Zoodles with Meatballs in tomato sauce

Zoodles.... yep it does really exist , and you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if it will show up in the dictionary one day, if it is not already there.. It sure is in my families cookbook as its such a great replacement for spaghetti!

Before I ramble on , please let me explain what Zoodles actually are..

Zoodles is a mixed name of Zucchini and Noodles... so there you have it..

Wait what zucchini? what the crap is that?? 

Zucchini, like all squash, has its ancestry in the Americas. However, the varieties of squash typically called Zucchini were developed in Italy, many generations after their introduction from the Americas.

We just call it Courgette in English..

This is not the first time I made Zoodles.. but this time it defenitely went a lot better with the spiralizer/ crisp maker thingy I bought in the big Barcelona Encants market today.. 

It does literary everything .. owww except rasping.. 

So here comes the recipe: 

Zoodles for 3 persons: 

What you need: 

• 3 Courgettes
• olive oil
• salt
• baking paper

How to make:

• Cut off both edges of the Courgettes.
• Spiralize with a hand spiralizer the courgettes including the skin but not the inside of the Courgette as that is too wet. Dont throw the inside of the courgette out tough, we need it later for the sauce.
• Put the baking sheet on an oven tray, put the Zoodles on there and sprinkle some olive oil and salt over it.
• Put the oven on grill stand on 180 degrees Celcius and bake the Zoodles for about 10 to 15 minutes. I used a pair of tongs to move them around occasionally so they wont burn.
• Get them out of the oven and Voila!! Your Zoodles are done!

  

  What is left of the courgette when done..

  
  
  

Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Please note the basic home made tomato sauce recipe and ingredients are right  here , you need it in this recipe.

What you need:

• 600 grams of minced meat. I used beef but if you want it more leaner you can use turkey mince.
• 2 of the 3 leftover insides from the courgettes. ( the last one you can throw out or save for whatever you like to do with them) 
• 2 carrots
• 2 big table spooms breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 pot of prepped homemade tomato sauce from my previous posted recipe.
• 6 big mushrooms
• 1 onion
• Indian spice mix.

How to make:

• Rasp the courgette and the carrots and put in a big bowl. Add The minced meat, breadcrumbs, Indian Spices and egg.

• Mix all together and roll little meatballs from the mix.

• Add some oil in a frying pan and bake the meatballs till brown. ( they don´t have to be done on the inside) 
• Put the meatballs in a big oven dish and leave them on the side. In the meantime preheat the oven on 180 Degrees.
• Cut the onion and the mushrooms and bake them in the same frying pan till tender. 
• Add the pre-made tomato sauce and half a cup of water as the tomato sauce can be quite thick since prepping.
• Let it warm up and then add it to the oven dish on top of the meatballs.
• Put in the oven for about 30 minutes till meatballs are fully cooked.

Put the Zoodles on a plate together with the Meatballs and enjoy!!

Saturday Cheat day..

Saturday is always my cheat day, like Friday is almost always my Rest day.

However Today we actually we had quite a healthy dinner which I wanted to share..

Fresh Onion Soup and Mexican Kale Salad!

I thought I never had Kale in my life before, but if I actually bothered to google it i would have known I had it many times before in Holland with Mashed Potatoes and smokes sausage ( The Dutch way called ´Boerenkool Stampot´ ).

So here the recipes...

Mexican Kale Salad ( Vegan and Gluten free)

What you need for the Salad:

1. Baby or Full Grown Kale
2. a pot of black beans
3. 1 cup of Corn 
4. 1 Big Avocado
5. 2 cups of cherry tomatoes 
6. 1/2 cup of red onion
7. 1 Cucumber

What you need for the creamy avocado dressing:

1. 1 small Avocado
2. 1/2 cup warm water
3. 1/2 cup of lime juice
4. 1 teaspoon of cumin
5. salt to taste
6. 1 teaspoon of pepper

How to make:

• Cut the Kale and wash before throwing in a bowl.  
• Wash the black beans thoroughly when coming from a pot.
• Throw the beans with all the rest of the Salad ingredients and mix with a spoon.

Dressing:

• Cut the avocado and throw in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
• Mix with a blender or bullet mixer till smooth.
• Add the dressing to the salad.

