We shot this video yesterday and you might notice that my mouth was still swollen. Magically today I looked completely normal again. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I found out that I miscounted my anti-biotic pills, and I am actually taking the last one tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to getting back to our workouts :)

Tomorrow is my birthday and I am turning 28 :) I will make sure to eat enough cake to last the whole year :) It will be my last day of rest before I start the new daily workouts again on Friday. We are planning to go to a restaurant for a nice dinner tomorrow evening, but the big party will be on Friday with my siblings and friends just outside of Prague. I am going to bring a camera so that we can share some of the celebration with you guys.

I hope that you are going to enjoy this recipe. It is a very healthy and tasty vegetarian dish. Even if you are not a huge fan of cauliflower, I hope that you will give this recipe a shot. Freddy would never voluntarily eat cauliflower, but even he liked it. Here is a tip for those of you who are still doubters – you can grate a little bit of cheese into the mixture to make it even more tasty.

So the name of this recipe is Cauliflower Brain, translated from Czech ”Kvetakovy Mozecek.” It is an old Czech recipe perfect for a light dinner or a side dish. I also made mashed potatoes to go with it because I wanted to follow my dentist advice and eat soft foods. By the way the pickles were amazing with it although it took me some time to chew them :)

Enjoy,

Zuzana.

Cauliflower Brain

You will need a cauliflower, 2 or 3 onions, 3 eggs, salt, water, olive oil, and potatoes.

Heat about 3 table spoons of olive oil in a big pod and add chopped onions. Stir the onions until they start to change color.

Chop the cauliflower in pieces and mix it with the onions in the pot. Add about 2 big glasses of water and cover the pot with a lid. Cook the cauliflower until it’s soft. Oh, and don’t forget salt ;)

It will take about 20 to 25 minutes to cook the cauliflower. When the cauliflower is soft, take a fork and make a mush of it. Crack 3 eggs and mix them in. Keep stirring and cook the mixture for another 3 to 4 minutes on a medium heat.

This is Freddy’s portion.

This is my portion. One scoop of Cauliflower Brain and one scoop of mashed potatoes.

This is a recipe that I came up with over the holidays. Frederick loves it and encouraged me to share it here with you guys. I hope you will enjoy this meal. It is really delicious! Let me know how you like it.

You will need: Whole grain bread chopped in pieces, chicken breasts (1/2kg) chopped in pieces, butter, apple, large tomato, broccoli, celery, mushrooms, green or red pepper, 2 large onions, 4 garlic cloves, mixed nuts with raisons or just walnuts. Spices: sage, oregano, thyme, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, salt.

Saute one large onion with a little bit of olive oil in a large pot.

Add chicken breasts, salt, pepper, a piece of butter and 2 or 3 glasses of water. Cover with a lid and let it cook until the chicken is done. Tip: a little more butter will give it a really nice taste.

Chop up all of the fruit, veggies and mushrooms except the garlic – this goes in later.

Saute the mix on a skillet. Add a little piece of butter and the spices. You can experiment with the amount of each spice. Be careful with the cayenne pepper so that you don’t make it too hot.

Add about 3 handfuls of mixed nuts with raisons into the skillet and saute until the vegetables are soft.

Put the bread pieces in the casserole bowl. I used 3 whole grain buns. When the chicken is ready, pour the sauce over the bread and mix the chicken with the bread.

Add the garlic cloves chopped in little pieces and mix it in. You can grate some cheese over the top. I used the Gozo goat cheese which is delicious – the only goat cheese that I actually like. Put it in the preheated oven (230°C ) and leave it there for 15 to 20 minutes until the cheese is melted on the top or until the bread on the top is crunchy. You have to watch it, because it is easy to burn the top.

This is what my small portion looks like. Plan your meal according to your daily activities. Are you going to sit infront of your computer for the next 3 hours? Then you should eat a really small portion and include more vegetables. Are you going to be active? If this is the case then take a slightly larger portion.

Enjoy the salad!

Zuzana.

These are the ingredients for 1 portion:

1 cupped hand of cooked mixed beans – protein

1 cupped hand of brown rice or whole wheat – starchy complex carbs

2 cupped hands of fresh cut vegetables – tomatoes, cucumbers, celery – vegetable complex carbs

1 tea spoon of flax seeds – healthy fat

If you keep track of your portions this way, then you don’t need to count calories.

It’s a cold dish and I always cook enough beans and rice for 2 days which saves me a lot of time. I suggest that you cut the vegetable just before you are ready to eat to keep it fresh. Also I have just learned that in order to receive the benefits of flax seeds, you have to grind them. If you eat the whole seeds, they will just past through your system. I have to find a way to grind them myself at home, if you have any suggestions for that, please let me know. I don’t have a coffee grinder by the way.

