So the Nutella from my previous post consisted of the following ingredients:

roasted hazelnuts

a few almonds

a few cashew nuts

a few roasted salted peanuts

a pinch of salt

dark cocoa powder

sweetened cocoa powder (75 % sugar)

some more sugar

vanilla extract

First blend roasted hazelnuts and other nuts into a liquid paste. Add other ingredients and mix till the ingredients are well combined.

Use it:

with peanut butter

with apricot jam

plain.. whichever you prefer

I combined all three today: peanut butter, nutella and apricot jam. Yum.

This morning I didn’t feel like eating bread. I made the no-knead bread version with 1/3 corn flour and some flax seeds. I tasted it in the afternoon, I love the smell and taste of corn. Plus it’s healthy since it is made of wholegrain flour and corn flour, with some extra seeds. Can’t be bad, even if you eat much of it. It accelerates the digestion.

In the morning I had Stracciatella yogurt – Greek style. My very first one. Inspired very much by Salat in a jar.

Well, I borrowed her recipe to make Greek yoghurt. And I was eager to add some vanilla to it. I didn’t have any vanilla paste, haven’t bought any yet, haven’t seen it in the stores. Basically it is made of vanilla and sugar syrup. I wished to improvise with vanilla sugar and milk. Yet I ran out of vanilla sugar. So the option was to use milk, vanilla extract and sugar. That worked.

Ingredients:

1 cup homemade Greek-style yoghurt

1 T grated milk chocolate

a few drops vanilla extract

1 T milk

1/2 t sugar

(optional) some crumbled Speculoos biscuit

Mix it all together and enjoy the cold breakfast in the cold weather. Strangely though I crave something cold in the morning, like a pear from the fridge or water or (like today) yoghurt.

And right to the office.

When I was yesterday thinking about what I’d like to have for today’s breakfast, the idea of freshly baked bread come into my mind.

Usually I’d use all kinds of flour (oat flour, wholegrain wheat flour, buckwheat flour, perhaps some chickpea flour – though my blender has a hard time blending garbanzo beans, cornflour) so the result is a thick dark bread, often challenging for thee teeth because it’s that hard.

This time I wished to make bread which would be even easier. Not so many kinds of flour, no milk, no seeds, rather simple.

I came upon this recipe for No Knead Bread and loved it immediately.

source the original recipe

Easy peasy and such a nice picture. Of course I didn’t expect such a nice crust from a bread, baked in a pan, yet it was worth a try, to get the moisture which is typical of such bread. I adapted the recipe a bit so here’s the list of the ingredients:

-3 cups wholegrain wheat flour

-1.5 cup lukewarm water

-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp yeast, diluted in some lukewarm water

I like things simple so this time even the preparation was very simple. I used a wooden spoon to bring the ingredients together and let the dough rise in a tissue-covered pot for 1 hour on a radiator. I could have let rise it longer but it was getting late so I decided 1 hour would be enough.

Then I transformed the dough (with wet hands) from the pot into a warm pan and let it bake half-covered for 15 min at low heat (. I checked how it looked like. I let it bake for another 10 min before I turned it around. I let it bake for about 15 min on the other side, switched the hot plate off and removed the pan from the hot plate so the bread could cool overnight in the pan, still half-covered.

And here it is, the moist wholegrain bread.

Seems to be a bit on the dark side but dark is good, especially if the flour is from the local mill. Twice as good. I don’t actually remember when I last bought a wholegrain flour. Hum.., maybe never??

The crust was soft, the bread was quite moist and smelled nice. But the oven would do wonders to the crust.

Paired with peanut butter and homemade Nutella, I bet it’ll disappear soon.

I made Nutella quite a few times and each time it’s a bit different.

The label is still the same

And what’s inside…. I’ll reveal it soon .

Enjoy the time!

May it bring you success, health, happiness, may your wishes come true, and of course some little lovely presents!

source

Speaking of presents, December was full of presents. Unexpected presents from our business partners and clients at work, they didn’t need to bring anything indeed. Already the thought that they were thinking of us, is sufficient.

Today the vegan Katja who dwells at www.favoritecook.com (and makes delicious treats) surprised me with a gift package. I guess she knows me pretty well now .

In the package there was:

-a vanilla candle (I love vanilla – smell and the vanilla extract for cooking and baking)

-a jasmine soap (she remembers when I was trying to make jasmine oil but left jasmine in the oil for too long so I had to throw it away)

-lotus essential oil (I had lavendel essential oil yet I wasn’t too fond of the smell so now I can give essential oils another chance)

-aromatic natural bath salt (some aroma therapy after a morning run can’t be wrong, right? )

-3 kinds of chocolates (her home-made ones: lucuma and ginger (gone), cinnamon and maca (gone), mint (some left for tomorrow ))

-cocoa beans (never tried them yet I expect they are very bitter – like cocoa powder)

Year 2011 surprised me with many presents, blessings which I am very thankful for.

-I went to a concert of Britney Spears

-I rode motor bike the whole year since February

-my family was healthy

-I enjoyed the company of important people in my life

-I ran 3-4 x/week even during winter

-I loved my job

-I was healthy the whole year

-I met some great people who are now my friends

-and much much more.. God thank you!

This all makes a happy Damjana

Lots of love <3

We still bake bread at home. When we have no time, we buy it, anyway very rarely. A while ago a friend of mine was talking about his brother who “cooked” bread in a casserole on a stove top. She said that such bread did not differ from baked bread. This made me curious.

Bread on a gas stove top, uncovered, about 10 cm thick. Hmm… I wished to experiment on an electrical stove in a pan, which would be partly covered. I just didn’t wish the bread to feel cold.

