Banana Eggy Pancake

1 banana + 1 egg = Happiness

So, like any warm-blooded person, I love pancakes once in a while. But since we're trying to eat healthier it doesn't seem like a viable option right now. Though I've definitely had some impressive cheat days these past few weeks with Easter, my father's, my brother's and a friend's birthday. I'll be posting recipes that I've made for those occasions soon as well. :) But I haven't had pancakes in a good long while now and I had a craving. Thus came in this awesome fake banana pancake. I've made these before when I had leftover very ripe bananas and didn't feel like a smoothie, but they're surprisingly healthy. It's just an egg, a mashed up (ripe) banana and optionally a little honey or other sweetener, and no it doesn't taste exactly like a pancake of course. It is after all just a banana-y omelet, but it settles my cravings and might do the same for you!

Breakfast/Lunch/Snack - 1 'pancake' - 200cal - 10min

(9g fat; 25g carbs and 7g protein)

Carbless Sin - Mini Aubergine / Eggplant Pizza with Chorizo and Parmezan

Sometimes being too lazy to go to the store results in something wonderful like this. I started with a wrinkly eggplant/aubergine I'd forgotten about and this happened. *so happy*
These are mini eggplant/aubergine pizza's with a 'raw' tomato sauce, some leftover chorizo and a bit of parmezan, which had hardened which made it very hard to grate, so I just put little cubes on them, and it was wonderful, you guys. Maybe it was because I was a bit desperate to put together without going to the store, but honestly it was. I have since these made another version of these (actually following a recipe) at home with my family, but that one had a sauce that was more work, and without the chorizo, but with mozzarella. But the original leftover version of them was better imo (in my opinion)! Chorizo really made this magical. The leftover rucola was a nice touch, if I may say so myself. And I'm definitely making this super-easy raw tomato sauce again for other things. Let's get on with the recipe of these awesome 'leftovers' eggplant pizza. First version of the recipe will be the extended one, with reasoning behind everything. And then there's a short one at the bottom which you can use while cooking.

Lunch/Snack/Appetizer - 1 eggplant ~ 12 pizza - 650cal - 30min (without salting)

(45g fat; 44g carbs and 22g protein)

Ultimate Salad with a poached egg

Salad loaded with goodies and extremely filling.

Alright so I have a bit of a confession to make. This was mostly just a 'I have a bit of leftover salmon and avocado' situation. Smoked salmon and avocado are my go to staples to buy whenever I go to the store. I might have a teenie weenie obsession, but that's okay, it's the least worrisome I have. ^^
This salad turned out pretty good, though I'm not a 100% sure on my decision to caramelize the onions, kind of missed the sharpness of a bit of raw onion, but you can decide for yourself.
These kind of recipes are just more as an inspiration to draw upon if you need it. It was also just an excuse to experiment a bit: my first poached egg ever, turned out pretty neat if I do say so myself. Though to be perfectly honest I did lose some of the white since I had no idea on how to go about it.

Salad - 1 serving - 300cal - 20min

 (19g fat, 3g saturated; 18g carbs and 19g protein)

Butternut Pumpkin Soup with Sour Cream and Roasted Seeds

The Butternut is back, bitches! Sorry, just enthusiastic. This time in the form of a comforting soup. It was a bit of an experiment since I read somewhere that for a lot of pumpkin kinds you can leave the skin on as long as you make sure it's soft enough by cooking/roasting/...! This seemed like a game changer, since removing the peel of a pumpkin is just so much work, especially if you don't have a decent big knife like I do at Uni... :( Plus it would means wasting less, so I'm all for it. I'm also roasting the seeds to add to my soup as a crunch at the end, so I literally used the whole pumpkin! I wanted to make it more an oriental tasting soup, but didn't have any ginger and I'm already adding coconut milk to my dinner. But I'm thinking an excellent version of this soup would be with ginger, maybe some lemon grass, definitely a bunch of coriander and coconut milk. I did end up adding a bit of (light) sour cream to cut through that comforting, slightly sweet pumpkin flavour. Since I wanted some more colour and thought it would go well I added some (frozen) parsley and of course my toasted pumpkin seeds.

I decided to back to the two tier recipe format. I thought it unnecessary with 'easy' recipes, but honestly I like having the room to give you all the tips & tricks that I can which makes the recipe a little chaotic so it really does seem handy to have a shorthand version of it. Plus I have no doubt that most have little interest in my ramblings and are just looking for some recipe inspiration. If anyone has suggestions on how to make the recipes more readable/useable, be sure to let me know. Do you prefer them with photos at various steps? Plus I made a nice picture for you guys this time even! So I might do a little plating section again. Consider this my wintry valentine soup. Look at me, being all topical. This is another recipe of my own design so I might update this if/when I perfect/improve this.

