Supereasy breakfast for 2

Morning!

Just wanted to share my super easy breakfast with you guys.

Since I always wake up VERY hungry I prefer to go for an easy and fast breakfast. Most of the times I have my lazy oats 😉 

Occasionally, I want something warm and cheesy and that is when I whip out the pan.

This healthy breakfast takes minutes to prep and cook.

First of all I chop a few cherry tomatoes and some sweet pepper and sometimes sweet chilli pepper for added spice. Quickly fry it in some olive oil, literally for 1 minute. 

Then add 3 eggs, don’t worry this is for 2 people! Wait about a minute or 2 and mix it.

Then sprinkle some cheese on top, and this is a real bad time to be greedy. Its breakfast, a few extra calories won’t hurt, so add extra cheese and enjoy the taste. I have used mature cheddar here.

Give it a minute to melt, fold the mixture over itself and voila! All ready to plate up.

Throw some crunchy salad leaves, sprinkle some virgin olive oil and balsamic, or whatever you feel like having and put the “lazy omelette” on top.

Add some pepper to taste, and if you like it salty add some salt or even more cheese! I’m always generous with cheese so there is never any need for extra salt.

Bon appetit! 

Substantial Salads

10 ideas on how to make your salad taste good

We all know salad are good for you, we all know we gotta eat it, yet why does nobody ever bother to make it taste good?

Why do people just throw some greens on your plate and call it salad?! 

Lets stop that! Now!

Who said salads have to be boring? Healthy doesn’t have to be boring, and neither does your salad! So use your imagination and improvise. Add some ingredients that will spice things up a bit. Or a lot!

1. Avocado

Feel like having more than the standard 5-a-day? Start adding some avocado to your salad. This nutritious vegetable is tasty, goes well with anything and always makes your salad taste good. Add a generous amount!

2. Lentils

I am a huge fan of lentils, but certainly not the only one. Lentils will add some bite to your salad and help keep you fuller for longer. They also contain iron that can be hard to find, but is so essential for your body. Lentils are still carbs, so don’t go crazy! Alternatively use quinoa, buckwheat or barley.

3. Cucumber

Why not add a bit of juicy crunch to your salad? Cucumber offers a just that and tastes very refreshing – all at no extra cost. That is – zero calories. (Some even call cucumbers a negative calorie food)

4. Sun dried tomatoes 

Tomatoes are delicious in all forms and I am sure most people with think of adding fresh tomatoes to their salad, but what about sun dried tomatoes? They are just so lovely in salads as well as other dishes and bring so much flavour with them. Try it!

5. Gherkins

This one might be an acquired taste, but if you are into salty vinagary things you will definitely enjoy it in your salad.

6. Cheese

Goat cheese, mozzarella, roqefort, Philadelphia cheese or any indeed any cheese that you like is guaranteed to make your salad tasty. Just mix it in with your dressing and you have yourself a perfect salad.

This is completely fool-proof.

7. Apple

If you feel like adding some sweetness to your salad why not go with juice red apple chunks? You can also try blueberry or rhubarb or indeed anything else you like. 

Good idea right?

8. Nuts or seeds

Nuts are a great way to transform a salad into a full meal. By adding just a few nuts you probably double the total calories. With that you add some omega-6 fatty acids and other nutrients as well as a hell of a lot of extra flavour. Great way to spice things up.

9. Dressing

Dressings can be tricky, but don’t get discouraged. The simplest way would be to mix some olive oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar and some lemon juice. If you don’t mind the smell, add tiny pieces of freshly cut onion or chives. If you don’t like olive oil try macadamia, almond or sunflower oil instead. At the end of the day it is just mixing 🙂

10. Grilled veggies 

Have a few pieces of roasted sweet peppers left over from last night? Maybe some grilled aubergine or courgette? Throw it right it!

There’s a few solid salad ideas you can use. Share your own ideas with everyone in the comments below!     

   

How I cut back on carbs

I am about to venture into an entirely different territory here – food. Food bloggers, don’t worry, I won’t be taking up your space at all. I will be talking about food as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Here goes the first of its kind – the Food post.

 

Ever since I first started wondering about which food is good and which is not, the question “what shall I eat” have never really left my mind.

 

 

As a teenager going through that sensitive stage between 13-16 years old the purpose of food was shifting from “just eat whatever to feel full” to “just eat whatever doesn’t make me fat”.

 

It was a really long pursuit with lots of trial and error, but eventually I figured out that sugar makes you fat. And soon after that the real culprit was out – carbs.

 

Overnight carbs became my sworn enemy.

I remember thinking “OK. So that’s easy, just minimise the carbs and life is perfect”.

Not. So. Fast.

The week that came after the day I started reading the labels on all the foods that I were eating became the most horrifying week ever. I won’t take the risk of sounding negative here, so I will just call it the “The Week of Enlightenment”. During this week all the skeletons were coming out the closet. And there was a huge number of them, far more than I realised. By the end I was so “enlightened” that I just wanted to curl up and die. Almost everything I ate was either super high or high in carbs. There was almost nothing left that fitted my new criteria of “low/no carb”.

 

What was I going to eat from now on?! 

Hoping for an easy way out, I decided to just give it all up. I thought if I give up everything all together it will be easier to grieve and survive this loss. I lasted till dinner time. At around 7 my blood sugar level was so low I had to eat something sweet and fast. I could not even think of anything else at all. It was all like FOOD FOOD FOOD SUGARRRRR. On repeat. So this strategy was never going to work.

 

 

My next strategy which proved slightly more successful was to burn off all the carbs that I eat doing exercises. I liked exercises and really didn’t mind doing more, I also liked carbs, so this strategy sounded like a win-win. To my dismay it really didn’t work. The reality was that to burn off all the calories I was consuming I had to exercise for 5-8 hours a day. I tried to google the most generous estimates of how many calories are burned during exercise and even then it still meant I had to exercise 5 hours a day.

I lasted 2 days.

 

 

After trying a wide variety of stupid strategies and feeling complete exhausted I finally took a first step on the road of low carb life – made a reasonable plan. The plan was very simple and looked something like this:

Super duper plan
To replace:	Replace with:
cereal (high sugar)	oat porridge with blueberries
sweet yogurt	natural yogurt with fresh banana chunks
chocolate bar	apple or orange
bowl of pasta	spinach salad with lentils and goat cheese
…	…

Schedule

Replace cereal by 7th of September

Replace sweet yogurt by 14th of September

…

I stuck to my guns on this one. And it worked.

 

Of course, I still eat some carbs. It is a small amount and it always comes “sugarcoated” in lots of fiber. I shall keep the details for a future post 🙂

 

 

In the mean time, if you want to cut out some carbs from your diet you can make a plan and get started.

 

Good luck!