Spicy honey roasted sweet potatoes (recipe)

Hi everyone! In my last post I showed you how I made some delicious Paleo friendly beef burgers with portobello mushrooms. Today I will give you my recipe for the spicy oven roasted sweet potatoes I served as a side dish with the burgers.

Ingredients: Peeled and diced sweet potato(es), olive oil, honey, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, cinnamon

Instructions: Preheat your oven at 190°C. • Spread the potatoes evenly on a baking sheet. • Drizzle some olive oil over them, and do the same with the honey. • Season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. • Bake in the oven for about 25 mins or until done.

And enjoy! Easy breezy, huh?!

Lobi,

Paleo beef burger (recipe)

Hi everyone! Yesterday I decided to try out my own Paleo recipe for a change. I always change up recipes to my own liking, so I figured why not try to whip up something of my own? For some unknown reason I decided to stock up on some portobello mushrooms last week, despite not knowing how to prepare them.

I had a few options; either chop them up (but that would defeat the purpose of their size), stuff them, or use them as a whole. Seen as I already stuffed paprika's for my last post, I decided to go for the latter. I am not a vegetarian, so I did not want to use them as burger patties. Thus, I went for Paleo burgers with portobello buns and oven roasted sweet potatoes!

Ingredients (serves 2): 4 portobello mushrooms, 300 grams of (organic) ground beef, 1 small onion (chopped), 3 cloves of garlic (crushed and minced), a few small mushrooms for stuffing, olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, any toppings you like (I used sliced cucumber, tomato, bacon, and grûyere cheese)  Disclaimer: The cheese is obviously not Paleo, so you can skip that if you want!

Instructions: Preheat your oven at 230°C. • Wipe or rinse your portobello's and remove the stems. • Chop the stems and chop your small mushrooms, and mix together. • Prepare your ground beef in a bowl by adding the onion, the garlic, and lastly the mushrooms. • Season well and set aside. • Rub your portobello's with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, before placing them upside down on a baking sheet. • Bake them in the oven for 10 mins. • Warm up a pan with some butter to medium heat. • Form two patties by rolling the meat into two balls and pressing them in the middle to create a burger shape. Make sure the patties are a bit thicker on the outside than in the middle. • Fry your patties to your liking and flip them a few times to cook them evenly without burning. I fried them for 5-6 mins total on each side. • Take the burger of the stove and let them rest for a bit while you prepare the portobello "buns". • Start stacking your tower of burger with you favorite toppings.

And enjoy!

Lobi,

p.s. In my next post I will show you how to oven roast your sweet potatoes!

Bell peppers with stuffing (recipe)

Hi everyone! To switch it up, I have a dinner recipe for you today. I found the basic recipe on my "Paleo recipes" I-Phone app, where the dish is called "stuffed capsicums". The dish was very simple to make, and its ingredients widely available, so those were major +'s for me! If I had to cook it again, however, I would definitely change a few things.

Of course I never follow a recipe completely (for instance I decided to switch the order of some steps around here), but this time I unfortunately held back in adding extra ingredients or seasoning. I am so used to cooking with stock cubes for extra flavoring, but I wanted to keep the dish as Paleo as possible. I did switch in the regular mushrooms on the ingredients list for chestnut mushrooms.

According to the recipe, one needs 500 grams of ground beef and 4 large paprika's. I could have definitely stuffed at least 6 for all the stuffing I made. Or have used less ground beef! So I would personally advice you to buy 4 large paprika's and maybe 2 smaller ones just in case. I would also add more veggies aside from the mushrooms, for more flavor and more color! And lastly, I would not cook the stuffing until done, because this tends to dry out the meat, seen as it still has to bake in the oven for about 20 mins.

