The most uncreative title ever

Hello my sweethearts!

To be honest, I did not plan to post today. Rather than that, I have a raw and really fancy cake recipe waiting to be posted. It’s a present for my mom, I made it today and tomorrow we’ll eat it. So I won’t post it before we all tried it and confirmed that it is blog-worthy. I’m so exited!! It has glacéed flowers on it!! Oh my god, I hope those will work out because they haven’t finished dehydrating yet.

However, I guess this should also be the post in which I tell you about my regular evening snack. Well, “regular” isn’t exactly right because it’s always different. In my mind -not in reality because I don’t want to be weird talking german-english all the time- -ok, I do that anyway- I call it Bliss Bowl. Usually it’s a bowl filled with 1-3 pieces fresh or frozen fruit (think an apple+frozen berries, or today: frozen raspberries, 4 slices mango, 1/3 large orange), dried fruit if I feel like it and a healthy fat. It must have the fat. Sometimes it will be one or two pieces of chocolate, a tablespoon of nut butter or whole nuts. Or all. Or a sauce made of nut butter and non-dairy milk.

I pay attention to the fats in it, because I really am an evening snacker and if I want to avoid late-night snack attacks, it’s necessary that I have eaten enough calories. My daily diet contains a whole lot of vegetables and fruit, some protein and not too many carbs (mainly because they make me feel heavy. I have them for breakfast and sometimes lunch, but rarely in the evening.), so sometimes I do not take in enough calories to fuel my active lifestyle. Then I tend to eat too much in the evening and feel like crap afterwards. Some weeks ago, I started eating those Bliss Bowls as a preventive measure of some kind. It works! If I realize that I haven’t eaten enough calories (although I try NOT to count them), I adjust the nut butter and dried fruit amounts to suit my caloric needs.

How do I love my Bliss Bowls! I’m sorry I don’t have a photo to post of one of them, but I may collect some and post them another time. Which is where we come back to the topic again: I didn’t plan to post today, but my bliss bowl today contained something that was SO DELICIOUS that I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.

Coconut Cashew Sauce! Amazed by how delicious the sauce was, I just had to create a super-simple truffle recipe from it. Boy, those are delicious.

Dear Germans and Italians, they are reminiscent of “Raffaelo”. Others, just take my word, those are gooooood. So good I had to snap a few quick photos and write a totally non-prepared post about them. Enough babbling for now, time for truffles!!

Coconut Cashew Bliss

-no-bake, vegan, low-carb, sugar-free, makes 5 truffles or so-

• 2 tbsp (17 g) coconut flour (I use partially de-oiled and can’t vouch for the truffles if you use completely de-oiled coconut flour. Maybe add more cashew butter if they turn out too dry?)
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp (26 g) roasted cashew butter (you can use more if you like or if you think the truffles are not silky enough)
• 1/16 tsp or less salt
• a pinch vanilla powder or extract
• 2 small dates (12 g)
• 3 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used rice-coconut which probably contributed to the yumminess of these truffles. Do NOT use a non-dairy milk that you don’t like. My second choice would be canned coconut milk.)
• only if needed: a pinch stevia, agave or another date

for rolling: 10 g flaked coconut

1. Blend together the truffle ingredients using a hand blender. Don’t blend in your finger. It really hurts. (Not that I ever did that or anything…. :/)
2. Roll into balls.
3. Roll in the flaked coconut.
4. Try not to eat it all up yourself.

I wish you all a wonderful Mother’s Day! Show your mom some love and make truffles for her .

Love, Lara

Green, green, green and mint green.

Hello my lovelies

I hope all of you feel great because I seriously do! My written exams are said and done. Over. No exams anymore. Ok, one oral exam, but until then I’ll still have a few weeks off. To be honest, I did not realize that those exams are over at all.I had expected to break down crying in relief or to bounce around squeakingly and smiling the whole day after my last exam, but none of that happened. Rather than that, I was absolutely paralyzed – but of the good kind. And now, I’m slowly starting to understand that my life is my own now. That nobody is going to judge me or to pigeonhole me because of my marks or anything else. Wohoo.

Let’s admit it, there will always be people who judge you for unfair reasons, but for now I prefer to stay in my glitterworld and stay there. I do not mean to be unworldly or unrealistic, but I believe that you always have a choice: To regard certain situations with grief and anger, or to take every day as an invitation to do your best, see the best in people and lead a life that contributes to the well-being of others. And even though it’s not hard to make the decision, it’s hard to put the latter into practice, at least sometimes. I’ll work on that.

