Pumpkin-avocado salad

It's salad time! Since I'm having 1 vegan meal a day these days (to give my liver a rest..) and those meals need to be paleo as well, however without adding too many nuts, that can be a hassle sometimes. I usually end up having avocado + veggies or a vegetable curry (with coconut!). There's less room for variation, after all, I have to exclude animal protein, yet it also means a new and fun challenge to prepare a good meal despite the restrictions.

A salad is a good options when it comes to a meal like this, and it usually is the easiest one too. A salad however, should be a little filling, so I came up with the idea for this avocado and pumpkin salad.

Pumpkin-avocado salad (serves 2)

Ingredients:
- 1 medium pumpkin
- 2 avocado's
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- zest of 1 lemon
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 2 tbsp fresh cilantro

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line a baking tray with aluminium foil.
2. Rinse the pumpkin, pat it dry and put it on the baking tray. Bake for 1 hour until done. Allow to cool to room temperature.
3. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Put one half in your fridge to use in another meal.
4. Dice the remaining pumpkin half and put it in a bowl, it's ok to leave the skin on, it's edible.
5. Cut the avocado's in half, discard the pits and dice the flesh. Add to the pumpkin in the bowl.
6. Top the vegetables with the cinnamon, lemon juice and -zest and olive oil and mix carefully.
7. Divide the salad over 2 plates and garnish with the pumpkin seeds and cilantro. Serve and enjoy!

Cinnamon Carrot Slaw

Hopefully no one is getting tired of my salad recipes yet, because I've got yet another one!
I can't help it, but I just love using coconut cream as a base for dressings..


I'm so glad it's almost weekend again.. My last weekend in the Netherlands before heading to the USA! Because of some festivities in my city, 80% of the hospital will be closed tomorrow afternoon, so I only need to work 4 hours tomorrow. That's not so bad.
I finally finished planning my holiday, and am now busy making a 'what to pack' list, which is almost finished as well. Although I think some stuff will pop up in my head over the next few days.
I practiced some double unders again yesterday, with a different rope this time. I did almost 30! The rope you use definitely makes a huge difference. I now have 2 days of rest, because this weekend is going to be very intense, workout-wise.
Saturday: CrossFit WOD at CrossFit Twente
Sunday: SealFit WOD at Breda Strength & Conditioning
Especially that second WOD is going to be really, really (really) hard.. We'll see what happens!


Cinnamon Carrot Slaw (serves 2)
- 3 medium winter carrots, shredded
- 3/4 cup coconut cream
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts


1. In a small bowl, combine coconut cream, lemon juice, cinnamon and cilantro and mix well.
2. In another bowl, combine shredded carrots, raisins and walnuts.
3. Stir in the dressing until well-combined. Serve and enjoy!

Homemade olive basil tapenade

Just a quick post today.. Yesterday I've been busy planning my trip to the USA almost all afternoon and evening and it's not going as I want it to. I have way too many things I want to see, and too little time to do so. What a shame..
So now I've been thinking what places I should let go for now and what I want to see most of all. (which is pretty much everything I planned, but that's not going to work) I didn't even sleep that well because of it!
Anyway, I went for a run this morning (I woke up early..) which went just great and made me realise I've still got plenty of time to figure all of this out.
Maybe I should skip Colorado? I really don't want to though..

Anyway, I made some olive and basil tapenade this weekend. My first attempt on something like this. For serving, I chopped up a large tomato and a yellow pepper, but a generous amount (approx. 2 tbsp) of tapenade on top and mixed well. Along with some grilled salmon, it made a nice dinner.

Chicken curry salad with poached egg

It's 'Queen's Day' in the Netherlands today. (and no, that's not a day dedicated to the band Queen, which would have been nice by the way) It's a day filled with festivities, and one of those is that it's my mom's birthday today!!
Happy Birthday mom!!