                

French Onion Soup

What you need:

1. 4 pounds yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced (approximately 5-6 large onions)
3. 3 tablespoons butter
4. 4 cloves garlic, minced
5. 3 tablespoons flour
6. 1/2 cup dry white wine
7. 6 cups of beef stock
8. 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (optional)
9. 1 bay leaf
10. a few  pinches of salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
11. whole wheat baguette
12. Grated cheese

How to make:

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and saute until well browned and caramelized (but not burnt), about 30-40 minutes, stirring every few minutes.  Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute.  Stir in the flour and cook for an additional 1 minute.  Stir in the wine to de-glaze the pan, using a  spoon to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce (optional) and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer.  Then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for at least 10-15 minutes.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Discard the bay leaf.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  While the soup is simmering, slice the baguette into thick pieces and arrange them in single layer on baking sheet.  Bake for 6-8 minutes, until the bread is toasted and golden around the edges. Then put the grated cheese on top and Bake till the cheese is melted and a bubbly. Remove and set aside.

Ladle the soup in bowls and ad a piece of bread with melted cheese on top.

Enjoy!!

Confessions of a Sports hater..

As everybody knows, a big part of losing weight is exercising..

I know for most people its not the most fun part and it was surely never for me either.

I always said to everybody´ I hate sport!´ I don´t even want to walk the stairs!´ ( well to be honest with you I still don´t like stairs and if nobody is watching i sneak into that elevator if I get the chance..* busted* ) .

Many times I subscribed myself for the fitness school and being determined to do 3 gym session a week which existed mostly out of Zumba, Yoga and whatever fancy class they had. Every  time though after a month of 2 , I paid a shitload of money to sit on the sofa and making all kinds of excuses imaginable to not go to that dreaded class. Too tired ( classic!) , worked very hard, need to clean the house, will go 5 times next week etc..etc..

When my turning point came though where I was doing nothing else than sitting on the sofa in my spare time, I needed to make a decision..which I did as you can read in my first post.

My worry was still the exercise though, I mean what would I need to do to be successful and not giving up or getting bored?

With me working 9 to 18 on weekdays, I decided that I was going to try morning exercises before work.. I might feel tired the first week or so , but well get used to it eventually.. ( I am not a morning person, so was a hard decision to make).

Now we are 3 months further and I do my morning exercises 4 mornings on weekdays, do 1 hour of workout on Saturday and do between 10k and 16k powerwalk on most Sundays... And you know what? I absolutely love it and feel soooo much better and so much satisfaction and pride every day again! I love the feeling of muscle pain and love the feeling of muscles burning during the workout! And even the being up at 6 in the morning everyday is very easy to get used too..

As you might have guessed I don´t go to the gym, but my husband and I are doing all our exercises at home with Youtube or Les Mills/ Beachbody workouts. Also we have a Multigym at home now with weights and all sorts of equipment from Pilates Ball to Fusion bands and Ab weels! ( addicted much?)

Thinking of doing the same but dont know where to start? See below some links I started with: 

• When I first started, a friend of  mine advised me to start with Jessica Smith TV who does 10 minute workout videos ( and more)  and you can do 1 or 2 or as many as you want.. See here the link. Jessica is a previous Ballerina and now a certified personal trainer. See is amazing and very calm on her exercise regime.. No crazy regimes or fad diets for her!
• Now I am doing a lot of exercises with Fitness Blender with the link right here, Fitness blender are a great couple who are doing many workouts together or alone but in a very personal way.. 
• A good Pilates Ball workout I do a lot is this one or this one. They are beginner Pilates Ball workouts as I am not that balanced yet to take it any further.. 

When my husband is doing home workouts, he is mostly doing Beachbody T25  from Trainer Shaun T. Which is a 25 minute program but you will sweat like you never did before!!

In the weekends I am more into Les Mills Bodypump or Bodycombat and on Sunday I try to go outside for power walks or a cycle.

So thats it for now, I have to go to bed as otherwise I will have issues to get out to exercise in the morning!

Stay Strong and Night Night!!

Yesterday's Snack recipes

I got the request to give you the recipes of yesterdays snacks, so here a quick post to share them!

Roasted Cauliflower with Oriental Herbs: 

What do you need; 

1. Head of Cauliflower ( duuhh) 
2. 3 table spoons Olive Oil 
3. Dried/mixed Oriental herbs, or well you can use any herbs you like.
4. Sheet of Aluminium foil 
5. Brush
6. Frying pan

How to make: 

• Cut  the tougher outer leaves of the cauliflower and cut the cauliflower in thick slices ( about 4 to 5 cm a slice).
• mix the olive oil and the dried/mixed herbs together.
• With the brush paint the olive oil mix over both sides of the cauliflower slices.
• Fry the slices in the fryin pan until brown.
• Put the sheet of aluminium foil on the oven tray and transfer the cauliflower from the fryin pan to the oven tray.
• Roast in the oven for an additional 10 minutes.

