1st Vlog! Green Superfood Smoothie with Kale & Pear

Super excited to show you my first Vlog ever!!! 😆🤗😛

I’ve been thinking about it countless time and never done one but this weekend, without any preparation, I just thought I give it a shot and this is the result.. so please have mercy with me hehe..

Hope you like it!!! It was actually really fun making it 😍
Look forward to hearing your feedback!!

Love,
N xxx

If I sparked your interest about Holistic Health Coaching I’d love to hear from you so we can talk! Drop me a line on nadisunshine@me.com to arrange a free 50min Health History Consultation either in person or via Skype/ Facetime/ on the phone ❤

If you are interested in our upcoming Mindful Birth workshop in Malta on 24 June 2017 please check out our Mindful Mum Facebook page for further info.

 

6 months nostalgia & some cosy Curried Cauliflower Soup

Thumbs up for our first 6 months with our little sunshine

Oups, this month I’m a little late for my monthly new mummy recap… sorry! But hey – it’s only a week since our little sunshine has turned 6 months, and now that I’m sitting down reflecting I can only say: what an exciting first half year it has been. With quite a lot of changes lately… Our nights which were usually quite chilled out (Zoe only woke up once for a quick feed, if even) turned into very interrupted sleep, Zoe was sick for the first time, we therefore called off our holiday, I got sick myself and looked after a sick baby for the first time (all natural with homeopathic remedies and lots of TLC) and just recently she’s sitting in highchair and – I can’t believe that I’m writing this: we finally started her with solids! Ohhhh how hilarious her face expressions were to look at!!!

The day has come! Our little mouse is starting with home made baby food ❤

Isn’t it crazy that something simple like eating can turn into such a big deal? For the last few weeks I kept postponing and postponing it.. I read the later you start (with 6 months at the latest though), the less prone they are to allergies later on and of course this turned out to be my favorite excuse. The truth: even though I’m really into food I also didn’t WANT to start with it earlier! My little baby girl, eating? No more breastfeeding wherever and whenever we need to? How impractical! I must confess, I got very very VERY attached to nursing my sweet little mouse. The idea of introducing her to solids made me somehow realise that it’s only one of the many first steps into her independence. Was I ready for it? Was I ready to put her out of her little cosy babybay into her big cot? Was I ready to introduce her to our now stroller and not only carry her around in our beloved babycarrier? Am I ready to move her into her own room? The list goes on and on and I want to shout out a big loud NO, but the reality is that our sweet little babies, as much as we love them as they are, grow. Every month, every week, sometimes every day something changes and there is nothing which will stop them. It’s the beauty of watching a new life grow and as soon as we get to used to one phase, you can only be sure that the next new phase is just around the corner. Well, life is constant change, and it only makes us grow. Never a dull moment with a baby!! 😀

Lately, as winter has finally arrived in Malta, too, I’m really into soups again for dinner. My friend J and I try to keep up our healthy mummy cooking Mondays and soups turned out to be the big star. You can eat them all week and if you’re lucky enough to have some leftovers they are great to freeze and use them when you don’t feel like cooking on another night. Together with some freshly toasted brown bread (I love home baked  bread e.g. rye bread which we’ll make soon on another Monday or this gluten-free bread from one of my favorite blogs My New Roots ) and a nice bowl of greens it makes the perfect comforting weekday dinner. Even better with a glass of red wine and a bit of yummy chocolate on the sofa later on of course! (Did anyone say staying home every night is dull?? Well I can’t agree so far LOL!)

So easy, yummy and healthy!

Curried Cauliflower Soup

As you know I mostly post about my healthy cooking adventures on my nadisunshine FB page and Instagram several times a week (check it out for inspiration if you aren’t following me yet 🙂 ). The soup star of the month was definitely my curried cauliflower soup and I promised to post the recipe here on the blog, so here you go!

It’s super easy, very tasty and the ingredients are sooo good for you. Cauliflower, just like its siblings broccoli, turnip greens, cabbage and kale, is a cruciferous veggie with tons of health benefits. It’s boasting with vitamin C (amongst many other vitamins and minerals) and is known for it’s anti-inflammatory, cancer fighting, heart boosting benefits and is great for digestion. It’s available locally and on top of that very inexpensive. Paired with curry, turmeric and ginger which are all well known for being great for the immune system (more info here and here as well as my recipe for a Flu Fighter Turmeric Drink which I posted in the past) this soup is not only yummy but an absolute boost for your body and health.

