Early breakfast

Time for a early breakfast during a work week... 

A few more minutes and then I have to go...

Mealprepping

Busy on a Sunday with mealprepping, making several meals ( Hachee, Dutch stew) for the coming week.

Honeymoon part three: Florida

Breakfast at Dunkin Donuts after I did my daily run!

 

Watching a baseball game of the Tampa Bay Rays!

Spending the day at Wet’n Wild, couldn’t take any photo’s once we were inside because we were to busy getting on all the rides!

 

Entrance of Universal Studios

 

This is the last photo that we took of Universal Studios… Once we got inside, the battery went dead…!

 

One of the lovely beaches of Florida.

 

Relaxing at the beach. Usually it was too hot to sit down and we would walk along the shore

 

 

We much more enjoyed the pool that came with our holiday home. The temperature was better there and we had it all to ourself!

 

So, this is the last post of a very nice and unique experience for us: the wedding and honeymoon. Life has gotten back to normal, working, etc. But this is a lovely memory for us and one that’s nice to share with you all!

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!

I love me some oatmeal

Most of you know by now that I love oatmeal! A while ago I read the blog of Kath Eats Real Food and she wrote a piece about her tribute to oatmeal. Kath talks to great about oatmeal that I tried it as breakfast and it got me hooked on the stuff! I was looking for a breakfast that would fill me and would get me through a few hours without craving something bad. and oatmeal does that for me.
So in no time I assembled an oatmeal shelve and this is hoe it looks like!


I also bought a sign from Wood & Wood Stool which says Havermaud. This is a little joke and difficult to explain in english. The easiest way to explain is that the Dutch word for oatmeal is Havermout. And because my name is Maud, and II used to get teased (and people still do!) because my name sounds just like the word Havermout. So now I just created the word Havermaud to express my love for oatmeal and get a laugh out of it all! Ok, it mays sound a bit silly but my friends and family laughed when they saw the sign and immediatly understood the reason why! I have also created another blog Havermaud where I write in Dutch about my love for healthy food and try to give suggestions how to life healthy.

I have to say that this shelve & sign has brought a personal touch in our kitchen and made it more us. I bought another sign at Wood & Wool stool but that one will be revealed after the wedding!

Coffee & quiche

Today turned out to be a great day, both weather as activity wise.

I went to the gym, did some weigth training and then took a spinning lesson. I don't take spinning lessons often but I really enjoyed myself and got a great work out. I think I'll take a few more classes starting today as it is a change of the cardio training I normally do which is the treadmill or running.

When I got home, I ate another bowl of oatmeal because I was really in the mood for it, got showered and changed and met my friend Paula to go to the city centre of The Hague. We walked around and went to Eko Plaza, another organic supermarket and bought sugar free licorice and a jar of almond/hazelnut butter.

Then we went to the Coffee Company to sit down and have a coffee. The Coffee Company is like a Starbucks and every big city in the Netherlands has one. Now I'm a relatively new coffee drinker and like to experiment to taste the coffee in various coffee places.

I ordered a latte macciato which is warm milk, 3/4 of a cup and than add espresso coffee. It was delicious! Paula had the same but added coconut syrup and I had a plain one. The atmosphere was really good and we sat at a large tables with different people next to us. It all looked very trendy! You could also buy all sorts of pastry but we passed on those because before we left, we ate a few of the oatmeal cookies I made.

When I got home, I baked a quiche. I made a vegetarian one with zucchini, red pepper, eggs, non fat French yoghurt, tomato sauce, goat cheese and salt & pepper. I put it in the over for 45 and this is the result!

The sides were a bit burned but other than that I tasted really good! I had a simple salad on the side which made it a nice dish for dinner.

Well, I'm going to start my tv evening and wait till S. comes home. I expect it will be a short evening and be in bed soon! This week is going to be a busy one!

Have a great evening and talk to you soon!

