Lovely lentil salad with a twist: Puy lentil salad with roasted beet root & curcuma cinnamon dressing.

You know what happens to me all the time? I make a lovely meal, let my love P. try it, culinary friends try it – everybody loves it, but when I don’t post it straight away then it’s almost too late and it disappears in the back of our head as a lovely memory and slowly fades away. Not with this one! Thanks to my friend U. who kept on reminding me. So let me dedicate this lovely lentil salad to you and your gorgeous wife and beautiful baby girl in return ❤

I made this salad when my friend was still patiently in hospital, waiting for the baby to come and on the day I pre celebrated my 34th birthday with my friends. Just out of curiosity I let my friend U. try it and he was as blown away as P. and me. It’s a surprising mix of flavors, especially due to the roasted beetroots and the gorgeous mix of spices in the dressing. But as usual this dish is not only yummy but also boasting of health benefits! The lentils are little folic acid warriors (yes, just as well as the Chickpea Crêpes my previous blog post) and the beetroots are not only great for boosting stamina and making muscles work harder, they also contain iron, magnesium, potassium, magnesium as well as vitamins A, B6 and C, and – again! – folic acid. So, let’s get started!

What you need….
(Recipe inspired and adapted from one of my favorite blogs MyNewRoots)

1 small pack of puy lentils, washed and cooked tender according to instructions
3-4 beetroots, washed & peeled
3 celery stalks
Best quality salt (I used Himalayan)
Coconut oil (for roasting the veg)
2-3 pinches of ground cumin and coriander
A handful of fresh cilantro

For the dressing:
Best quality olive oil
Apple cider vinegar
Dijon mustard
Spices: pinch of cinnamon, pinch of curcuma, tiny pinch of cayenne pepper
Raw Agave sirup
Salt

Optional: goat cheese, crumbled

What to do….
Start with roasting the the beetroots and celery stalks as this step takes the longest. Wash, chop in chunky pieces, spread on a tray, drizzle with coconut oil, salt and the spices and roast them in the oven for about 45min at 190°C.

In the meantime cook puy lentils according to instructions, just watch out that they keep a nice bite. Drain and let them cool off. Now mix the ingredients into a nice dressing. Start with small amounts and keep playing until the mix is perfect to your taste (some like it hotter, so add more cayenne and mustard, others sweeter and so on – trust your taste buds 🙂

As soon as the veg is ready, take it out of the oven and let it get cooled off. Chop up cilantro roughly  and finally mix everything together carefully so the lentils don’t get squashed. Also lovely when ingredients are still a bit warm!

For a non vegan version, this salad is also amazing with some crumbled goat cheese on top.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did and once again, tons of love and all the best to baby Sienna and to great friendship ❤
Your support means a lot to me…

N xxx

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Bananarama – orgasmic raw ice cream.

I’m deeply in love with ice cream. Me – never being a huge ice cream fan, but this raw banana ice cream is just ooooor-gaaa-smiiiic! The texture is fluffy, airy, it’s super creamy and sweet – somehow like a light mascarpone cream in a tiramisu (including tons of fat and sugar and maybe even egg white). But why bother doing a tiramisu or any other time consuming desert when you can have this amazing banana ice cream in 5min?! I promise, it is healthy but tastes absolutely sinful and yummy.

so easy, so yummy!

What you need…
(2 small or 1 big portion)

That’s actually funny as it’s only 1 ingredient: banana

Optional:

Cacao powder, cinnamon, cacao nibs
You can even do variations with other fruit like strawberry, nuts or nut butter etc etc. Start playing and get creative!

What to do:

Chop up a banana in slices whenever you have ripe bananas to be used. Freeze the slices and keep them for whenever you feel like ice cream. When you wanna do the ice cream, prepare you processor, chop another fresh banana in slices add the frozen banana and mix for 1-2min until all the chunks have disappeared. You will see as soon as you open the processor how amazingly smooth and creamy the result came out. Now share it in nice glasses and sprinkle with cacao, cinnamon and cacao nibs.
An alternative for the additional fresh banana is adding some coconut milk (or other nut free milk of your choice.

For the chocolate version (in the meantime my absolute favorite!!!)

Add 2 tablespoons of raw cacao powder to the banana slices and sprinkle with cacao nibs when served. Diviiiiiiine and can be an emergency helper when feeling down or you need a cheer up after a bad day 😉

the perfect comfort on a bad day 😉

Enjoy immediately after and many many more times to come!

