Do you now what I got for Christmas? Fat, I got Fat!

During and after the holidays is very complicated to keep up with the good habits. Sweets, salty food, left-overs, and all the treats around you seem to make it impossible, and then there's the new year's eve a few days after, oh, what a shame! It's still not an excuse to eat junk all the time, try to have some meal that does you good. Eating a healthy breakfast (as I've talked about a few days ago), is a great way to do it. Fill your body with vitamins and water to cleanse. Eat light meals but rich in vegetables and fruit that will help you gain your weight back! I can't say I did it these last days, but I sure ate less at dinner and forced myself to eat a lot of fruit. 

Check out my morning treat and what I had for lunch! Always add a soup if you don't want to eat greens, or they don't fit in the recipe. I had spinach cream before the Tofu and Pickles.

Morning Breakfast

Soy yogurt (strawberry)

Vegan chocolate cake

1 Apple

Black Tea

Tofu&Pickels

This is based on a Portuguese recipe called "Carne de Porco à Alentejana", which is basically pork meat with ground pepper and pickles or clams, it's very tasty, salty, and delicious. I had this idea to try it with seitan or tofu, this time I had tofu, so here it is:

Tofu

Pickles

Garlic

Onions

White Wine

Ground Pepper

Salt

Olive Oil

I seasoned the tofu with garlic and the ground pepper for a little bit to enhance the flavor. Heated the olive oil, added the onions and everything else. Add the wine in the end. Serve with white rice and pour the sauce on top of it.

Merry Christmas, Baby

Merry Christmas everyone! I wish you all the best in the world; a life filled with health and happiness.
It has been a working holiday, so yesterday I had no time to post my Christmas treats, and share them with you. Today, hopefully I'll have the time to do it. My dinner last night involved codfish that was delicious (made by my mom) and also vegetarian food (made by my aunt). Everything was delicious! This morning was also very good, although windy and rainy, starting with a delicious chocolate cake, orange juice and breakfast tea to wake up. The lunch will still take some time to be served, so here's a sneak peak of how the holidays have been so far!

Feliz Natal a todos! Desejo-vos o melhor no mundo; uma vida cheia de saúde e felicidade.
Foram dias de festa a trabalhar, por isso ontem não tive tempo para partilhar com vocês as guloseimas de Natal! Hoje, espero eu, acho que vou ter tempo pada o fazer. Aqui o jantar de ontem envolveu bacalhau que estava delicioso (feito pela Mãe) e também comida vegetariana (feita pela Tia). Estava tudo tããõo bom! 
Esta manhã também foi muito boa, embora ventosa e chuvosa, começou com um bolo de chocolate irresistível, sumo de laranja e chá preto para acordar. O almoço ainda vai demorar algum tempo a ser servido, portanto aqui está um pequeno preview do que tem sido o meu Natal! 



Catarina, XO XO 

Squid your way out!

Complicated situations sometimes ask for gentle and unnoticable escapes, so why not "squid" your way out of it? :)

Today I woke up inspired to cook: great!

For breakfast, and to wake up the neighboors, I made a fresh fruit juice including 2 clementines (without the peel), half a lemon (with the peel), 1 persimmon and a little bit of ginger. Added some water and blended it all together.  It was delicious and you could feel the lemon taste with a slight hint of the ginger, just enough and nice to me. I ate a soy yogurt from the brand Soygurt (which I buy at the local supermarket: LIDL) with muesli, linseed and a few cereals that taste like honey (Golden Grahams). I was all very good, and of course the best way to wake up, is to get the best fuel to start the day, so never forget your breakfast: the MOST importante meal of the day!

After work, walked the dog, and didn't feel like doing much for lunch, so I boiled some cheese tortellini, spinach, and joined it with 1 can of tuna fish, grated mozzarella cheese, oregano6black pepper and some ketchup. It was actually very good, if you don't like cooked spinach, try brocolli, it's also very good. It placed ketchup instead of real tomato sauce, because I didn't have much time to cook, of course if you have the time, fry some onions and garlic with tomato sauce, join the tuna and the rest of it, and it will be even more delicious! 

Work ended, and I felt like doing something I had in mind since the Christmas spirit hit me, do some decorations with a few nature gifts my dad gave me. Here's how it turned out: (I'm actually very glad how it turned out, and I love it!)

I'm decorating my rented house for Christmas the very first time, I never had the opportunity because I always spent the holidays in my parents house, but now with work occupying all of my time, I really needed to come home and have this lovely decorations all around me.

And then, came dinner... I had an idea for a while, that involved stuffed squids, so here are my spicy stuffed squids:

Spicy Stuffed Squids avec Broccoli & Carrots

4 Squids

A little bit of soy chourizo

5 Garlic cloves

Half an onion

Olive oil

1 Tomato

Coriander

White Wine

Toothpicks (to close the content)

4 Broccoli heads

1 Carrot

Vinegar

Salt

Black pepper

Dad's spicy sauce

First I blended the filling: tomato, garlics, salt and chourizo all together with a little bit of olive oil. Cleaned the squids really well, specially their insides, removing all the guts and bones (they have a really thin bone). Stuffed the squids with the filling, closed them. Boiled some water and added the brocolli and the carrot.

Heated in a big pan, olive oil & a vegetable oil (called Vaqueiro Líquida), added the onions, coriander (dried), white wine, black pepper, and the spicy sauce, wait until it cooks a little bit, add some water and the squids. Turn them over 3 times, and wait till it's done.

Season the broccoli and carrots with olive oil and vinegar, cut half a bread and place the squids & sauce over it. 

Wait till your mouth starts salivating, and eat. It is very good!

I had a lot of fun doing this, and of course, my dog was very bored by all the time I spent cooking, so now I'll just go and give her some snuggles before we go to bed. 

Good night everyone.

Love,

Catarina