Oatmeal sunday

Hi Everyone,
And good morning on a dreary sunday here. The weather forecast says that it remains rainy and greyish all day. But yesterday it started rainy and grey but ended with sunshine and blue skies! So I have my fingers crossed!

I spent the day at my computer, as promised, and actually finished the whole assignment! I send it to my teacher for a last check before I hand it in and then that's done! And maybe start with another course but what, I don't know!

So today will be a more relaxing day, but still enough to do around the house. But first... breakfast!

I made oatmeal along with a tablespoon of chiaseeds, a little bit of vanilla extract, a bit of cinnamon and topped it of with Turkish yoghurt, almond butter and coconut. it was, as always, delicious! Along with my dear friend, sliced apple, it was a great start to the day.

I bought Turkish yoghurt for the first time. I saw it at the supermarket and read on the label that it only had three percent of fat and Greek yoghurt normally has ten percent of fat. I have to say that it was nice but I need to try some more to give it a real opinion.

S. had a great time at the bachelor's party but has to go to work today so he'll be gone soon and I'm going to the gym. Haven't been there in a week and I need to get back there! Have eaten a lot of good, good food but still a lot, and I need to get in bridal shape! Still five more weeks to go! It's going really fast all of a sudden and we're ready for it!

Have a great sunday!

Donny Graves

Last week I read a post on Facebook that there was an introduction of Donny Graves cookies, a new cookie at Marqt, a new organic supermarket in The Hague which quickly became a new to go supermarket for me!

S. and I went together en we were able to taste all the flavours. There are three flavours but we just bought two: Chewy chocolate chip cookie and the Chewy homestyle oatmeal raisin cookie. I have only tried the chocolate chip version and it's wonderful! I've been trying to cut back on my sugar intake and this cookie is not that sweet but sweet enought, it's really good! Yesterday I went back to Marqt and bought another Donny Graves!

If you're in the neighbourhood, you should really stop by Marqt, they have all kind of special organic products: an impressive bakery, cheese and fish department! I'll blog about that another time. They are located in the middel of the city centre so you can make a day of it, while you can!

Photo: www.levensmiddelenkrant.nl

Weekend baking

To start the weekend well, I baked the whole evening yesterday! This is a way for me to relax and let the world fall off my shoulders. Now I especially love to bake different kind of cookies and cakes but because I'm living a healthy lifestyle, so that doesn't really go anymore.

The whole week I was thinking of what to make and looked all over the internet. S. and I went to Marqt and saw a slice of currant bread and realised that I could also make this! Currant bread is a typically Dutch recipe; it's bread with raisins in them. Normally you use white flour but I used whole what one, it's a bit heavier but that just means that it takes longer for the bread to finish.

I tries it yesterday for the first time and this is the result!

The ingredients are:

500 gram of whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
a half teaspoon of salt
a cup of milk (I used almond milk)
500 grams of raisins
1 bag of yeast
a tablespoon of cinnamon
3 tablespoons of olive oil
about a cup of water

You heat the oven to 50 degrees Celsius. You put the raisins in a bowl with warm water, not hot! you stir the flour, yeast, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. In the middle you make a little hole and sprankle the salt along the side of the hole. You put the milk and the olive oil in it and stir until it becomes dry. Add bit by bit the water until the dough because sticky. You add the raisins and stir again. Put everything in a cake form and let it rise in the over for 60 minutes. After that bake it for 45 minutes on 2000 degrees Celsius. (http://www.mijnreceptenboek.nl/recept/broodgerechten/krentenbrood-2348.html

This morning I had two slices, one with plain butter and the other one with butter and light strawberry jam, delicious!

Ofcourse served with a cup of Rooisbos tea!

Last night, I also made a batch of oatmeal cookies. I also used whole wheat flour in this recipe. The cookies were nice but i like them more doughier and these are a bit hard. I've tried several recipes but can't seem to have found the perfect one. Oh well, just keep on trying! I also have a great banana cake recipe that I dying to try but let's do that next week before I'm groing back to my old size!