Wholegrain corn bread in a pan

Ingredients: 1 part corn flour (I blended polenta into flour), 1 part wholegrain wheat flour, 1 T ground millet, 4 T flax seeds, salt, yeast, some sugar and milk.

Let the yeast rise with some warm milk/water, sugar and flour. Pour the yeast into the mixture of flours, seeds and salt. Knead into dough and let the dough rise. After one hour knead the dough again and let it rise again. Then put the dough on a pan (no need to add oil or flour), low heat (level 3 out of 6), and bake it for 20 min, partly covered.

After 20 min put it around and bake it for another 20 min.  Check it. I prefer thick crispy crust so I let it bake another 10 min on each side. Altogether 1 hour.

The bread weighed 770 g, it was crispy on both sides.

This was my second try and as I love corn flour, I put this time more of it in the dough. Bingo! It is so tasty. I bet it won’t last very long .

Anyway, sadly I’ll slowly have to say good-bye to skirts which I used to wear almost daily for the last couple of months.

Today’s work outfit included the skirt (and stockings).

Some days ago I already enjoyed a more fall-like breakfast:

Apple millet yoghurt combo

-millet (cooked in milk/water, some salt and cinnamon)

-apple crumble (grated apples with skin, cinnamon, coconut butter, water, breadcrumbs, brown sugar –> cooked in a pan for 10 minutes)

-yoghurt (home-made full fat yoghurt)

Some days ago I made these two granolas:

PB Granola

Ingredients: 1 cup rye+oat flakes, coconut flour, chopped peanuts, pecans and walnuts, 2 Tsp homemade pb, 1 Tsp honey, cinnamon, homemade vanilla extract

Mix everything together and bake in a pan on medium heat for about 10 min, stirring occasionally.

Chocolate Granola

Ingredients: 1 cup rye flakes, chopped hazelnuts, macadamia, almonds, pecans, vanilla extract, cinnamon, 1 Tsp pb, 1 Tsp ghee, 1 Tsp honey, cocoa powder, brown sugar.

Inspired by this recipe. Amazing! I love pb everywhere. Do you?

Have a lovely day!!

Do you already feel fall there where you live?

What’s your favourite granola?

I truly love this nut butter.

Favourite composition at the moment.

Pecan peanut butter

Ingredients: peanuts (roasted, salted) – lots of them, some pecans, a few cashew nuts, some coconut flour, a few dry dates, cocoa powder, some sunflower oil.

Blend. Blend. It’s easy to blend so you won’t break the blender.

De.li.ci.ous.

I wouldn’t have shared this recipe if it wasn’t so special. So good.

Bread sticks love it too.

And I love both of them.

Which is your favourite nut butter?

Ingredients: salty roasted peanuts, dates, cinnamon, some sunflower oil.

Blend everything in the blender, no more steps.

Dip into it some grisini.

Or stuff with it a date, like Emma does:

(source)

I highly reccommend this option as well

I’ve noticed I have a similar weird interesting hobby like Claudia. I take pictures of myself when I’m bored before I go to work or after I come home.

We both have white trousers .

Anyway this was the outfit to wear on the motorbike, otherwise it’d be way to hot during the day. The sun was already shining and it was 8 a.m.

I usually don’t wear black clothes in summer. Do you?

A kick of caffeine or light ice-coffee.

Ingredients:

100 ml ice-cold coffee (not too strong)

150 ml milk (you can use full fat)

1/4 t cardamom (in powder)

1/2 t brown sugar (adds the sweetness)

Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend 5-10 sec. The blender adds creaminess and richness.

I’m off to make some sweet cinnamon peanut butter (with dates or honey) – yumm

I’ve heard peanuts are not so high-quality nuts.

What do you think about that?

First some fuel

Homemade KinderLada

As a child I loved the two-colour hazelnut spread called KinderLada. It looked like this:

(source)

I don’t remember eating it often and as far as I remember, it soon disappeared from our shelves. I don’t know why it seems to be so appealing, it might be the form of the jar, the kind cow who gave the milk for it or just the distant memory of something good.

As the brand doesn’t exist any more (it’s been a while since I ate it for the last time, maybe 20 years ago), I’ve been thinking about recreating my favourite spread.

I wished to have a 2 colour spread. And I wished it to contain a lot of hazelnuts.

At the same time I came upon Linda’s recipe of homemade dark chocolate and roasted hazelnut spread. Exactly what I wished to have in my KinderLada.

That’s the recipe I followed. Instead of peanut oil I took my homemade hazelnut oil. The white spread contains no cocoa but all other ingredients.

Divine!

Now you have two choices: a) you can believe me or b) you can make it (I highly recommend the second choice )

And now forth to running.

I set myself a goal in August. I’d like to run a total of 200 km. So far I ran 56 km (below 28 km recorded, three runs were unrecorded).

That’s the challenge I created myself to be more motivated:

And just today I found another one which is also awesome, even more motivating: run most kilometers in August. So far I have no distance recorded since I’ve just joined. But that’s going to change soon!

Well, three years ago (in August) I ran a total of 600 km.

After a month of running my feet looked like this:

Only 3 black nails .

So far I ran 3204 km with Nike+ chip, still quite a bit to run to reach the black level which is the final level.

Today’s run was awesome. I played this game Pass or be Passed. I didn’t mean to run fast at all but I heard steps behind me so I speeded up. Well, the guy was appearantly faster than me and he was the only one who passed me the 9 km which I ran. I passed quite a few other runners, so I guess I understand the game .

Today it was rainy. Do you run in rain? I liked it.

Do you prefer white or dark hazelnut spread? I always preferred the white one since I liked the colour better. The black one would last much longer.

Time to announce the giveaway winner.

Nr. 3, that’s Sunshinevegan!

Congrats!!

Please e-mail me your address so I know where to ship the bars