Apple-Pear-Caramel pie

Crust:
- 315 grams of flour
- 1 tbs sugar
- pinch of salt
- 225 grams of cold butter (I used plantbased butter)
- about half a cup of cold water

Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix it with the flour mixture. With your hands, mix the butter and the flour mixture until there are no large pieces of butter left. start adding cold water to the mixture and mix until a you have a nice ball of dough. for easier handling, pop the dough in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Filling:
- any fruit (for this pie; 2 apples and 4 pears)
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/4 of white sugar (or just 1/2 cup of white sugar)
- 1 tsp of cinnamon (depends on how strong you want the cinnamon flavour to be)
- pinch of nutmeg
- pinch of salt
- 3 tbs of cornstarch

Caramel:
- sugar

put a couple tablespoons of sugar in a small pot and let it go slightly brown, don't make the caramel too dark, it will go bitter!

in a small bowl, mix the sugars, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. cut of the fruits and put them in a bowl with the lemon juice. Add the suagr-mixture to the fruit and combine.

Roll out the dough (make sure to use enough flour so the dough doesn't stick to the countertop). divide your dough into two parts. Put half of your dough into a pie tin, (I used a 8-9 inch tin) and put your filling in it. use the other half to cover the top of the pie (I sometimes use cookie cutters to make the top extra cute;) )  bake your pie 20 minutes on 220 degrees Celsius and another 30/40 minutes on 190 degrees.

It's so easy to variate with this recipe, you can add or leave out whatever you want, you could do wild berries instead of apples and pears and chocolate instead of caramel (one of my favorites as well).

My basic smoothie recipe

Here's a really easy smoothie recipe that you can variate with!

For my morning and sometimes afternoon smoothie I use a couple really basic ingredients and then I add in whatever I feel like eating that day!

Ingredients basic smoothie

(2 servings/ 1 big serving)

- 1 banana

- 1 cup of  (plant based or dairy ) yoghurt
  (I usually use a fruity greek yoghurt that matches the fruit I will use that day)

- a little splash of fruit/veggie juice (optional)

- whatever fruit or veggie you like!

My favorite smoothie combo's are:

Wild berry smoothie

- 1 banana

- 1 cup of wild berry yoghurt (or any other kind of berry flavoured yoghurt)

- 1 cup of strawberries

- 1 cup of wild berries (such as cherries, raspberries, blueberries etc.)

*Kiwi also tastes really good in this smoothie

Tropical smoothie

- 1 banana

- 1 cup of peach-maracuja yoghurt (just peach yoghurt is fine as well)

- 1 kiwi 

- 1 cup of pineapple

- a splash of pineapple juice

Vitamin kick smoothie

- 1 banana

- 1 freshly squeezed orange

- 1 kiwi

- 1/2 cup peach greek yoghurt

As you may have noticed I barely use veggies in my smoothies, I just like my veggies better in a salad but veggies work really great in smoothies!

I hope you'll give this recipe a try and enjoy it as much as I do!:)

  

Creamy corn soup

This is a piece I wrote while I was still in Japan, jeez, time really flies! This is a recipe for corn soup and you're able to make it with just a couple of simple ingredients. The soup has no added sugar so you can feel a 100% good about it!:) have a great day everyone!

I tried making this soup again today and I found that it was really thick and I only had soup for about one person, so I suggest adding some more milk or a little bit more of the juice from the corn.


I promised I would update on a regular basis..and yes, I know I did the exact opposite but at least I have an update n
ow! since I'll be going back in just 2 months I wanted to know some of my hostfamily's delicious family recipes. This recipe for Corn soup is so simple yet so delicious! let's get started!

What you'll need:

- half an onion
- a few slices of bacon (you can add as much as you want)
- 1 can of corn (about 250~300 gram)
- 1 can of milk (just pour some milk into the corn can)
- olive oil
-Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Cut the onion in slices and the bacon in little cubes, Fry for about 5-10 minutes on medium to low heat to soften up the onions and bacon. Add the corn with a little of the juice from the can. Fill the corn can with milk and add this to the pan, let it sit over low to medium heat for about 15-20 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and get your hand-mixer ready. Mix the soup until smooth and sift so the soup doesn't have any lumps in it. enjoy!:)

A delicious and healthy summer cauliflower-soup!

Hey everyone! I've been super busy the past month with all my finals but I can finally say that they're all done and I'm finally graduating! I'm glad I have time again to upload recipes on this blog. This summer I hope to upload more and perhaps upload other content besides recipes! but first a great summer soup that is good hot or cold!

you're going to need:

- 2 tbsp butter

- 2 (preferably red) onions

- 1 cauliflower

- 250 ml of whipped cream

- 1 liter vegetable or chicken stock

- About 100-200 grams of diced ham

Instructions:

Put the butter with the 2 onions (sliced finely) into a big pot and fry for about 5 minutes on low-middle heat. Cut up the cauliflower into little dices, add these to the pot and stir. Next prepare your vegetable or chicken stock (I used 1 liter of water mixed with 2 stock cubes) and add this to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste and get the mixture to a boil. Let it boil for about 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is soft and ready.