The result should be like below, but is not my photo as I forget to make one :(

Egg Muffins with Cherry Tomatoes and Spring Onion:

What do you need: 

1. 5 eggs 
2. 1 cup of milk
3. 10 cherry tomatoes
4. 1 spring onion 
5. 2 tablespoons of grated cheese
6. 1 small can of sweetcorn
7. Olive Oil
8. Muffin Tin
9. Brush
10. little bit of pepper and salt

How to make:

• Whisk the eggs in a bowl together with the cheese and milk.
• Add the Pepper and Salt to taste
• Cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters and add to the mix.
• Cut the spring onion very fine and add to the mix.
• Brush Olive oil on the inside of the muffin tin.
• Pour the mixture in the muffin tin, but not full ( like I did and mine were a bit exploded..)
• Cook in the Oven for about 20 minutes.

Bread rolls with sunflower seeds and pine nuts: 

What do you need:

1. 500 gram of wholewheat flour
2. 3 tablespoons of olive oil
3. 1 and 1/2 cup lukewarm water 
4. 1 sachet of yeast
5. half a teaspoon of salt
6. 50 grams of sunflower seeds
7. 20 grams of pine nuts
8. 1 egg 

How to make:

• Mix the flour with the olive oil and salt.
• Mix the Lukewarm water with the yeast and then add to the flour mixture.
• Knead the mixture to a dough and then add the sunflower seeds.
• Mix again until you have a smooth ball of dough.
• Separate the ball of dough in little balls.
• Whisk the egg and egg-wash the top of the little balls of dough
• Sprinkle  the pine nuts on the dough.
• Transfer the dough balls to an oven tray and bake the bread for 25 minutes on 180 degrees Celcius.

Enjoy!!

Meal and Snack prepping..

Its Monday evening 9:00 PM and I am just sitting down..
I have been meal & snack prepping this evening, which is a bit too late because normally I do this on Sunday. Lazy me didn't want to move her ass anymore  on Sunday , so now I had to sit on the blisters!

Meal or snack prepping is the best way to not grabbing those unhealthy snacks when you are hungry.
Its so easy to walk to that vendor machine,  and I know when I am hungry.. ( Or more ´hangry´) I eat everything I can find and I don´t care if there is a teaspoon or a truckload of sugar in the snack!

Anyway as I don´t want to end up sugar loaded or very (h)angry, I always prepare my snacks the evening before or even a couple of days before.

This evening I made Roasted cauliflower pieces in oriental herbs and Egg Muffins with spring onion, cherry tomato and sweetcorn. My husband  made wholewheat bread rolls with sunflower seeds and pine nuts.

I know they don´t look very Jamie Oliver or Marta Stewart, but I am sure ( read; hope)  they taste just as good!









I also prepped the tomato sauce i told you about in my previous post and a huge pot of fresh veggie soup as this is always a good, healthy filler to have!

My smoothie made today for tomorrow and Wednesday is Pineapple , Orange and Coco sprinkles.

Smoothies

Since I started my weight loss journey, I also started with drinking smoothies as meal replacements.

First I drank them in the morning after my workout as breakfast but decided that I was still eating too much as I always had lunch the Spanish way... 2 or 3 course with coffee...

So I changed it to lunchtime and it works so much better!

How I make a proper filling smoothie? well like this..

I always make smoothies for 2 days which is 1 liter in total.

And you need the below ( courtesy of http://www.greenthickies.com/ ) :

• 2 cups of liquid * I use almond milk* 
• 2 cups of fruit
• 1/4 cup of dried fruit or 2 table spoons of liquid sweetener like honey or syrup.* I don´t use this , but this every bodies own taste*  
• 1/4 cup of nuts or seeds, or 2 table spoons of nut/seed butter. * I use chia and flax seed* 
• 1-2 cups of mild leafy greens * I use fresh Spinach leafs* 
• a filler which I explain below.

