Happy Breakfast Happy Weekend

Photo by This Rawsome Vegan Life

Photo by Mywholefoodlife.com

Another batch of incredibly simple, feel-good and yummy recipes for the weekend breakfast and travel snacks: minimum effort, maximum payoff. We found this Cinnamon Chia Pudding with Coconut and Blueberries on a very inspiring food blog This Rawsome Vegan Life, and these on-the-run Almond Joy Protein bars (we made them sans chocolate, and baked for 25 min instead of freezing) on MyWholeFoodLife. Happy weekend everybody!

Healthy Weekend Breakfast

Cutting out sugar and replacing the usual food with more balanced and nutritious meals, did seem like quite a challenge at first. Especially for someone used to de-compress with the help of baking after business-travel-packed weeks. Amazingly, there are tons of delicious, simple and healthy recipes, all we needed was to look around, buy the right ingredients and get busy in the kitchen. 

These beautiful blueberry-skyr-dates-almond-hazelnut-coconut cakes from Twin-food have just the right balance of protein, carbs and fat, and they are such a treat for the weekend brunch with your loved ones. For a lazy sunday, you can just mix some greek yoghurt or hytteost (a-la cottage cheese in Denmark) with fresh berries, nuts, sunflower and chia seeds: filling and yummy. If you are in a mood to bake something with almond flour, try these Rise & Shine Apple muffins or a wonderful Black & Blueberry Crumble from Green Kitchen Stories. Have a happy, healthy Sunday. 

Fibre and Protein Packed Almond Pancakes

Photo: Popsugar.com/Fitness

This morning we have tested a healthier alternative to our favourite weekend breakfast - pancakes. We ended up with perhaps not so pretty, yet delicious, fibre and protein packed, feel-good plump almond pancakes. The recipe is refreshingly easy, even for a beginner. Now, we just need to hone our pancake flipping skills. Have a great Sunday!

Shakshuka

Photo: Green Kitchen Stories

Have you ever heard of shakshuka? This deliciousness originated in North Africa, and it is essentially baked eggs, in a tomato-pepper-cumin-chili-kale-spinach (and so forth) sauce. It's easy and versatile, perfect for brunch, lunch or as a light dinner. We combined three slightly different recipes, adding feta cheese for extra oomph. Take your pick! 

1. Green Kitchen Stories: shakshuka on a budget

2. Smitten kitchen: shakshuka

3. New York Times recipes: shakshuka with feta

Homemade Paleo Bread

This absolutely awesome recipe comes from a cool blog My New Roots: healthy yet so yummy homemade food. This is probably the easiest, no-fuss bread recipe we have ever come across: no flour, no yeast, no mess. No wonder they called it Life Changing Loaf of Bread. Try it and let us know what you think. 

ps Happy Saturday

Z Rizdvom

Z Rizdvom! We are celebrating Ukrainian/Greek-Orthodox Christmas today. Schaslyvogo Rizdva ta smachnoi kuti!

Sunday Spaday

On the last sunday of our blissful 2+ week holidays, it's time to pamper ourselves a little with stay-at-home spa treatments: Bliss Softening Socks that make feet baby-smooth, Kate Somerville ExfoliKate gentle exfoliating treatment for the glowing complexion and Eve Lom Moisture Mask for the deep hydration. Now, we are all set and ready to take on the first work week this year.

Homemade Crunchy Granola

It is incredible that all these years we've been using store-bought granola: making our own, crunchy and healthy mix, took just about 35 min, including baking time, and the result is overwhelmingly positive. We checked the recipes on our favourite go-to blogs> Smitten Kitchen and Shutterbean, and adapted them a little, based on what we had, ingredients-wise, at home. Feel free to experiment with your own granola!

- 2 tablespoons of Lurpak salted butter

- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

- 1/2 cup chopped almonds

- 1/3 cup pumpkin seeds

- handful of raisins

- 1 tablespoon of honey

- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

- 1/4 cup choco-pops (or any other cereal you've got > for extra crunchiness)

Preheat the oven to 165C. Melt butter in a small saucepan on low heat, add nuts, honey, seeds. Increase the heat to medium and stir frequently for 5-7 min. Take off the stove, add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Spread the granola mix evenly on a large and shallow baking pan, using baking sheet. Place in the oven and check/stir every 10 min, to ensure it is not over-baked. Max baking time 25 min (we used around 21min). Store in an air-tight container in the freezer, to preserve the crunch. 

New Year Day

Happy New Year! What are you up to today? We are happily brunching: fresh pain au chocolate from Lagkagehuset, heavenly homemade hot chocolate and the good old favourite - ukrainian syrnyk (cheesecake). May 2015 be delicious, happy, healthy and fun!