Speaking of which, I'm hitting the gym this afternoon but first study and try to do as much as possible.

Enjoy your morning!

Oatmeal & bare bottoms in the grass

Yesterday evening I was looking on the internet to try to find several recipes for oatmeal. For the last few months, I have grown to love oatmeal. It's very tasty and it's great for feeling full and no snacking in the morning! There’s seems to be a lot more choice in the USA than in the Netherlands when it comes to oatmeal brands, possibilities, etc. I would like to do something about that!

I’m planning to try several oatmeal recipes and try several brands. The two most well known brands of oatmeal in the Netherlands are Brinta and Quaker. These are instant oatmeal which means that you only need to heat up milk, when it’s warm add the oatmeal, stir it for about 30 seconds and eat it. That’s the kind I’m eating in the morning. In fact, I have quite a lot oatmeal at home so I’m not planning to buy anything else like steel cut oats for the time being. But I think it’s fun to see what I can create each morning. I have to tell you that I’m very loyal to a taste/ flavour if I like it so there’s a change that you will see the same recipes for several days in a row.

With that being said, this morning I tries something new. This morning I used the following ingredients:

250 ml skimmed milk

35 gram instant oatmeal

2 tablespoons of chia seeds

2 tablespoons of raisins

2 tablespoons of non fat yoghurt

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

I let the chia seeds and raisins well overnight and in the morning put the milk, oatmeal, chia seeds and the raisins in a pan and cook it for about five minutes. Normally I heat up the milk, put it in a bowl and add the oatmeal. But now, once it was all in a pan and it started to cook, it started to get think and more fluffy than I’m used to. I pored everthing in a bowl and added the yoghurt and cinnamon. When I took my first bite, I was hooked! I loved it! Just make sure that you stir the chia seeds through the oatmeal because otherwise the seeds will stick together! I had my sliced apple and a cup of rooibos tea, as usual, and it was perfect. A great start to the day!

I had planned to eat nothing till lunch to try and see if this meal would get me through lunch. Sadly (or not!) my manager bought me and my colleagues coffee and something sweet. So I chose a cappuccino and a bar of Tony Chocolonely chocolate and ate a few pieces. Later in the day I gave the rest to my colleagues and they loved it!

Lunch was, again, nothing special: 3 sandwiches with chicken filet, mustard and veggies. I never make photo’s of my lunch because, I’m sure, my colleagues will have a big lough!
In the afternoon I snacked on an apple, a small kiwi and a few radishes. I cleaned them in the morning.

Dinner tonight was grilled chicken, french beans with cannelonni beans, herbs and sweet potatoe fries. The french beans with cannelonni and herbs are called “bare bottoms in the grass” in the Netherlands which I got from the new Allerhande. Can you tell why? I also added a tablespoon of hummus for the veggies and the fries. It kinda made like a sauce which was good!

Dessert was simple: rooibos tea with two whole wheat cookies in front of the TV watching DC cupcakes.

This week has been low in terms of exercising. After Sunday, my feet and knees hurted a bit and I wanted to rest before any injuries would accure. I feel much better know and am planning on going to the gym tomorrow and slowly start to get back to my fitness regime; 30 minutes of weigth training and 40 minutes of (interval) cardio. On May 5, my wedding dress is being altered and I need to look good!

Speaking of the wedding: the important preparations has been done and it is now down to the details. I’m thinking of a nice thank you presents for the guests when the wedding is over. Do you have any ideas, I would love to hear them!

I’m going to study now, have to hand in my school assignment before April 30 and I still have a lot to do.

Enjoy your day, wherever you are!

Thank You Thank You Thank You

Wow, thank you very much for your kind comments about me patricipating the 10 km at the marathon of Rotterdam! I really appreciate it, thank you, thank you , thank you!