I'm going to visit her this afternoon and will spend the rest of the weekend over there as well.
This morning I did my very first 20-Minute AMRAP workout: 5 pushups, 10 body weight squats, 5 burpees and 10 situps. I came to a total of 14 rounds, 5 pushups and 10 squats. And I was soo tired! I even had to lie down for a while, but it didn't take too long to recover.
Of course I needed a good recovery meal, filled with lots of protein. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to have my poached egg. The yolk was still nice and runny and I totally loved it!
I also had a cooked chicken breast in my fridge, which I shredded and made a salad out of it with some celery, carrot and a nice curry dressing with fresh coriander leaves. I hand-picked my coriander from my very own herb garden in my kitchen! (which somehow made it taste even better)

Chicken salad with lemon coriander dressing

Here's the fist dish I made with the roast chicken I had leftover from Easter. Last week in NYC I had a really nice chicken salad at Whole Foods Market (of course..) and wanted to create my own version. This worked out really well!
I figured I should make some mayonnaise for the dressing, but I had just finished the last bit of lemon juice I had left so that wasn't going to work. I did have some whole lemons, but I was going to use those for another dish. So I figured I might as well use some coconut cream and lemon zest to create my dressing, and along with some fresh coriander leaves it turned out to be delicious. And easy too!
I'm also not a huge celery fan, not at all to be honest, but I loved it this way. Somehow the dressing and the raisins didn't make it taste bitter at all and I even ate the celery leaves just like that to see what they would taste like. I liked those too.
The recipe serves just 1 person, but you can easily double it to serve more. If you'd add this salad to a foodprocessor and process it until a little smoother it would be nice to serve on crackers too.

Happy Easter! And some recipes.

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're all enjoying this day!
When it comes to Easter food, I made myself a couple of nice meals, not too different from what I normally eat, but I put a little more effort in it than usual.
Yesterday afternoon I suddenly had a craving for Asian food, I think the warm weather caused that. As you might now, spicy food makes people able to cool down a little. (sounds unlogical, but it makes sense when you think about it) So I ended up going to the Asian supermarket and stocked up on some good curry paste. I bought Patak's Vindaloo Paste (which is generally very hot) and some Mae Ploy Thai Yellow Curry Paste along with some Thai coriander, baby bok choy and a huge bag of dessicated coconut. So I can start cooking spicy as soon as I feel like it. Somehow shopping at the Asian supermarket always feels like a small holiday to me, I love everything about it!

Tomato salad with sausages

Ever since coming back from New York, I've been craving salads. In fact, all of my meals so far have had some raw veggies in them.
This morning I tried to make myself some fish cakes with mackerel, but they fell apart as soon as I tried to flip them. They tasted really good though, so I'm going to have another try over the Easter weekend.
Tonight I made myself a quick dinner out of some cooked sausages I had leftover. I combined them with some tomatoes, and my very own home-grown basil! And turned it into a salad which tasted really good.
I also started working out again. Yesterday was my first one and tonight I went again, since the gym's closed tomorrow. Went really well! Tomorrow I'm going to make an attempt on running again. I'm a little worried my knee might hurt, because I kind of hurt it with all the walking I did last week. It's still a little sensitive with certain movements, but the only way to find out if I can run, is by running, so that's what I'm going to do.
My jetlag doesn't seem too bad by the way! Just a little tired in the morning and slightly fitter in the evenings than usual.

Carrot salad with coconut sesame chicken

Had a brand new workout schedule today. Fun!
I mostly trained my arms and core, so my legs got spared a little. That was a good thing, because last thursday's squats with 40kg (instead of 35) were slightly too hard on my knees. Not that they hurt, but the muscles around them are still a bit sore and I don't want to force anything. (I mean, I need my knees and I especially don't want to see them getting injured)
Last thursday's training was fun though! A circuit built up out of 7 exercises, I started doing 15 reps of each exercise, then 14, then 13 etc, all the way down to 1. Nice :)
Finally made me able to get rid of some stress that had built up in my head.

Yesterday I made a long list of stuff I need to pack into either my suitcase or my hand luggage next week, and bought the last few items I didn't already have. I also got myself some US Dollars so I'll be able to do quite the amount shopping during the first few days.

