Cooking & Oatmeal

Yesterday my dear friend Paula came over and instead of working on wedding preparations (we’re getting married in one week!), we decided to bake cookies the whole afternoon!

We both love a Dutch blog Bakparade in which you can find reciped of ‘healthy’ cookies, cakes, etc. So we decided to give it a try. First, we made the sugarfree peanutbutter-banana-oatmeal cookies. They were ok but they tasted like nothing, probably because of the lack of sugar.

So we tried the next one, muffins this time: banana-gingerbread muffins. They tasted really good but we couldn’t get the wrapper of the muffin… Weird but it least it tasted good. and the healthy part is that this way you can’t eat the whole muffin!!!

And finally we made a batch of Speculoos oatmeal cookies. Speculoos is a gingerbread spread and I find it highly addictive! Couldn’t stop eating the stuff yesterday! I don’t know if you can buy it outside of the Netherlands and Belgium. but if you can, buy it because it’s easy to use in dessert/ cookie recipes!

So at the end of the afternoon, we had a lot of sweet ‘healthy’ food! Don’t the fooled by the how many cookies on the photo, by that time we already ate quite a few!

The good thing about oatmeal is that it makes me feel full so around dinner time, I wasn’t very hungry and just ate an arugula salad with lentils. No photo to show you there but it tasted amazing! I went to see the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with another dear friend. The movie was so funny, you really should see it!

Favourite Blog: Kath Eats Real Food

A while ago I discovered the foodblog Kath Eats Real Food. It is written by Kath, she’s an American who writes three times a day and usually about food. She’s a registered dietitian and writes and eats normal food and not the crazy diets that you see so many times. Oatmeal is a favourite subject on the blog and that was the reason that I went and tried several kinds of oatmeal and toppings!

I love reading about her life and how she combines eating real food and exercising. When reading this blog, you really come to the conclusion that food and excercise really belong together to create a balanced, happy live in a healthy body. You don’t have to be suppy skinny or fat and this blog helped me to realise that and have helped me to love the combination food & excercise.
Kath is pregnant at the moment and created another blog, babykerf, where she talks about her pregnancy journey and how to balance this and not grow to big from eating like a crazy person.
Take a look and hopefully be as inspired as I am!

Favourite blog: Wood Wool stool

Good morning everyone! Hope you had a great week and are ready to start the weekend, I know I am! I had a busy week, filled with work, finishing my project for school, exercising, baking and cooking!

Yesterday I had another baking friday and this time with my dear friend and neighbour Paula. We made cupcakes and banana cake, I made pictures and will show you later this weekend!

In the Netherlands, people are having a three day weekend because on Monday we're celebrating the birthday of the queen, also known as Queens day! In almost every city or town there's festivities, markets and people are dressed in orange. S. and I will spend the day with family and I'll be sure to make lot's of pictures! The rest of the weekend remains to be seen but it looks like it's going to be a calm one!

To start the weekend with some inspirations, I want to share a great blog with you: Wood & Wool Stool. I've been reading this blog for a while now and am loving it! The lady of the blog, Ingrid, runs a small company Wood & Wood Stool and sells stools, frames, signs, christmas trees that are made of old wood and wool. furtermore, you can find the most beautiful pictures of her home, it's really inspiring! I have bought a christmas tree of her last year and loved it! I would also love a stool but we already have so many stools around here. But then again, what is wrong with another stool around the house, ha ha!



Start of a 'computer' weekend

Good morning everyone and let this be a great weekend for all of you!

you won't believe how early I got up this morning! S. is away with friends for a bachelor party (not his yet) and he's coming home tonight. And because I'm not used to him not being here, I didn't sleep very well. Now, I'm usually a morning person anyway so I might as well start the day and enjoy it!

I will be glued to the computer this weekend because I want to finish my project for school and then I'm done! It will take a few hours but that's ok. I'm also planning to do a little bit of blogging and baking in between! So I'll be mixing business with pleasure, ha ha!

I want to finish this post with a lovely picture, made by Eline Pellinkhof. She's on my list of favourite interior blogs and I love here pictures! You should really take a look!

Photo: Eline Pellinkhof

Favorite blog

For a few years I am reading several blogs made by interesting womem. It would be a great idea, I think, to show you some of my favorite blogs, starting with Yvestown.

For a number of years, I have a subscription on a Dutch interior magazine called Ariadne at Home. This magazine is for people, mostly women, who like the 'brocante' look in a home, so a French/ English kind of feel and sometimes a little bit of comtemporary snugged in there. A few years ago Ariadne at Home featured the home of Yvonne Eijkenduijn, a Dutch woman who lived in the south part of the Netherlands. She has a website called Yvestown. I was so inspired by her home and interior that I started following her blog. Now a few years later, she has moved from the Netherlands to Belgium and we as readers get the change to follow her as she is renovating and decorating her home. I think it's wonderful. She uses colors that make me jealous just because S. would never go for it!

Here are some inspiring photo's:





As you can see, I am a big fan of her kitchen, it looks so lovely! And don't you justy love the quality of her photo's? I am not going to deny it, I am her huge fan of her and her website!

I think it is fun to show other people's work and I think I should do a blog feature every month. I already know which blog it is going to be but is will remain a secret till then ;-)

Have a great day everyone!