Today was back to reality! I started in the morning with oatmeal. It contained 250 ml of low fat milk, 35 grams of oatmeal, a tablespoon of granola and a teaspoon of chia seeds. Along with a sliced apple and a cup of green tea. The oatmeal was a bit bland. I used to like it like that but ever since I added almond butter and yoghurt to it, it’s much better. I’ll try again tomorrow!

I couldn’t go on my bike to work today because the bicycle chain is broken. So I took the tram but halfway went out and walked to work. This way I thought that I would do some exercise. The only thing was that my feet and knees hurted a bit from yesterday so walking wasn’t going really easy but I managed.

Lunch was pretty basic with a cup of vegetable soup, three dark whole wheat sandwiched with chicken filet, mustard and salad on top of it. Around 3 pm I had an Apple and a small kiwi. This was enough to get me through to dinner!

Dinner tonight was a healthy pasta bolognaise. I got this recipe from Dutch weigth loss queen Sonja Bakker. Gradually I changed the recipe and made it more mine. I make the pasta sauce with what I have at home, which usually is:

Low fat minced beef, about 350 gram

Beef spices

2 cans of sliced tomatoes

An onion

Garlic

Vegetable broth

Sliced vegetables, about 350 gram

Several herbs like fresh basil and Italian spices

A tablespoon of capers

Salt and pepper

Cayenne powder

I don’t add any fat but bake the meat in it’s own fat, then add the onion and garlic. Then add the tomatoes, vegetables, broth, herbs and cook it for about 10 minutes. For the pasta I used whole wheat penne and I added extra French beans to be sure that it was a healthy meal! It tasted great and I made enough to put it in the freezer so we can eat it another time. Dessert was nothing special. S. had low fat lemon yoghurt and I had non fat yoghurt with a little bit of cinnamon in it.

It is now time to sit on the sofa and watch a little bit of tv. Tonight I’m going to bed early because I need to be up early to go on the road for work. I’ll take a few healthy food options with me, just not sure what. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Talk to you soon!

Today was the day: 10 km marathon of Rotterdam

Today was the day!

Today was the day that I finally participated in a race in the marathon of Rotterdam! I was born and raised in Maassluis, a small town nearby Rotterdam and this annual marathon was a big thing for me as a child. I watched it on tv and always dreamed of participating, even it that meant giving out cups of waters to the runners! But I thought that something as a marathon would be impossible for me and that it only  was for the real athletes. Then life happened and I forgot about the dream, had different interests and gained weigth in my twenties. I would lose the weigth, gain it again, lose it and then gain it again.

When I turned 31, I thought 'No more'! I started going regurlary to the gym and watched what I ate. Then last summer I went on holiday to Spain. There was a small gym at the appartmentcomplex and hotels where we stayed but it wasn't very professional. Then we were in Valencia where there was a large park in front of our hotel, I had my running shoes with me and thought that running would be a good option instead of going to the hotel gym. So during the holiday, I ran regurlary. And when we got back home, I continued running, joined a running team for a short time and learned techniques how to run the best way that suits me.  By now I learned that besides the whole marathon I could also run a 5, 10 or 21 km. In that time I was fit enough to run a 10 km. Then life happened again, I stopped exercising and gained some weigth again. But then it happened that I thought about that dream I had as an child about running in Rotterdam.

So at the beginning of this year, I decided that I mattered too and to life a healthy life, I needed to go back to the gym and I started exercising again. In January I decided to run my very first 10 km in The Hague. I ran the 10 km in March and set a personal record of 1h03m and realised that I could just as well enter myself in the 10 km in Rotterdam and so I did. And today was the day!

This morning I made a breakfast suitable for champions: oatmeal with a banana, a teaspoon of almond butter, a tablespoon of yoghurt, a tablespoon of granola, chia seeds and coconut seeds. I felt full immediatly but I ate it 2 1/2 hours before the start so I knew it would be digested enough by the time I would start.

