Potica with four fillings

Holiday season is almost here and it’s time to start thinking what to put on the table for all the parties and festive dinners that are coming up. In Slovenia, no holiday passes without potica (pronounced potitsa), it’s a sweet bread roll with different fillings, but most commonly walnut one. I like the walnut filling (and you can find the recipe for that one here), but I get quickly bored of the “same old, same old”. So I decided to make it a bit more interesting and by interesting I mean pimping it up with 4 different fillings.

Octopus salad

Some weeks ago I had a strange craving. Well maybe it was not really a craving, but more a wish. You know, when you remember a dish and then you’re like “Damn, I would like to have that now”. It was an octopus salad that I wanted. I don’t know how I thought of it, but I did. I inquired around where to buy an octopus and found out that people don’t really eat them here and because it was not really urgent and I’m lazy, I didn’t spend much time on looking for it either. But then my parents came to visit and I kindly requested some octopus to be brought with them. Afterwards, I had all I needed, to make this delicious octopus salad, at hand.

Sugar free apple and plum pie

Lately I’m neglecting my blog. Not necessarily because of lack of inspiration, but more because life was quite busy in the past 2 months. Sadly when time is short, hobbies, which in my case means my blog, are the first ones to be neglected. We are living in our new house for a nice month now and I’m loving it. I love that we could paint it like we wanted, I love our new kitchen, I love the garden, but most of all I love the fact that it’s ours. Life is starting to settle just when fall is here. Fall for me means a drastic increase in my need for baking. Colder, darker, rainy days are just screaming for some cosy smell of fresh baked goods in the house.

Whole30 reintroduction

This post is about a month overdue, but we have been busy with moving into our new house (which we love) and things are finally getting back to normal. So to go straight to the point, step two of the Whole30 program is the reintroduction. In this period you should reintroduce non compliant food groups one at a time, while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30 compliant.

Whole30 week 4 recap

I just finished my first Whole30. Yeeey, If you’d show me the program 2 months ago and say I’ll finish it, I would say you’re crazy. Me, going a month without dairy, without all the grains, without beans and chickpeas and peanut butter? That is impossible! Well it is not. I managed and once I set my mind to it, it was actually easier that you’d think. I can’t say I have any special feelings about the end of the program. I’m kind of excited because after the reintroduction period I’ll be finally able to have some treats (hello ice cream), but on the other hand I’m a bit afraid that some of my favourite foods will make me feel sick and bloated. After the reintroduction I will write a special, more thorough post on my thoughts about the program and discuss some advantages and disadvantages, but for now I’ll just tell you about how this last week, well actually the last 10 days, went.

Cauliflower rice risotto with ground chicken

Do you like risotto? Of course you do. Everybody in their right mind likes risotto. I love it. I don’t make it that often, because it does not really make great leftovers, unless you make arancini, but that is a story on its own. I know it’s a weird reason, but I really like to cook meals that last me for at least two days (less work, more free time). Anyway, the other day I really felt like risotto, but since I am still on Whole30 that was not an option, so I opted to make some compliant approximation of it. The result was cauliflower rice risotto with ground chicken. Since I had to leave out the two main ingredients, those being rice and parmesan cheese, this really was just an approximation, but a delicious one nonetheless. And since cauliflower is loaded with good stuff as you can read in this very in depth article written by Helen from Well-Being Secrets, this dish is a healthy bomb, one worth adding to your everyday diet. 

Lemon tahini spirulina dressing

Grilled veggies are a quick and delicious meal all year long, but appear on our plates more often in the summer months. When I’m having grilled vegetables, I like flavour them with different marinades or dressings. Olive oil, garlic, parsley and lemon juice is my usual flavour combo, but this time I felt like experimenting and made a tahini-based dressing/sauce.

Whole30 week 3 recap

I’m well over half way of my first Whole30 program and all is looking fine. I have less than 10 days to go and then come the 10 days of reintroduction period. I hope, I will not see that I have a huge problem with dairy and grains because I am starting to miss them a bit. This past week was nothing special, I stuck to the plan and tried to decrease the snacking, which did not always work (mostly it did not), but I am trying. I have a feeling that my skin is breaking out less than normally, and I am less bloated which is definitely a good sign. I still don’t see any differences in energy levels and find my workouts tougher than normally. 

Lunch break in PLUS+

It’s July, my oh my, I have a hard time believing it. Is it just me or is time really faster the older you get? Nothing to do about it I guess. Well with July come the sales and on Saturday me and my sister went to snoop around the stores a bit. When it was time for lunch we wanted something quick and healthy and I wanted something that fits in my eating program, so we went to PLUS+ where they only serve fresh food prepared with organic ingredients.

Whole30 week 2 recap

I’m halfway through my Whole30 program and I’m still managing. This week brought along a couple of challenges – dinner out with the girls, barbecue party after work on Friday and a very lazy weekend that just called after some baking. I (more or less) successfully passed them all and I have to say I’m quite proud of myself. After two weeks I do not feel any different than I did before, I guess the changes still need to come. Maybe the changes are bigger if you had a really shitty diet before starting the Whole30 and that was not the case with me. I am breaking one of the rules though – I often have a snack in the afternoon, not because of the habit, but because I just get really hungry. They advise against having more than 3 meals per day and if you’re hungry in between they suggest to increase the size of the meal, but I can’t always do that as I usually eat the size of the meal that is comfortable for me (volume wise), if I would eat more, I would feel stuffed, so I just decided to have the snacks when I’m hungry. I will try to work on getting them down to a minimum though.