Ingredients: 4 large paprika's (I prefer the orange, red, and yellow over the green) topped and emptied, 300-500 grams of ground beef, 4 large chestnut mushrooms (cut in small pieces), 1 large onion (cut in pieces), 6 cloves of garlic (crushed and minced), 2 sliced large chilies, salt, pepper, and which ever spices you prefer to season your beef with (e.g. cayenne pepper, paprika powder), olive oil

Instructions: Preheat your oven at 180°C. • Fry your chilies until fragrant. Then add the onions until slightly brown. Lastly, add your garlic. • Add your meat and after stirring a bit, add the mushrooms (and whichever veggies you prefer too). • Add seasoning to your taste (my tip is to use a lot of seasoning, otherwise your meat will taste a bit bland). You can also season the beef before adding it to the onions. • Stuff your paprika's with the meat mixture. • Bake in the oven for about 15-25 mins.

Enjoy!

Lobi,

p.s. I think I might try to marinate the extra veggies for the stuffing before cooking, or even the whole paprika's! Maybe a fajita marinade? I will keep you posted!

Fashion week food (review Raïnaraï)

Hi everyone! Today I present to you one heck of an overdue post! Last July I visited the Amsterdam Mercedes Benz Fashion Week to attend a show by Ilja Visser and the 2014 Lichting show. In between the shows I had a wonderful light dinner at a restaurant that was very popular among the fashionistas present. The restaurant, Raïnaraï, is nomadic and serves Algerian cuisine.

We picked the mezze menu that consists of different types of meat, fish, and vegetarian entrées. To be honest, I cannot remember for the life of me what kind of protein we were served, but I am guessing it was turkey! The fish (sardines) was unfortunately not my cup of tea, because I get the chills from tiny backbones and eating fish bones. The feta dish was obviously not a favorite either, even though I made sure to ask whether any of the dishes consisted of dairy, and the answer was no.

The food was spiced sufficiently and tasted very healthy and fresh. Unfortunately these dishes could not satisfy my appetite. For this menu, each got a plate of the couscous with asparagus, and all other dishes had to be shared. I honestly find this a bit wasteful in terms of money (€25 without drinks). But if you have a smaller stomach than I do, are looking for a nice organic restaurant, and want to spot fashion people, I would definitely recommend you to visit!

www.rainarai.nl

Lobi,


Restaurant Raïnaraï at the Westergasfabriek

Stuffed bacon roses (recipe)

Hi everyone! I am back with another easy (and healthy) breakfast recipe. The other day I made bacon muffin roses, or at least that is what I like to call them, stuffed with broccoli, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes. I found the basic recipe on my "Paleo plate" I-phone app, where they are called breakfast muffins. As always I pimped the recipe to my own liking, adding some extra veggies!

Ingredients (makes 4): 2 eggs, 8 strips of bacon, 3 cherry tomatoes, 2 mushrooms, some broccoli florets, coconut oil for greasing, salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: Preheat your oven at 180°C. • Grease your muffin tin, and start making "cups" with the bacon (2 strips per rose). • Whisk your eggs and season. • Pour an equal amount of eggs in each cup. • Add the veggies. • Bake for about 20 mins.

Enjoy!

Lobi,

Tuna egg muffins (recipe)

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely weekend :) The other day I whipped up a very quick and easy breakfast I want to share with you. I got the basic recipe for egg muffins with sausage from my "Paleo recepten" I-phone app, but like I usually do I improvised a bit because I did not have all the ingredients at home. I hope you enjoy reading!

Ingredients: 6 eggs, 2 diced tomatoes, 1 small onion, 1/2 can of tuna on water, 1 tsp coconut oil, salt, pepper, chili powder

Instructions: Preheat your oven at 200 °C. • Heat the coconut oil in a small frying pan. • Cut your onion in small pieces and add to your pan with hot oil. • After lightly browning the onions, add the tomatoes, season to taste, and stir. • Lastly, add your tuna and stir the mixture for a few minutes. • Whisk your eggs and season with a bit of salt and pepper (not too much, because you already seasoned the mixture). • Add about 1,5 tbsp of the mixture in each space of your muffin tin. • Add the eggs on top. • Bake for 20 mins until the muffins have browned a bit on top.

Enjoy!

