped cilantro
2 garlic gloves
2 tsp salt
Black Pepper

20160813 Vegan Meat Balls (1 von 1)

Preparation

  1. Press garlic and fry in coconut oil over high heat
  2. Rinse lentils
  3. Add canned tomatoes, grated ginger, turmeric and cayenne pepper
  4. Bring it to boil and cook for 5 min.
  5. Add red lentils and 700ml of water
  6. Reduce heat and let simmer for 35 min.
  7. Chop the cilantro (save a few leaved for decoration)
  8. Once the lentils are soft, add the cherry tomatoes and coconut milk
  9. Simmer for 2 min.
  10. Add chopped cilantro (save a few leaved for decoration)
  11. Taste with salt and pepper
  12. Serve with veggie meat ball
  13. Enjoy

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Walnut Oat Cream with baked Banana

Walnut, Cashew Nut, Oats – mix whatever you want! Welcome simply Breakfast Creams! I already published one of my favorite nut creams, my base Cashew Cream. After eating it for a long time I wanted to try another version of a nut or grain cream. So I decided to mix some of my favorite breakfast ingredients and await the result eagerly.

Walnut, Oat and baked Banana!

What a mouthwatering combination. I love to smell the flavor of the baked banana when I fry them in the morning. It’s only a few minutes of work and the result is so amazing. As you already read in one of my previous posts “Dietary Change” it’s one of the best decision to start with changing little things in your life to change your diet. Start with your breakfast! Prepare this walnut oat cream in advance to have a healthy and tasty breakfast for 3 days. You only need to fry the bananas in time because they are not that flavorful when they are cold. Instead of baked bananas you can use any other fresh fruits like apples or simply unbaked banana.

Walnut Oat Porridge with Baked Banana nab (3)

Have you heard about the disadvantages of phytic acids?

Phytic acid has a strong binding affinity to important minerals. Soaking nuts or grains is really healthy because oats contains phytic acids. You need to soak the nuts or grains to break it. For more information read this article: Phytic acid

You can also add a pinch of apple vinegar to make the oats more digestible.

Oats are one of the best breakfast ingredients to make you feel full for longer. They are also one of the grains with the highest protein volume.
And they taste very good and are really versatile. You can soak them, cook them or simply add them cold to your muesli.

Vanilla Almond Butter for everything

By the way: I love to top EVERYTHING with my home-made Vanilla Almond Butter. I always stock a jar of it in my house to have it on hand when I need something sweet. Topping your nut cream or your baked banana with this nut butter brings you to another level of taste! I never know it until I tried it out. You find the simple recipe here: Vanilla Almond Butter

So guys, as promised on Instagram here is the recipes for this walnut oat cream you asked for 😉

Walnut Oat Cream with baked Banana

Serve 4

Cream

100g Walnuts
100g Oats
4-5 Dates
1 Tsp ground vanilla
1 cinnamon stick (or ½ tsp)
200 ml water

To Serve

4 ripe bananas
Coconut oil for frying
Vanilla Almond Butter for topping

Preparation

  1. Soak all ingredients for the cream in 200-300ml water and store in the fridge overnight
  2. Mix the cream in the morning
  3. Fry the banana over medium heat in coconut oil
  4. Serve with baked Banana and Vanilla Almond Butter

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Walnut Oat Porridge with Baked Banana nab (1)

Muesli and Granola as a simply, fast and healthy breakfast version

Muesli is one of the best healthy Breakfast ideas ever! As you maybe read in one of my previous posts about „Dietary Change for a better wellbeing“. I publsihed the tip to make your own muesli to avoid unhealthy additives. I’m sure not everybody loves to spend a lot of time in the kitchen especially in the morning. As a result of this I like to inform more about muesli and granola as a simply, fast and healthy breakfast version.

A few years ago I started to buy my ready muesli in the supermarket. I don’t know that is wasn’t that healthy I thought. All the hidden unhealthy additives like industrial sugar or sweetened dried fruits wasn’t clearly evident for me. Especially sugar is used in thousands of supposed healthy products you can’t clearly realize by reading the ingredients. There are some titles you can recognize sugar. For example glucose or sucrose. If you like to learn more read this article: Refined Sugar – The Sweetest poison of All…

Muesli is definitely a perfect base to have a healthy breakfast. As I can see in my food community muesli is used really often as a base. Mixed up with everything you like it’s totally flexible. Muesli makes full for longer because of the cereals and roughage.

I prefer walnuts and sunflower seeds in my muesli while my husband loves coconut chips and apple. He use the 3,8% organic dairy milk and I use plant based milk like hemp milk or my self-made walnut milk. I only use natural sweetener for my muesli like dates, apples, bananas or sometimes honey. The best is to top your muesli with a good and crunchy granola like my Coconut Granola with dried flowers

Granola – What is that?

Granola is a little bit different to muesli because it is baked until the ingredients form crunchy clusters. Granola contains dried fruits, healthy oils and liquid sweetener. It is only used for topping mueslis or smoothies. It is really difficult to find high quality granola in the store. I only found this one which is really good. Sure it is a bit expensive but high qualified as well: Lizis Granola.

Beside my Coconut Granola I love this Crispy Granola version from my friend  Heike @tastyasheck. As agreed with Heike I’m so happy to publish it here on my Blog. Heike is one of my absolutely favorite inspirations. She takes care of a fair food use and her Food Photography is always colorful and makes me smiling. You can see more from her work here:  Heike @tastyasheck

Thank you so much Heike for this stunning recipe!