Love,
xxN

P.S. Once again what my friend Michelle says is true…. EASY IS RIGHT ❤

Energy buzzer – Banana cinnamon nut milk with chia seeds & vanilla

Awwww don’t we all know that huuuuuuge low, coming up at the end of your working day?! Well, instead of just slouching on the sofa and getting stuck there for the rest of the night, how about a super yummy, and mind you – also healthy! – energy buzzer which came up my mind this afternoon.

What you need & what to do…

As usual – easy is right for me. And I promise you – it didn’t take me more than 5min to reach an immediate state of pure bliss. The cherry on the cake: it contains no sugar or sweetener, no dairy, only simple and good things for you like banana (a natural powerhouse of essential nutrients like potassium, magnesium, dietary fibre and B vitamins), almond milk (alkalizing and containing lots of calcium, magnesium, zinc, folic acid and vitamins C & E), 2 of my dear super foods chia seeds and maca powder, organic vanilla,  and cinnamon which is has so many benefits that you should read them here. Just throw everything in your blender and – oh yay! – ready we are…..

Maca cinnamon vanilla coffee with almond milk

Don’t you also love your coffee crazily? It somehow reminds me of the old days when I still used to smoke.. it’s more like a kind of ritual, when you need a break, when you’ve accomplished something or treat yourself with something special- that’s my coffee to me… But coffee has a bad reputation sometimes, and I’d like to share with you that’s it not really like that if you consider some little changes.

When I did my detox a couple of months ago I was not only surprised, but more than delighted to learn that I don’t have to skip my coffee at all, rather than just use good quality beans (ideally organic, never instant, but that’s a NO NO for me anyways…), skip the sugar and use other kinds of milk instead of cowmilk. I tried everything from coconut milk, to hazelnut and almond milk (be sure you get a good one, not just one which claims to be and only contains almond aroma a lot of sugar) and chose the latter as my favourite due to yummy flavour and it’s frothing lovely.

As soon as I started to look out of my “usual kind of coffee box” I also started experimenting with adding healthy and delicious flavours to it like maca powder (which is a natural superfood with great health benefits), cinnamon (also a spice with lots of potential health benefits) and pure vanilla.

This version is one of my favourite.. it’s cold, mixed in my smoothie maker and a delicious, yet healthy treat!

What you need…
(serves 2)

• cooled 200ml of espresso (I love to make mine in my oldfashioned Italian espresso maker machine)
• 200ml of organic almond milk (see recommendations above)
• 1 teaspoon of maca powder, cinnamon and vanilla essence (pure) each
• some ice cubes

What to do…

Put coffee, almond milk and some ice cubes in your blender. Mix for 30sec on max until the icecubes are disappeared. Add the maca powder and vanilla essence and mix a bit more until it’s nice and frothy. Put in glasses and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Enjoy on a Sunday morning, a late afternoon after work or whenever you need it!

feeling cold? have a warm breakfast :)

nowadays when it’s cold, windy or even rainy (snowy at home!) outside i love to make myself a warm breakfast. as the english love their plain porridge which is just oats with hot water i rather prefer the versions inspired by traditional chinese medicine which works with the 5 elements (wood fire earth metal water). a warm breakfast not only gives you a cosy feeling when you eat it, with it’s roasted ingredients and spices it heats you up from the inside out and keeps you feeling warmer for the whole day! i made this every day last week during our yoga retreat and some of us got quite hooked on it 😉

what you need (serves 2)
any kind of flakes (oat flakes, spelt flakes, i love it with rice flakes!)
2 pieces of fresh fruit e.g. pear, apple, plums..
nuts e.g. chashew nuts, sunflower/pumpkin seeds…
a handful of dried fruit e.g. prunes, apricots, cranberries, goji berries….
milk (i prefer soy milk, but you can also do it with normal milk or almond/coconut milk)
cinnamon
shredded coconut
honey

what to do..
cut up the fruit in little pieces, not too small so they don’t disappear later on 😉 and roast them on medium heat in a medium sized pot. add the flakes, nuts and dried fruit roast a bit longer. then add the milk. let it cook a bit. after some minutes add the cinnamon and coconut. finalise with honey depending on your taste of sweetness.

Hmmmm… enjoy 😀

P.S. Only 3 more days and my cooking will be published in the next issue of GOURMET TODAY!! so excited!! will post the recipes and photos of the magazine as soon as it’s out ;-)))))