Lobi,

(Coconut) brownie cupcakes (recipe)

Hi everyone! Last night I decided to bake some brownie cupcakes to celebrate the kickoff of my new blog! This was my second attempt in baking "healthy" chocolate cakes without any dairy or (regular) sugar. My first time was based on a recipe that included ripe bananas, honey, and raw cacao powder, but unfortunately they came out tasting like fluffy banana bread with a slight taste of chocolate. I have to admit that the recipe was for chocolate donuts, but seen as I did not have a doughnut pan I decided to use paper cupcake molds.

The recipe I was inspired by for these cakes, was for flat chocolate brownies with a coconut swirl. Unfortunately, once again, I did not have the proper baking utensils available, so I improvised using a muffin tin. I also decided to skip the coconut swirl—the first batch did not come out as nice as I hoped for, because there was hardly any room in the tin to make the "swirls"—and add unsweetened shredded coconut instead.

I got the basic recipe from Oerkracht.nl and tweaked it a bit as usual. The brownies came out moist, fluffy, and fudgy and the same time, with a delicious sweet chocolate taste and a very slight taste of coconut. Of course, you can also leave out the coconut if you are not a fan!

Ingredients: 120 grams of palm sugar, 3 eggs, 100 grams of almond flour, 20 grams of raw cacao powder, 1/4th tsp baking soda, pinch of salt, 120 grams of coconut oil, 100 grams of pure chocolate (≥ 70% ), unsweetened shredded coconut to your taste

Instructions: • Preheat your oven at 175°C and start melting your chocolate with the oil. Because I do not have a pan and glass bowl to melt things au-bain marie, I just put boiled water in a pot and put all the oil in a heat-resistant plastic bowl floating in the water (cheers to improvisation). Then I put the chocolate in piece by piece, stirring the mixture in between. When the water cooled down, I put poured some out of the pot and added some more boiled water from my kettle. Note: the pot was on my counter, not on the stove! The bowl does not need to get blistering hot, as long as your mixture melts. • After melting I took out the bowl to let the mixture cool down, and consequently I started whisking the eggs in a large bowl. Unfortunately I do not have a mixer, so it took me a bit longer. • Then I slowly added the chocolate mixture to the eggs, while stirring, and did the same with the flour, cacao powder, baking soda, and salt. • After whisking away for a while, I poured the batter into the muffin pan, which I had previously greased with some coconut oil, and mixed in some of the coconut. • I baked mine for about 15 mins, and added some more coconut as a topping, before taking the brownies out of the oven after 18-20 mins total. Check out if they are ready (they should feel a bit dense when pressing on them) and let them cool down for a bit.

Enjoy! 

Lobi,

p.s. Please check out your local Asian supermarket for palm sugar! It is way cheaper than at the organic supermarket :)

Smoothie bowl 2 (recipe)

Hi guys! Today I have another smoothie bowl recipe for you :)

Smoothie ingredients: almond milk, banana, apple, wheatgrass powder, raw cacaopowder, frozen forest berries

Toppings: Banana slices, dried goji berries, chiaseed
Instructions: Blend, blend, blend. And decorate with toppings to your liking!

Fun, easy, healthy, ánd delicious! Enjoy!

Lobi,

Viva España

Will I ever learn? Hopefully. Certain foods are just not meant for me and my body simply refuses to digest them. Sometimes I cheat, because in general I know my limits. But sometimes there are those moments you completely miscalculate the situation. Deciding to start cheatweek one day earlier this week, because my holiday was waiting around the corner was obviously a wrong choice. Once, never again—they say. Hopefully I have learned my lesson. I never take sessions lying on the bathroom floor with cramps into consideration whenever I give in to icecream or a KFC hotwing.

But Sef, no more! Boy did I learn my lesson—on vacation. I am not even going to front about it and claim that my getaway to Barcelona was perfect, cause nothing in the world ever is. Regardless, I do not have a single regret, because I got to relax, enjoy myself, laugh a lot, and feel loved. Pictures of my cheatweek on holiday (I really behaved, but then again I was sick too so I had little choice) are down below!

Lobi,