What you need

• 1 cauliflower, washed and chopped 
• 1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 3 garlic cloves,peeled and chopped
• 1/2-1 thumb sized of ginger, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin powder
• ca. 1l of vegetable stock
• 1 cup of dairy free milk or alternatively 1 potato to make it creamy
• High quality salt (I use Himalayan or local sea salt) and fresh pepper (if you want it a bit spicy take a fresh chili alternatively)

To garnish

• Make a tray of oven roasted cauliflower by simply roasting another head of chopped cauliflower with coconut oil, curry, turmeric and salt for about 30-40min on 180°C. (This is also a great topping for a salad or a filling for a wrap or sandwich.)
• Alternatively keep it easy and simply use some fresh coriander

What to do

Heat up the oil in a pot and fry chopped onion, garlic and ginger on medium heat. Add the chopped cauliflower and dust with the spices. Now cover with stock and let it cook gently until it’s soft (20-30min). If you decided to make the soup creamier with a potato also add it with the cauliflower. If you decide for the dairy free milk add it rather towards the end of the cooking time.
Purée the soup  with your hand blender. You can either make it very smooth or keep it a bit chunky which is nice, too. Careful when you blend the soup, the yellow of the curry/tumeric makes bad stains ;). Finish with salt and pepper to your taste. If you opted for chili, add it with the other spices in the very beginning.

Serve with some roasted cauliflower or simply freshly chopped coriander on top, some nice brown bread and a big bowl of greens! Bon appetite 🙂

Until next time have a good month and don’t forget to follow me on my FB and Instagram lovely readers! I’m curious myself what new baby adventures I’ll have to blog about 😉

Big love ❤
N xx

 

Winter warming Chai & Chia smoothie

Do you also love smoothies? Throughout the spring, summer and autumn a delicious smoothie with fresh local fruit or vegetables pimped up with some super foods are part of my daily life, ideally for bfast. This unfortunately changes drastically when the temperatures get colder.. Yes, also here in Malta it can get extremely uncomfortable, chilly and cold. (Don’t ask for details or I won’t stop talking about how much I miss my Austrian central and underfloor heating – ahhh!)

Anyways, as soon as it gets colder my smoothie love changes into tea addiction and somehow it was obvious that a warm smoothie with my favorite tea had to be created. The result was a Chai Chia Smoothie which gets his special kick by adding warming spices such as fresh ginger, cinnamon and cardamom but also energizing substance through Chia seeds and almond butter. So it’s warming, comforting and is a real energy boost at the same time! But try it for yourself …

What you need…
(Ingredients for 2 smoothies)

1 hot cup of your favorite chai tea ( I like Chai Vanilla or Chai Red Bush)
1 cup warm nut milk (almond, coconut or soy)
2 teaspoons of chia seeds (soaked over night in water or chia tea)
1 pinch of ground cinnamon
1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
1 ground cardamom capsule (Attention, the shell belongs to the bin 😉 alternatively use ground cardamom
2 teaspoons almond butter
1 tablespoon molasses sugar syrup (particularly high in iron, magnesium and folic acid), if you can’t get that use honey, agave or maple syrup
4 dates

What to do…
Blend all ingredients in the blender . Voila – here’s your first warm smoothie 🙂

Love,
N xx

P.S. I want to dedicate this recipe to my friends P and R from Vienna who were brave enough to quit their jobs and set up their own company for super foods in Germany, Austria and Italy. Guys – you rock and are an inspiration! If you want to check out their Facebook page (in German only) go and check out Green Panda – Superfoods with love. I wish you all the best of luck with it!!

Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy! Beet, carrot & ginger

Ok, good intentions are here to stay, so I’ll take my feedback seriously and try to post as much as I can. Today was a good day. Cause I stayed on track and it started really well. How? Easy! Start your day with an alkalizing, detoxifying juice!

This juice only needs some basic ingredients. Beets, carrots and ginger are peeled quickly, grab some of your greens in the fridge and off you go. Hint: I always wash all my greens and herbs immediately after I bought them and store them in airtight containers. That keeps them fresh longer and it’s super convenient just to take what you want out of your box ready to use it.

Btw: beets, carrots and ginger are all alkalizing, cleansing and encourage detoxing. Ginger is also used often to improve circulation (Hello fellow office workers!), antispasmodic (Don’t we need it all sometimes?) and anti-nauses which is great if you  are sensitive and go on a trip on a sailing boat (get yourself a flask of home-made ginger tea next time).

What you need…
(2 large glasses or 3 small ones)
Some beets (depending on size, I took 3), carrots (I took 2), half a thumb sized piece of ginger root, 2 handfulls of fresh coriander and mint (each) and NEVER forget a tiny splash of oil to get the vitamins and minerals out of the veg (I always take a bit of flax seed oil which is naturally rich in omega 3)

Optional: add your super foods of choice! I took maca powder & baobab powder (contains tons of antioxidants, including vitamin C)

What to do…
Juice the beets and carrots in your juicer. I’m quite okay with my cheap one but in the long run I’m sure it would be better to invest in a good one as you get more juice and less pulp. Then I add the juice to the greens, bit of oil and the super foods in my blender, add some water and mix it thoroughly.