1-Heike (2) 1-Heike (1)

RECIPE
CRISPY GRANOLA from Heike @tastyasheck

Ingredients

1 cup quinoaflakes
1 cup glutenfree oats
1 cup buckwheat (sprouted if you like)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pumpkinseeds
2 ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup coconut oil @royalgreen2008
2 tbsp nutbutter or coconutbutter or tahini
3/4 cup coconut flakes

Optional
dried berries like green raisins, mulberries, gojiberries or cacao nibs

1-Muesli and Granola (1)

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven on 170°C/335°F
  2. Line a baking tray with 2 baking sheet, overlapping the tray on every side.
  3. Mash the bananas until soft
  4. Add the melted oil, vanilla powder plus the melted butter (melt over a water bath) and mix well
  5. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients except coconut chips and dried fruits
  6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and incorporate with a spatula
  7. Press evenly on the baking tray
  8. After 10 min. remove from the oven and flip over
  9. Place back in the oven for another 10min
  10.  Repeat as before and place back for 5 -10 min depending you oven, before it starts to smell fragrant
  11. Remove and add the coconut chips and toast for another 5min
  12.  Remove and let cool down completely
  13. optional: add 1/2 cup of dried berries/cacao nibs and store in a airtight container for up 2 weeks or in the freezer for up to 2 months (no need to defrost before…)

1-Muesli and Granola (3)

Here you find my personal tips for making a good muesli:

• 1/3 Cereals and Nuts
• 1/3 fresh fruits
• 1/3 Yoghurt, Dairy Milk or plant-based Milk
• Dried fruits like dates as a natural sweetener
• Crunchy ingredients like Granola
• Soft ingredients like fruits
• Use a happy and nice bowl you like to serve
• Cut the fruits in bite-size
• Try out and write down your favorite combination
• Mix your muesli in advance to reduce stress

Have Fun and enjoy!

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Healthy Beetroot Sandwich with smoked Tofu

Who don’t love to eat a sandwich? I never made lots of sandwiches in the past because I don’t know how to prepare them. But life is learning right? So I tried out my own Sandwich Version and it worked well as you can see in the picture. Really proud. Haha. I love to combine different colors and ingredients. Soft ones, crunchy ones, warm and cold ones.

Who didn’t get mouthwatering by starring at a sandwich like this? I searched for an alternative for hot summer days. Normally I enjoy salads like this one from my friend Tracy: Broccolie Slaw. But sometimes I need another idea instead of eating salad all day long. Burger are also a classic and nice summer meal idea. For example my Mr. and Mrs. Chickpea Burger.

Tofu on a Sandwich

I love to use Tofu in my kitchen since a few months. I already learned that preparing tofu right isn’t a wonder and its really tasty when you know how to prepare it. You can use the smokes tofu cold or fry it to get a crunchy mode and a warm flavor. Take care of GOOD QUALIFIED TOFU. There is a big difference between the brands.

Vegan or Vegetarian

If you don’t want a vegan Sandwich you can simply switch the vegan mayonnaise in a vegetarian one. Or add some cheese. I was totally overwhelmed about the taste of vegan mayonnaise. Have you ever tried vegan mayonnaise? It don’t taste really different to normal mayonnaise.

This Sandwich is made with a light flavored red beet hummus which is made within seconds. I got this really nice inspiration from my friend Niki (www.rebelrecipes.com). You find the original recipe here: Beet Root Hummus. Because I have a garlic allergy I made my own one without garlic. Beet Root is a natural superfood which your body will love. Beets are full of potassium, magnesium, fiber, phosphorus and iron. Beets are also particularly beneficial to women whom are pregnant, as the vitamin B and iron are very beneficial to new growth cells during pregnancy and replenishing iron in the woman’s body.

Grated carrots and Red Cabbage is such a crisp benefit for this Sandwich. It’s the perfect balance between softness, crunchiness and the smoked flavor from the tofu.
I love to prepare the ingredients for this Sandwich in advance and make it IN TIME when I need it. You can store the ingredients up to 3-4 days in the fridge. Perfect for days you don’t have many time to cook. And you can eat the Sandwich whenever you want. It’s the perfect start in the morning as well as a great lunch or dinner.

Bread

The right Bread is really important for a Sandwich. Therefore I use a wheat whole grain bread which is fluffy and healthy as well. Don’t use a Bread which is too strong. Use one which is light and fluffy. One which have less seeds or nuts.

 

Healthy Beetroot Sandwich with smoked Tofu
 
Author:
Recipe type: sandwich
Ingredients
  • 2 Slices of soft bread (I use wheat whole grain)
  • 4 Slices smoked tofu
  • 2-3 tbsp vegan mayonnaise
  • 1 carrot, grated
  • red cabbage, grated
  • basilicum
  • Red Beet Hummus
  • 2 red beets (I used cooked ones)
  • 4 tbsp walnuts, raosted
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 tbsp tahini
Instructions
  1. Mix up all ingredients to make the red beet hummus. Season with salt and pepper.
  2. Fry the smoked tofu slices over high heat for a few minutes until crispy
  3. Spread one half of the bread with red beet hummus
  4. Add smoked tofu and spread the vegan mayonnaise on top
  5. Final add the grated carrot and red cabbage. Sprinkle with some Basilica leaves if you like
  6. Top with the other half of the bread
  7. Enjoy.
  8. It’s a mess but it really worth it :o).

 

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