Add the cream to the pot and let the soup boil for another 5 minutes. Puree the mixture until nice and smooth and add the ham, let the ham heat up a little and you’re ready

to serve!

This is just a great recipe for summer, you can heat up the soup whenever you want to so you can make a lot in advance, sit back and relax. You can serve it with a salad or anything you like really. Hope everyone is having a great summer and until next time!:)

Homemade and healthy pasta / pizza-sauce

Since I posted a recipe for a pizza dough last week I figured I'd make a healthy and delicious sauce for on your pizza or pasta. This sauce is purely made out of vegetables and some seasoning, so no worries about your diet!:)

What you're going to need:

• 2 cans of diced tomatoes (400 grams each)
• 2 red onions
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 2-3 tsp of dries Italian herbs (I prefer to use fresh herbs but I only had dried herbs this time, but it works as well)
• 3-4 tsp of honey 
• salt and pepper for seasoning

Instructions:

1. Chop up the onions and garlic finely
2. Heat up some olive oil in a sauce pan and fry the onions until soft (5-8 minutes) on a low heat
3. Add some more olive oil and add the garlic and stir
4. Add a pinch of the Italian herbs and stir again
5. Let this simmer for another 5 minutes
6. Into a large measuring cup, add the diced tomatoes and blend  until smooth
7. Add the blended tomatoes to the sauce pan and stir
8. Add the Italian herbs, salt and pepper, stir and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes
9. Taste the sauce, if the sauce is too sour, add honey to your personal preference
10. Stir and let it simmer for another 5 minutes

Well, there you go! A pizza and pasta sauce, without added sugar and made out of only vegetables and seasoning! 

I used this sauce for a yummy panini today, the only thing you'll need for one panini is two slices of bread, butter, some cheese and a few tablespoons of the sauce. Spread the butter on the outside of the bread then turn the bread around and add the sauce and the cheese, grill for about 5 minutes and you have a delicious and quick lunch or snack!

Smoothie-time!

I have been going to the gym a lot recently, to make up for the 1,5 week I didn't go. This morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and was happily suprised to see that my tummy is slightly changing! Now I'm even more motivated :) I'm glad I made some before-pictures so that when I have reached my goal I will be able to look back to where I started.

I decided to not go to the gym today but to do a workout home instead. I think I'm going to focus on my tummy today, doing a lot of crunches, situps etc. because my legs are still super sore from yesterday (yesterday was leg-day) ;'D they're sore but it feels good somehow.

This morning I felt like making a smoothie, it was super yummy and very healthy!

what you'll need:

• 1 banana
• 1 orange
• 1 kiwi
• 1 cup (or about 150 grams) of yoghurt (I used strawberry greek yoghurt)

instructions:

1. Cut the orange in half and squeeze it out by hand or use a juicer
2. take the skin of the kiwi and cut it up in pieces 
3. Cut the banana up as well
4. Put the banana, kiwi, yoghurt and orange juice into a blender and blend it up!

I absolutely love this smoothie, it tastes like a dessert for breakfast and it's super healthy! I usually have smoothies for breakfast if I'm going to workout, 

I hope you'll like this recipe and stay healthy!:)

Yummyyy homemade pizza dough

Yesterday I had a craving for some seriously unhealthy food, but I have been having one cheat-day after another the past two weeks so I decided to make my own pizza dough. It does take a little bit more time than just popping a pizza into the oven, but it's so much healthier and just as delicious!:)

This pizza dough recipe is super simple and you don't need a lot of ingredients! Perfect for a day when you plan to eat healthy but decide to give in to your growling stomach!

what you're going to need:

• 7 grams of yeast

• 1 cup  (warm) water

• 1 tsp honey

• 2,5 cups flour

• 0,5 tsp salt

• 1 tbs olive oil

This recipe is for 2 (medium-large sized) pizza's. 

instructions:

1.    Put the warm water into a small bowl, and add the yeast and honey, let this sit for approximately 15 minutes.

2.    Add into another (big) mixing bowl the flour and the salt, stir a little to combine. 

3.    Add the water-honey-yeast mixture to the mixing bowl

4.    Knead this until it forms a dough. Sometimes there will be some leftover flour, just add a little more water to let the flour stick to the dough.

5.    Add the olive oil to the dough and knead again.

6.    Dust your countertop with some flour to prevent the dough from sticking.

7.    Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and knead thoroughly for 10 minutes.

8.    Put the dough back into the big mixing bowl and put in a warm space to let it rise. I usually let the dough rise by putting the bowl into my kitchen sink, adding some warm  water into the sink and covering the bowl with a kitchen towel.

9.    Around this time you should heat up your oven to 230 degrees Celsius or to 450 degrees  Fahrenheit.

10.Take the dough out of the bowl and shape it into your desired shape.

11.Take a fork and make some holes into the dough to let it air.

12.Bake your pizza dough for 10 minutes

13.Finally, add some pizza sauce and your desired toppings and bake the pizza for approximately 20 minutes (or until the pizza is nice and golden)

what I really love about this recipe is that it's super yummy, yet it has no added sugar and bad stuff like that:) so it's totally fine to eat without cheating on your diet (depends on what kind of diet you are on of course;) )