This morning I made a different version of last night's sesame chicken by adding dessicated coconut and cinnamon. Combined with a simple salad made out of thinly grated carrot it made a tasty breakfast.

Smoked salmon zucchini salad

These days I don't seem to be able to listen to some of my favourite songs from back in high school too often. There's Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182, Goo Goo Dolls, System of a Down, Weezer, KoRn, Metallica, and many many more. I especially can't get enough of this song: Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag.
I loved that song!! And still do, I have to admit..
I must have driven my parents very close to crazy during high school. Not that my taste in music has changed that much, the volume just went way up!

I'm about to go and get myself some US Dollars now, but I just had to share today's lunch with you all; smoked salmon zucchini salad.
This morning I found some smoked salmon at the supermarket (I was daydreaming in front of the fish section until this caught my eye) and decided to combine it with the zucchini I still had at home. Really good!

Roasted pepper salad

I've been pretty lazy last week.. Only went to the gym once, and didn't really feel like doing a lot of cooking. I blame it on the exam I had last Thursday and this was my way of dealing with the stress. Not exactly the best way to so (especially since it included eating a lot of nuts, dried fruits and there might have been some potato crisps too) but 2 days later, I realised I feel much better when eating clean Paleo and going for regular workouts. And that's exactly what I'm going to do! I'm thinking about going for a run today and I might cycle to the market as well. Not sure yet..

Today I still had some peppers in my fridge and thought it would be nice to roast them in my oven. It's been such a long time since I had those, and the ones I had came out of a jar so I never really had the real deal. They're soo good! And my home smells really nice because of the roasting too.

Purslane and chicken meatball salad

Yesterday they had purslane again at the market, something my mom used to make for me only a few times a year. I always liked it and wondered what kind of dishes I could make with it. Basically, you can do the same with it as spinach.
After some more research, I found out that purslane is considered a weed in the USA (according to wikipedia..) and that it's mostly consumed in Europe. It's really healthy though, contains a lot of omega 3 fatty acids, and besides that it also tastes good!
Today, I made a fresh salad with it, even though it's still freezing outside these days, the small amount of sunshine we get makes me feel like Spring's already arriving. And during Spring, a salad makes a wonderful dish.

Asian mackerel and cabbage salad

Today I found some wonderful organic, smoked pepper mackerel fillet at my local supermarket. It wasn't all that expensive (about the same price as canned mackerel) and it had been a while since I had good mackerel, so I figured I should make a nice dish with it today.
I came up with an Asian salad, which I just had for lunch, and loved it. I'm sure it'll keep me full all afternoon.

Layered lunch salad

Eating Paleo at work might be a bigger challenge to people who are new to this diet. After all, it's so easy to grab a sandwich for lunch. But when you're eating Paleo, making yourself a sandwich isn't the obvious choice anymore. Of course you could bake your own bread, out of almond paste and almond flour (Elana has some wonderful almond loaf or cracker recipes), it's expensive however, and eating too many nuts in a day isn't that good for you either. (nuts are healthy and very tasty, don't get me wrong, but you want to add them to meals, not make a meal out of them)
For lunch, I usually make myself a salad or take some cold leftovers from last night's dinner with me. Today I made this colourful salad and thought it might be a good idea to share my lunch with everyone.
The salad took me less than 10 minutes to prepare and I always take some snacks with me too; usually an apple and today I also had a 'protein bar' made out of nuts, seeds and dried fruits (dairy- and grain free). Delicious, and this gets me through the day pretty well!

Layered lunch salad (serves 1)
- 1 chicory
- 2 cm thick piece of red cabbage
- 1 winter carrot
- handful trail mix (nuts, seeds and dried fruits)
- 1 small can of grilled mackerel, drained
- 1 tbsp extra vierge olive oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice (lemon works fine too)
- 1 tbsp dried herbs of your choice (coriander leaves, parsley, etc)

1. Cut chicory in quarters, discard the hard inner part, and chop the leaves. Put in a plastic container with lid or lunch box.
2. Chop red cabbage and winter carrot. Add to container.
3. Add dried herbs, trail mix and mackerel.
4. Combine olive oil and lime juice in a small bowl and sprinkle over the salad.
5. Cool until lunchtime, give the container a good shake until everything's combined (or just mix it with a fork, shaking might make you look a little weird) and enjoy!

