Morning Rain

Estes pequenos-almoços são do melhor para combater a preguiça, mau tempo e a ZERO vontade de trabalhar! Meia papaia, tiram os caroços, e uma grande parte do interior, recheiam com iogurte, banana, kiwi, tâmaras, chia e aveia! Não duvidem, fica mesmo bom :-). Não se esqueçam de comer o que tiraram da papaia! :P 

Tenham um bom dia! 

Love,

C

Say, Good Morning, Saturday!!

[Português & English] Vegan

[Português]

1 Diospiro

1/2 Limão

2 Maçãs

Água

Bons dias! Chuva e vento não são nada bons, contudo existem sempre formas de melhorar o dia. Pensem em coisas bonitas, façam o que gostam (nem que seja só 5 minutos por dia) e comam comida saborosa!!

Aproveitem o fim-de-semana para fazerem exercício, relaxar, ver um filme que já andavam para ver à algum tempo, passear no campo ou na praia!! 

Bom Dia Alegria!

[Português] Vegan



Bom dia, bom dia! Como estão todos? Com dias feios como os que têm estado por aqui não dá muita vontade de sair da cama e ir trabalhar, certo? Bem... Já sabem o que penso em relação a isso, e acho que temos que começar o dia, com muita energia e vitamina. 

Apostem forte no vosso pequeno-almoço, o vosso corpo vai agradecer!

Ora bem... Já conhecem o Tahine?? Basicamente é uma pasta feita de sementes de sésamo (gergelim), que foi previamente tostado e moído. É parecido em sabor à manteiga de amendoim, mas não tão doce! Podem usar para barrar no pão (torrado fica melhor!), usar em molhos, enfim de várias maneiras. É uma excelente opção à manteiga vegetal ou aos doces pois é muito rico em proteína, cálcio, ferro, fibras e também em ácidos gordos insaturados (sim, os que nos fazem bem!). 

Portanto experimentem esta espécie de creme de barrar que também podem fazer em casa, e é facílimo! 
Para fazerem o Tahine ou Tahini, só precisam de umas boas sementes de sésamo! :)

Primeiro têm de espalhá-las por um tabuleiro e levarem ao forno (previamente aquecido). Deixem cozinhar entre 8 a 10 minutos até começarem a deitar um bom cheirinho, contudo não as queremos queimadas, nem mais escuras que o normal!! Retirem-nas do forno, deixem arrefecer e coloquem-nas na trituradora que vão usar. Adicionem um óleo vegetal à vossa escolha e triturem tudo, adicionem mais óleo vegetal caso  acham necessário. Quando a pasta tiver uma consistência fácil de barrar, está pronta! :) Espero que gostem e se deliciem com isto! Experimentem adicionar um ou outro ingrediente para ficar ao vosso gosto!

Esta manhã, eu própria usei e abusei do belo Tahini nas minhas torradas, acompanhadas por chá preto quentinho e meia manga!

Mais logo, veremos o que se faz para o almoço! 

Love,

Catarina XOXO 

Do you now what I got for Christmas? Fat, I got Fat!

During and after the holidays is very complicated to keep up with the good habits. Sweets, salty food, left-overs, and all the treats around you seem to make it impossible, and then there's the new year's eve a few days after, oh, what a shame! It's still not an excuse to eat junk all the time, try to have some meal that does you good. Eating a healthy breakfast (as I've talked about a few days ago), is a great way to do it. Fill your body with vitamins and water to cleanse. Eat light meals but rich in vegetables and fruit that will help you gain your weight back! I can't say I did it these last days, but I sure ate less at dinner and forced myself to eat a lot of fruit. 

Check out my morning treat and what I had for lunch! Always add a soup if you don't want to eat greens, or they don't fit in the recipe. I had spinach cream before the Tofu and Pickles.

Morning Breakfast

Soy yogurt (strawberry)

Vegan chocolate cake

1 Apple

Black Tea

Tofu&Pickels

This is based on a Portuguese recipe called "Carne de Porco à Alentejana", which is basically pork meat with ground pepper and pickles or clams, it's very tasty, salty, and delicious. I had this idea to try it with seitan or tofu, this time I had tofu, so here it is:

Tofu

Pickles

Garlic

Onions

White Wine

Ground Pepper

Salt

Olive Oil

I seasoned the tofu with garlic and the ground pepper for a little bit to enhance the flavor. Heated the olive oil, added the onions and everything else. Add the wine in the end. Serve with white rice and pour the sauce on top of it.

Warning: Breakfast Time

Warning: Breakfast Time!


Hi! I started to think, that since my mother language is Portuguese, why not make my posts in both languages? So, I’ll start with it today!

The importance of breakfast is commonly invisible to the eyes and mind of most people.

Ignoring the fact that our “machine” woke up and needs “fuel” to carry on the day, it’s bad and unhealthy.

The ideal is to wake up earlier 10 to 15 minutes and make it calmly and with consciousness.
Because, if you don’t do it – eat your breakfast – your body will start to look for the energy stored in your muscles, so you can do whatever you’re doing (no, you won’t burn fat, but muscle!).