Since I had such a lovely day (and breakfast!) yesterday, I thought I should at least report my absolute highlights. We live near the frontier of the Netherlands, so we took a day-trip to Maastricht to buy… peanuts . It’s not a joke, that small shop in Maastricht has the best peanuts I have ever eaten (don’t ask me why those peanuts -or should I rather say pindas- don’t make an appearance on their web page).

Strolling through, Maastricht, we passed by a window with gorgeous dresses. GORGEOUS, I tell you. I was looking for a prom dress since so long that I had almost given up on finding one that matches my criteria – vegan, fair trade or vintage. After we had eaten something, I convinced my mum to at least take a peek inside that nostalgic store and it was full of the most wonderful dresses I have ever seen. The oldest garment I have seen was from 1830. No that is no typo, it was from 1830!! The fantastic owner of the boutique, Kay Edwards collected dresses from the Victorian era , the Edwardian era and all the years that came after. The 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s with a focus on extraordinary, romantic lace dresses and wedding gowns. And in the middle of those dresses, I found four prom dresses from the 50s. Tea-length, one mint green, two light pink and one deeply red. I thought to myself, “What could be more sustainable than buying an heirloom dress?” and there you go.

The owner still has to do some adjustments and while she was pinning needles into the dress, we had time to chat. She was ravishingly dressed and clever and she said things like “I really like pink on brunettes, but you have to decide: The pink one is more Grace Kelly and the green one is more Audrey Hepburn, if that makes sense to you.” It did. I decided to take the green one and I am crazily looking forward to it.

Sorry for all that fashion chatter but I had to channel my excitement. For those of you who are also interested in vintage, here is some serious eye candy for you: G.O.S.H. Butik. You should definitely check this boutique out if you come to visit Maastricht one day. (I’m not sure whether I got that right, but I think she has a store in Cape Town and London, too?)

Now, on to food. My breakfast was so blissful although it didn’t look like that. It was a dream to photograph:

And it was a dream to eat. You know, sometimes you just really want a big bowl of carbs for breakfast but you don’t want to sabotage your diet or miss out on the vitamins of fresh food. This bowl is perfect for those days when all you really want is a bowl of chocolate oatmeal for breakfast. Don’t let the colour put you off, with cocoa powder swirled in you won’t be able to detect..

the SPINACH! In order to not destroy the nutrients and enzymes, I left the spinach raw but cooked the oatmeal beforehand. Sadly, I used too much milk for blending which is why my oatmeal looks so soupy, so I’d suggest to start with 3 tbsp milk and only add some more if necessary.

You might get the impression that this is a complicated bowl of oatmeal, but it comes together quickly, so don’t worry and have your carbs.

Green Chocolate Oatmeal

• 45 g rolled oats
• 260 g water
• 1/8 tsp salt
• sweetener of choice, to taste (I used four or five drops of stevia)*
• 3 tbsp vanilla flavoured milk of choice (homemade cashew milk used), more if needed
• 1 cup or so of spinach (30-35 g)
• 1 tbsp high quality cocoa or cacao (8 g)

Optional Toppings:

• 1 tbsp chopped hazelnuts, toasted if desired
• 1 tsp-1 tbsp maple syrup (I used a tsp)
• whatever tickles your fancy! Chocolate chips, coconut shreds, nutella, vanilla powder, nut butter etc.

Procedure

1. In a saucepan, bring oats, water and salt to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. Blend together the fresh spinach and milk of choice until it is reeeeally smooth. I used my Tribest.
3. When oatmeal is ready cooking, stir in your spinach and sweetener.
4. I let mine sit overnight, but you don’t have to do so. If you don’t want to let it sit overnight, cook until it reaches your desired consistency.
5. The next morning (or minute) swirl in your cocoa and toppings. Be sure to stir it in completely before eating.

Notes: You can probably also use a banana as a sweetener.

Again for the taste: If you eat the green oatmeal plain, you will be able to taste a tiny bit of spinach, but with the cocoa swirled in the spinach taste will be COMPLETELY gone. I recommend stirring the oatmeal until everything is fully incorporated before eating. The reason why I didn’t do this at first was because the green color looked so nice!

Link of the day: I thought this one was green: Zucchini Oatmeal.

Love, Lara.