By the way, I’m still looking for a nice way how to re-use the pulp, – ideas anyone???

Detox week 1. A first conclusion & a lovely new favourite salad.

Today a week ago I started with my detox. No sugars, no alcohol, no dairy, no white flower, no yeast and a 70% – 30% ratio of alkaline – acidic food to sum it up really briefly. In the beginning I felt quite lost. My favorite cooking methods like frying, baking with cheese – not allowed. So, it feels a bit like learning to cook a second time! After shopping all my new “basics” which means tons of grains, seeds, nuts and even more veg I felt well equipped and ready to explore new territories 😀

The first days were pretty awkward. The green smoothies in the morning were the easiest, you mix different greens with 1 apple and water, that’s it. If you like you can add cucumber, celery sticks and one day I tried to make my own almond milk out of soaked almonds and water. But the rest of the day turned out to be a bit more difficult. Lots of the stuff needs soaking so you have to plan ahead. No good for people who work from home like me and normally just go to the fridge when they get hungry! However, some of the grains came out nicely, some less (my amaranth with fresh spinach more looked like baby food) but I survived and felt tiny steps of improvement and broke myself more into the new way of cooking.

When it comes to recipes I only wanna share one thing with you this week, an amazing, super yummy salad and it’s totally alkaline and fits the diet perfectly. More photos of my experiments in the photo gallery below.

Super yummy salad with sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, fresh peas & a lemon tahini dressing

Ingredients (served 6):
Different lettuces, 3 sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, fresh peas (peeled), kale (cut in bite sized pieces without the stem), coconut oil, sea salt
For the dressing:  Mix fresh lemon juice, olive oil, tahini (I used the dark one), fresh ginger (finely chopped) and sea salt

Method:
Steam the veggies shortly so they still keep a crunch (apart from the sweet potatoes, they may be a bit soft), put coconut oil on top and sprinkle with seasalt when they are done and hot. Let them cool off. Prepare the plates with your lettuces and spread them nicely. Add the dressing. Arrange the steamed veg. Drizzle with some additional olive oil. Sprinkle if you like  – I used shelled hempseed and crushed whole hempseeds which are a vital source of fatty acids, fibre and protein.

Bon appetite!

(Thanks Mich, for the lovely inspiration, just LOVE the sweet potato – coconut oil combination <3)

P.S. If you are interested in seeing a list with alkaline – acidic foods, I am using the list on The PHMiracle website, developed by Dr. Young the kind of guru when it comes to the alkaline diet. Another website I really liked is Energiseforlife.com where a young guy called Ross takes it further with a bit of a younger, fresher approach.

are you ready to crumble? today: rhubarb & cardamom against ginger & vanilla.

Okay. We had the savory crumble experiment with cauliflower. Still, nothing tops a classic, sweet and soft crumble when we crave for comfort food. And as Napoleon Bonapartes once said “”The way to a man’s heart goes through his stomach” I would freely interprete to “yummy food just makes you feel better” 😀 As I really wanted to cheer up a friend in need, I knew there is only one way: fulfill his long desired wish for a rhubarb crumble. No sooner said than done!

I flicked through my mum’s little red recipe book where I collect all my family’s recipes and found the recipe of my aunts yummy crumble. She originally prepares it with apricots and plums, served with a fresh lemon mascarpone cream. But as my friend was specifically longing for rhubarb I adapted it a bit. After some brainstorming I decided to give the rhubarb a twist by adding some cardamom, some finely chopped up  fresh ginger, as well as natural vanilla essence (thanks mum for always having an open ear for you culinary cooking brainstormings on the phone ❤ ). Due to my friend’s dairy intolerance I went for soy vanilla pudding instead of the mascarpone cream.  Within short time this is what came out of it, – definitely won’t be the last time. Next time hopefully without a crisis but just for the pleasure of it 😀

CHEER ME UP RHUBARB CRUMBLE WITH GINGER, CARDAMOM AND VANILLA

Ingredients:
For the crumble: 200g of flower, 100g of sugar, 125g of butter (room temperature, cut in little pieces, some cinnamon, a tiny pinch of salt.
For the rhubarb: big bunch of rhubarb, a bit of water, a thumb sized piece of fresh ginger (finely chopped), a ground cardamom capsule, a tiny shot of natural vanilla essence, some agave sirup (depending on your taste of sweetness), a dash of lemon juice.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Mix all the crumble ingredients until everything blends and creates the crumble. For the rhubarb put all the ingredients in a small pot and let it simmer for like 5min. Pour of the juices with a sieve and keep the rhubarb which soaked up all the nice flavors. Put it in an ovenproof dish an top up with the crumble mix. Bake for approx. 30min and serve with soy vanilla pudding. YUUUUUUMMMMMMMM!!!