Avoid staying more than an hour without eating. There are no excuses that you can come up with, for not eating your breakfast in the morning, and no “diet” is a fan of that happening; so, always have stored in your kitchen yogurts, cereals, fruit, toast, whole grain bread, tea, and other healthy and tasty options to start your day!

If you’re not used to it, it’s still not an apology, it’s more than proven that after 3 weeks of maintaining the morning-breakfast-routine, your body will get in the routine and ask for food every morning.

If you’re not used to eating a lot in the beginning, don’t worry, work through it and just add some ingredients from time to time to make a completely healthy breakfast.

What do you need to eat?
Whole grain. Protein. Fibers. Calcium. Vitamins.

Whole Grain
Your best choice for carbs in the morning, it’s filled with minerals, fibers and vitamins. They are very rich in vitamin B such as thiamine, riboflavin and niacin which provide us a lot of energy. Where can you find it? Oat meal, granola, whole grain bread, etc…

Protein
Proteins are going to give you the momentary satiety and also keep you full for the next few hours. Soy/almond/oat milk, vegetarian yogurts, cheese, eggs, are great options to consume protein.

Fiber
Paramount for digestion, women should ingest 25g a day and men 38g, including the soluble and insoluble fibers. These can be found in fruit, oats, and vegetables. Make a clever option with this one, you have a wide variety in the market!

Calcium
More than known our need of calcium for the bones, it can be found in a lot of vegetables and fruits, unfortunately we haven’t been used to eat veggies in the morning, so I advise you to go and get it from cheese of milk (soy milks are enriched with calcium most of the times). Of course if you like it, go ahead and start you morning with a green leafy shake!!

Vitamins
They are a lot, so we must pay attention to what we eat. Eat season fruit which is usually tastier and cheaper!


I hope that soon I can make a post about all the nutrients our body needs, including the quantities needed daily and where we can find them!

Give your best to your breakfest, please. And share it!

See you next time,

Catarina xoxo

Squid your way out!

Complicated situations sometimes ask for gentle and unnoticable escapes, so why not "squid" your way out of it? :)

Today I woke up inspired to cook: great!

For breakfast, and to wake up the neighboors, I made a fresh fruit juice including 2 clementines (without the peel), half a lemon (with the peel), 1 persimmon and a little bit of ginger. Added some water and blended it all together.  It was delicious and you could feel the lemon taste with a slight hint of the ginger, just enough and nice to me. I ate a soy yogurt from the brand Soygurt (which I buy at the local supermarket: LIDL) with muesli, linseed and a few cereals that taste like honey (Golden Grahams). I was all very good, and of course the best way to wake up, is to get the best fuel to start the day, so never forget your breakfast: the MOST importante meal of the day!

After work, walked the dog, and didn't feel like doing much for lunch, so I boiled some cheese tortellini, spinach, and joined it with 1 can of tuna fish, grated mozzarella cheese, oregano6black pepper and some ketchup. It was actually very good, if you don't like cooked spinach, try brocolli, it's also very good. It placed ketchup instead of real tomato sauce, because I didn't have much time to cook, of course if you have the time, fry some onions and garlic with tomato sauce, join the tuna and the rest of it, and it will be even more delicious! 

Work ended, and I felt like doing something I had in mind since the Christmas spirit hit me, do some decorations with a few nature gifts my dad gave me. Here's how it turned out: (I'm actually very glad how it turned out, and I love it!)

I'm decorating my rented house for Christmas the very first time, I never had the opportunity because I always spent the holidays in my parents house, but now with work occupying all of my time, I really needed to come home and have this lovely decorations all around me.

And then, came dinner... I had an idea for a while, that involved stuffed squids, so here are my spicy stuffed squids:

Spicy Stuffed Squids avec Broccoli & Carrots

4 Squids

A little bit of soy chourizo

5 Garlic cloves

Half an onion

Olive oil

1 Tomato

Coriander

White Wine

Toothpicks (to close the content)

4 Broccoli heads

1 Carrot

Vinegar

Salt

Black pepper

Dad's spicy sauce

First I blended the filling: tomato, garlics, salt and chourizo all together with a little bit of olive oil. Cleaned the squids really well, specially their insides, removing all the guts and bones (they have a really thin bone). Stuffed the squids with the filling, closed them. Boiled some water and added the brocolli and the carrot.

Heated in a big pan, olive oil & a vegetable oil (called Vaqueiro Líquida), added the onions, coriander (dried), white wine, black pepper, and the spicy sauce, wait until it cooks a little bit, add some water and the squids. Turn them over 3 times, and wait till it's done.

Season the broccoli and carrots with olive oil and vinegar, cut half a bread and place the squids & sauce over it. 

Wait till your mouth starts salivating, and eat. It is very good!

I had a lot of fun doing this, and of course, my dog was very bored by all the time I spent cooking, so now I'll just go and give her some snuggles before we go to bed. 

Good night everyone.

Love,

Catarina