S. went with me which was very nice because he's starting to become my personal coach/manager! Really nice to have, ha ha! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures of the event because there wasn't enough time and because I was too focused before the start.

S. did make a small film as soon as he saw me. You can only see me in the first second!

I eventually ran a new personal record of 58minutes and 46 secondes! While running, I felt good and had a feeling that I could finish within the hour. When I finished and saw the time, I nearly cried of happiness! Look how beautiful this medal is!

I made a special playlist for this race:

Genesis                             Turn it on again

Gavin DeGraw                  Not over you

Ik dans, dus ik besta      Het Goede Doel

Nooduitgang                     Het Goede Doel

Forever                              Chris Brown

Eye of the Tiger                Rocky IV

Dance in the Dark           Lady Gaga

The Flood                           Take That

Music Inferno                   Madonna

Dancing in the dark        Bruce Springsteen

Crazy                                    Seal

Makes me wonder         Maroon 5

Binnen                                 Marco Borsato 

* For the Dutchies who are reading this blog, if you know these songs of Het Goeden Doel you probably know that these song have a great beat and this is nice while running! For those who don't know, Het Goeden Doel is a Dutch band and had their glory days in the 80's! My sister loved their music and for me this is nostalgia!

What about you, have you realised a childhood dream/ And do you have a song you love that is so bad but you love it anyway?

Talk to you soon!

Chicken Cashew

We just came home from having dinner at our fiends. They introduced us to the fenomenon Chicken Cashew!

It is fried chicken with a sweet ginger sauce and cashew nuts, served with brown rice. It has a lot of carbs but I condered it has a good meal, in preparing for tomorrow! We ended the meal with a lovely latte macchiato with a little bit of Starbucks vanilla syrup. We went for a walk around the neighborhoud to walk off a few of the calories, ha ha. It is going to be a short evening because we're leaving early to Rotterdam tomorrow. Have a great evening and wish me luck for tomorrow!

Eggplant for dinner

Happy weekend everyone! Hope you have great plans!

Yesterday I didn't blog because it was a busy day at work and after that I did grocery shopping, made dinner and then went straigth for the couch and my Ipad! I did however made a few pictures of my day.

To start with breakfast: a easy version of granola. I had some yoghurt left and paired that with five tablespoons with granola, a sliced apple and some cinnamon. Since I'm living a healthier lifestyle, cinnamon has because a reliable and great friend! Like every morning, I had a cup of rooibos tea.




And made lunch to go: three pumpkin yeast sandwiches with chicken breast and a tomato. For later in the day, I'll have a whole wheat sandwich with apple syrup and a banana because I'll be starving and I'll be eating late in the evening.


Which was a good thing that I did because halfway on the way home there was something wrong with my bike, I guess the bycicle chain fell off and I had to walk... Then I had to do groceries, come back and have dinner at 7.30 pm, so to cut a long story short, I needed those carbs!

Dinner tonight was a grilled eggplant with low fat mozzarella cheese, a little bit of Parmesan, tomato and basil. With that I had wokked spinach with onion.


I got this recipe of the blog of Kath eats real food,. This has been one of my favourite meals lately! It really fills me up and you don't need cards like pasta of brown rice with that.


So I saved that for the dessert!


Low fat yoghurt with a little bit of granola, cinnamon and a whole wheat cracker!

Well, I'm about to go to the bakery. I try not to buy bread at a supermarket because the taste is just not the same as from a good bakery, and I'm very picky with bread. Here in the Netherlands, you have so much choice in the different types of bread, from whitter than white to the darkest whole wheat bread. I'm going for that last one but S. likes it a bit more light but still whole wheat. I wondering how it is going to be like when we go to the USA and buy bread over there. I'm guessing that there's more lighter bread but we'll see.

Today I'm relaxing, doing some homework (i have to finish my assignment for school before April 30) and tonight we're going to friends and have dinner at their house. Tomorrow is the big 10 km in Rotterdam, really looking forward to it!