Soup - 6 or more servings -  120cal/serving (800cal/whole pot) - 30min + 40min cooking

 (4.7g fat, 1.2g saturated; 19.3g carbs and 3.2g protein)

Surviving Healthiness - Recipes

I've very recently (like 3 days ago) decided to start trying to eat more healthier things, cutting some carbs down and all that rot, so I could doubly enjoy the days where I cook delicious meals and treats. So I'm no longer buying snacks or crisps/chips and trying to eat less carbs and more fruit and veg basically. It's going fine so far, I still enjoy eating, thank goodness!
I also started going for a run (if you can call it that :p) in the morning, I'm hoping I'll keep it up once classes start up again, but not sure, I definitely can't say I'm enjoying it just yet...
Last thing I'm doing is keeping track of how much water I drink and make sure it's enough. For that I use this 0.5 l (2 cups) bottle that filters the water while I drink, and make sure I drink at least 3 of those during the day. I'm peeing a lot more I've found, but I'm hoping that evens out soon, or all the doctors are wrong and we're not supposed to drink this much water. :p
Right now I'm drinking a glass of skim milk, and surprisingly enjoying it very much! Unfortunately it's also 60cal or something, why?! But at least it's healthy calories, unlike the 3 oreos (160cal) I had earlier... ^^

Anyway I thought I'd share some healthy really basic recipes I'm using doing this. Sorry for the not so pretty pictures, since the recipes are so simple and meant just for yourself and not at all to impress anyone else, I'm not really bothering with plating them nice or watching the light... I'm really just snapping a picture at my desk before I dig in. If you really would like prettier pictures, comment below, and I might take the time next time. ;) Also, do you like recipes clumped together like this or would you rather I make separate posts for them?

Cappuccino of Jerusalem artichoke and chestnuts soup with a goat cheese foam

A relatively easy, but fancy little soup of Jerusalem artichoke and chestnuts with a goat cheese foam, with a little espelette pepper sprinkled on. You'll be sure to impress everyone with this star soup! It's a perfect appetizer to make for an intimate dinner party or a large group of people: it's sophisticated, unique, yet comforting and easy to make! It does use some (semi-)unusual ingredients so you might have to make sure you find everything at your supermarket.
The only downside is that for best results you do need something to make your milk and goat cheese mixture foamy (like in a real cappuccino). I used an espuma/siphon bottle. But not to worry! I've read you can reach the same results by just blending it with a(n) (immersion/stick) blender. And if you don't have that, you can always just mix in the milk mixture, without foaming it first, though I wouldn't call it a cappuccino then. ;)
I made this soup as one of many appetizers for my mother's birthday (among which the mozzarella appetizer I posted earlier) and my whole family was a big fan! It would probably look really well served in clear glasses as well, so you can see the different layers. But I wanted to accentuate the cappuccino angle.
As previously I'll put up a short and long version of the recipe, but it really is quite easy, so there won't be that much difference between them I think.

6-8 small portions - 40 minutes

Tamarind Ginger Cookies

The fool that I was I only discovered the wonderful thing that is Tamarind just a few months ago, while making a delicious salad with watermelon and duck breast, that I'll be sure to share whenever watermelon shows up in stores again (seriously missing it fiercely right now). In that I used a paste version of tamarind, which you can find in any supermarket I believe, but perhaps look in the international / Asian section. Tamarind has a lovely sweet-sour taste that goes well with a variety of dishes.
So, when I was in the Asian supermarket a while ago, when I saw Tamarind with seeds still in it, I couldn't resist grabbing it. Then it lay on my shelf for a few weeks until the opportunity arose to use it! And what's a better cause than cookies? On that same shelf I had some leftover candied ginger, from a previous haul in the same Asian supermarket, but already partially sacrificed in an awesome ginger, white chocolate cheesecake. With those two goodies I set to work to create these tasty and special Tamarind Ginger Cookies. Before we start though, let me tell you that using the paste you just get at the supermarket would be much easier, because removing those seeds were a pain!
I made these alongside some good ol' fashioned brownies and some lemon cheesecake cookies, let me know if you'd like a post about those as well. They were delicious too of course, just a bit less special. I made all these goodies as little gift for my friends at new years (alongside the earrings with origami flower I posted about earlier, and a few other things).
Anyway on to the cookies...

about 40 cookies - 60 minutes (depends on oven size)

Salad with melon chunks, feta crumbles, bacon bits and a honey vinaigrette

This is one of my favourite super easy salads to make. It's delicious, filling and so satisfying. It's not THE healthiest salad out there, but since it's so filling, no need to eat any kind of bread with it, though you can if you want. I've gotten quite a few complements from people (served as a starter) and make it all the time when I'm staying at my sister's for lunch. I've made many versions and variations of this recipe, which I will elaborate in the extended version of the recipe. Like last time I'll do a short and a long version of the recipe. Whenever I make a new recipe I tend to read it through at least once completely before I make my shopping list and do the actual shopping. Even while just reading through it and writing down the ingredients, I'm thinking on what kind of variations I want to do to better suit my tastes, or in the case I can't find one of the ingredients. And before I get down to cooking, I generally write down a shorter version of the recipe to use while cooking. So that's basically my reasoning behind this two levels of recipe in case you were wondering. :) Anyway, let's get to it. This recipe is also great for those who generally don't like salads, or kids, because it contains so many fruits! It's basically a hearty fruit salad! It can be made ahead if you want to take it with you for lunch, and it stays delicious. If you're using a lettuce that gets 'soggy' easy, keep it separate from the rest and just mix it in before eating. Besides the melon, I think you have a lot of freedom in what kind of fruit you want to put in. I'll put all the ones I use in the extended recipe. In the short recipe I put my standard choices.

4 portions - 30 minutes