Kohlrabi and mackerel salad

After my last experiments with kohlrabi, I decided to keep it simple this time. I made a salad.
When visiting my parents last week, my mom had bought me some grilled mackerel in oil; my all-time favourite fish. It's a bit expensive, so I hardly ever buy it. But last week we had made those samosa's, so there wasn't any room for the mackerel and my mom made me take it home with me.
I'd been saving it 'for the right time' in my fridge, and apparently that time is when there's not much more left in my fridge than mackerel and kohlrabi. They do, however, make a perfect combination.

Kohlrabi and mackerel salad (serves 1)
- 1 large kohlrabi, peeled and grated into julienne strips
- 100g of grilled mackerel fillet, drained
- small handful of raisins
- 1 tsp extra vierge olive oil
- 1 tsp coconut milk
- 1/2 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp agave syrup
- 1/2 tsp powdered mustard seeds
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Put kohlrabi on a large plate. Pull mackerel into smaller pieces with a fork and add to kohlrabi. Add raisins.
2. In a small bowl, mix oil, coconut milk, lemon juice, agave, mustard and pepper until well combined.
3. Pour dressing over the salad and mix well. Top with coriander and sesame seeds, and serve cold.
Enjoy!

Note: in my picture, there's no fresh coriander. I used the dried version, which was good, but fresh is always much better.

Warm beet salad with apple and walnuts

Going out to dinner yesterday was fun; had a nice time and great food. The food was very high quality and delicious.
As an appetizer I ordered the deer carpaccio, served with a little salad, pine nuts, egg and berry sauce. I had never eaten carpaccio before, because I thought I wouldn't be into raw meat, but I really liked it. The meat was really tender and soft, and the berry sauce combined wonderfully with it.
My main course was the grilled trout, with some sea salt. I still had to remove the bones and such, which I normally don't like at all; I always end up having small fish bones in my mouth.. The fish tasted really good and in the end it wasn't that much effort at all to make it 'edible'. It was served with a salad, chicory with ham and fried potatoe chips. Because of my diet, they gave me seperate servings of these, instead of larger ones everyone could take from. I loved that, because that way I had more veggies than the others. In the end I still think we got way too little veggies, unfortunately that's the case with most restaurants in the Netherlands these days.
For dessert, they weren't able to make me anything else than a fruit salad. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but when I crave dessert I don't feel like eating fruit. Chocolate is more to my taste, especially on the rare occassions I go out to dinner. So I just ordered some tea, which was served with some dark chocolates, lucky me!

Today I decided to use the beets I got from my aunt last week. I've always liked beets, but it had been a while since I ate them, and I'd never cooked with them myself. I ended up making a warm salad out of it; warm because I wanted to eat it right away. I think it would taste good when cooled too, which I'm going to try with my leftover portion. I served it with some pan fried yellow fin sole fillets, one of my favourite kinds of fish.

Warm beet salad with apple and walnuts (serves 2)
- 4 medium sized beets
- 1 sweet apple
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin seeds
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- handful of chopped walnuts
- 1 tsp coconut oil

1. Chop the tops and bottoms off the beets, peel them with a vegetable peeler and grate them into julienne strips.
2. Wash the apple, remove the core and chop into small pieces.
3. Heat the coconut oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the beets and apple for about 3 minutes.
4. Add cinnamon, ginger and cumin, and stir-fry for another 3 minutes. Then add lemon juice, stir-fry another minute or so, until the beets are nice and soft.
5. Serve with walnuts on top, and with meat or fish of your choice.

This would also make a wonderful side dish to serve during Christmas dinner. Either warm or cold.