If you want the smoothie to be a meal replacement, you need a filler in it. Below is a list of the fillers you can use: 

• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup of quinoa
• 1/2 cup of seeds
• 1/3 cup of nuts
• 4 tablespoons of coconut cream
• 2/3 cup of coconut milk
• 1 medium avocado
• 3 medium bananas
• 1 cup of sweet potato 
• 1 cup of white potato 
• 4 cooked eggs
• 6 tablespoons of cream 
• 1 cup full fat cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup creamed cheese
• 1 cup of full fat yoghurt.

I almost always use half a cup of greek yoghurt and half a cup of oats as filler. 

For the oats and seeds, you need to soak them overnight so I make my smoothies the night before, so I only have to get them out of the fridge and bring with me to work.

One of my favorite recipes? well here we go..

• 2 cups of almond milk
• 2 apples, 1 pear and a banana
• 1/4 cup of a mix of chia and flax seeds
• 1 cup of Spinach leafs 
• 1/2 cup of oats 
• 1/2 cup of full fat yoghurt
• a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Mix it all in the blender and divide in half so you have 2 portions for 2 days and store in the fridge.

Enjoy!!

Simple Home made Tomato sauce

One of the things I changed is not eating processed food anymore.
This is quite challenging if you always relied on processed food in pots, freezer bags or whatever pre- made stuff..

One of the things I like to make myself now is tomato sauce. Before we used many pots a week of supermarket tomato sauce which turned out had tons and tons of sugar in them!

So here the recipe of my very simple and healthy tomato sauce which you need if you eat just as much of the stuff as we do in our household!


What you need;

• 10 to 15 ripe tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 onion
• table spoon of honey
• 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar
• a pinch of salt and some parsley
• 1 cup of water
• 1 big cooking pot 
• a blender ( optional) 
• empty pots to store the sauce in.

How to make;

1. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze them a bit when you throw them in the pot.
2. Dice the onion and garlic cloves and throw them also in the pot.
3. Add the honey, balsamic vinegar, salt, parsley and water and put it in the stove.
4. Put the Tomatoes on a low fire and let it boil till its reduced to a sauce, which can take anything from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
5. When its reduced enough , get the pot of the stove and let it cool down enough to throw it in the blender if you like the sauce smooth..
6. Pour the sauce in the empty pots and store in the fridge.

Et Voila! Fresh homemade tomato sauce which didnt cost you hours of standing in the kitchen and can easily be stored in the fridge for at least a week!

Enjoy and Stay Strong!

The Beginning.....

I started this new blog as I would like to share my weight loss journey in its full honesty!

About 2 and half months ago,  on the 2nd of February,  my husband and I stood on the scales and I got a right shock!
I knew for a while already that I needed to do something about my weight , but never had the motivation to actually start. When the scales showed me that I was going to severe obese, I couldnt ignore it anymore..

My husband and I decided that we would start exercising again before we go to work and start eating only healthy stuff. I took it a step further and said we will start clean eating because just eating more veg and less sugar is not enough for me.

So we started and I suddenly had so much motivation, if I was a total different person!
Every morning for the first 2/3 weeks I stood op at 6AM and did workouts which I got from YouTube.
They were mostly Jessica Smith workouts of 10 minutes , where I did 2 or 3 of them.
Then I started to change my diet significantly.. stopped eating any sugar, changed to honey in coffee and tea, drank at least 2 liters of water during the day and stopped eating carbs at night.

I noticed that I was changing a lot and not necessarily from the outside yet, but from the inside!
I felt I had more energy, was smiling more, had a better posture and felt more confident.

However after a couple of weeks I noticed that this routine was not enough and was still eating too much as I had a very filled smoothie in the morning , warm meal in the afternoon and then again in the evening. I then changed this to a yoghurt in the morning and the smoothie for lunch and a snack in between meals. I still do it like this and it works so much better!

From the moment I started and now I lost 9.3 kilo (20.46 pounds) , and I am feeling so good!!
Unfortunately I only started measuring when I was already a couple of weeks in my journey , but the centimeters changed significantly as well...

My husband is all into graphs and excel, so he made us a cool excel for our measurements per week..

As you notice my waist got suddenly up, as I was measuring above my belly button before ( Cheating and all haha) and then started to be honest and measure on my belly button...

All and all I am a much happier person now with a lot more confidence.
I started to wear make up and fit in some of my skirts and jeans again ( I was beside myself from happiness when I noticed I fit them again!) .

I hope you will follow me throughout the rest of my journey an I hope it motivates you to take the plunge of healthy eating and exercising!

Hasta Luego and Stay Strong!