Best,
Zuzana.

Ingredients:

255g whole wheat yolk free egg white noodles

2 cups of mixed frozen vegetables (carrots, peas, beans, corn)

2 water packed tuna 120g

4 slices of fat free cheddar cheese

2 spoons of lime juice

hint of ginger

3 pieces of garlic

2 large fresh tomatoes

2 cups of fresh spinach

1 spoon of olive oil

Cook the pasta.  Heat up the olive oil on a pan, and add the mixed vegetables and let them thaw and warm up. Next dump in two cans of Tuna (minus the water) and then add the cheese and let it melt. Pinch in a hint of ginger, 3 diced pieces of garlic, and lime juice. When you are finished with this, then add 2 large fresh sliced tomatoes and two cups of fresh spinach. Add salt and pepper to your personal taste. The whole meal takes about 20 minutes to prepare.

Nutritional information for the whole batch:

1605 calories, 249g carbohydrates, 102g protein, 35g fat.

Whole grain wrap

Extra Lean ground turkey 100g

Onion – 10g (1 table spoon)

Salsa – 2 table spoons

Fat free sour cream 1 table spoon

1 slice of fat free cheese

Organic Herb Salad 1 1/2 cup

Salt and pepper

Hint of Rosemary

Chop the onion and throw it on a hot pan. You can add 1 spoonful of olive oil or you can use just water. Leave the onion on the pan cooking about 1 minute so it gets glossy and then add the meat. Keep stirring until the meat is done. Add salt and pepper, a hint of Rosemary, salsa, fat free sour cream and slice of fat free cheese. As soon as the cheese melts, it’s done. Put the whole grain wrap in the oven for 4 minutes to make it warm and crunchy. When the wrap is done, put the salad on the wrap first and than the meat on top of  it and fold it in half. That’s it, it is really easy and fast to prepare and also very tasty.

Calories: 436

Fat: 12.6g

Protein: 31.5g

Carbs: 43g

I really enjoyed this turkey wrap recipe – I hope you will give it a try too. If you have any ideas about how to make this more tasty please let us know :)

Best,

Zuzana

Ingredients:

475g of chicken breasts
180g of broccoli
128g of onions
156g of carrots
9g (6 cloves) of garlic
65g of spinach
salt and pepper
Marjoram (Origanum)
2 liters of water

Carbohydrates: 77.7g
Protein: 160,4g
Fat: 15.5g
Total Calories: 1107 (for the whole big pot)

 This soup is super easy to cook and when you break it down into individual meals it’s relatively cheap per serving. You can easily pack it up in a Thermos and take it to work, and if you are at home you can leave it on low and have it ready in seconds. There are a good 6 bowls (meals) in the pot that I make and it’s easy enough to make an even bigger batch. Because this is a low caloric meal, you can add burgol or eat it with whole grain bread. My husband Frederick likes to break up two pieces of whole grain bread into little pieces and mix that into his soup – he also started putting hot sauce into it for more flavor (this might be too much :) ). Another great thing about soups and stews is that they always taste better the next day, and the pot will keep nicely in the fridge so you can enjoy your soup over the course of a few days. It also helps to take care of any leftovers in the fridge :)

Best,

Zuzana

P.S.

Obviously this soup does not contain enough calories for anyone for a whole day – but you can have this soup as part of your daily diet – just make sure that you are getting enough calories in your body each day from a variety of sources. If you don’t consume enough calories then your body will start breaking down your muscle tissue and this will lead to a slower metabolism, decreased strength and stamina and a whole lot of things you definitely want to avoid so eat up!

First take the frozen vegetables and throw them on a pan and poor a little bit of water so it wouldn’t burn or stick. The water always evaporates so you have to keep an eye on it and as soon as this happens you have to add a little bit more, until the vegetables are hot and soft. Then add 5 egg whites and mix it with the vegetables until the egg whites get some texture. Add 2 slices of the fat free cheese, 2 spoons of mustard, salt and pepper and stir until the cheese melts. It should take you about 10 minutes. Just about 1 minute before it’s ready I put 2 slices of whole grain bread in my toaster so that it’s done at the same time and ready to be served.
This meal has 390 calories, 3.1g of fat, 40.4g of protein, 48g of carbs and 8g of fiber. 
If you have some suggestions on how to make this meal more tasty or healthy, I will welcome your advice.

Best,
Zuzana.

1 crunchy apple

1 handful of peanuts

1 handful of seedless grapes

1 lettuce

1 celery

and some spinach

Enjoy!