Breakfast Soy Bread

Good afternoon everybody!

Today I finally took a day off work, it feels so good. I don't even remember when was the last day I took off...

It's a lovely sunny day here and it really lifted my mood. So to celebrate I decided to make myself a breakfast bread. I love starting the day with something yummy, especially if I bake it myself.

This recipe is very healthy, light and packed with protein. Eating a mainly vegetarian diet, I'm always concerned about getting enough protein and this bread is just the perfect breakfast for me. It would also make a great post-workout snack.

So on to the recipe.

Breakfast Soy Bread (adapted from here, it's both in italian and english) 

Note: I really need to learn how to have better lighting for my pictures!

Ingredients:

• 160g soy flour
• 1 tbsp flaxseed meal (optional)
• 2 tbsp coconut flour (optional)
• 2 tsp of backing powder
• 70g pure fructose
• 300g apples cored
• 4 egg whites
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt

Directions:
In a large bowl wisk together the dry ingredients (soy flour, coconut, flaxseed, fructose and baking powder)

Then take the eggs and separate the yolks from the egg whites (later on I'll show you what to do with those yolks... since I really hate wasting food!)

Roughly chop the apples (I ended up using one apple and a quarter) and proceed snacking on the remaining apple ;P

Now the best thing would be to have a food processor to puree the apples, anyway if you are like me with no proper processor thingy just impovise and use a hand blender.

Note: to avoid the hand blender not actually blending the apples (true story, happened to me the last time I made this bread. As you can see I'm not what you would call a pro in the kitchen!) I suggest you blending half of the egg whites (if you already use all of the egg whites, you risk them foaming up waaaay more than you want them to. Again: been there, done that!) with a little bit of the apples. Once pureed, add the remaining apples a little bit at a time and blend your little heart out and eventually add the rest of the egg whites.

You should end up with something that looks like this

Then take your bread tin and cover it with baking paper (to make it sick to the tin a little bit better, wet the backing paper and make sure you squeeze all the eccess water out).

Mix dry and wet ingredients together (I did put the yogurt, it's under the apple/egg mixture)

And pour it in the tin

Now bake it for 40mins at 150C with alluminum foil on (make sure you don't wrap it too tight) and then another 25 mins with out the foil.

Here it is the finished product

It's a little bit denser than your regular bread but I really love it with coffe or tea!

Notes: 
* You can really play with this recipe, you can add chopped fruit to it (I once added pineapple and it was lovely), raisins, chocolate chips and you can also change the apples for other fruit. I tried it with bananas and also with unsweetened apple sauce (perfect if you don't have time to puree it yourself) and they both worked great.
* If you don't have fructose, feel free to use regular sugar (I don't usually use regular sugar because, suffering from migraines, I find it that it can give me really bad headaches)
* You can also use vegetable yogurt if you like.

Let me know if you tried it and whether you modified it and how. I'm always looking for suggestions :)

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While I was busy baking look what someone else was doing...

This one really cracked me up (he was actually yawning)

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What is your favourite thing to have for breakfast? When making some new recipe do you always sick to it  or do you usually change it up? I sure know that for the life of me I can never sick to a recipe!

Love,

Elisa

Change Is In The Air

Hello everybody!

I've had some minor setbacks these last few days. I'm going through some pretty big changes, something that has been on my mind for quite some time but have actually never had the guts to do. And now it's happening all so fast, it's hard to keep up with it all. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will all turn out ok, it's terrifying and exciting at the same time. I know none of this makes sense right now, but I'll explain it all better in a couple of weeks tops when, hopefully, it'll be all a little bit clearer to me too!

Change requires a lot of strenght, more strenght than I've ever imagined, patience and faith that everything will eventually be fine.

I promise you my next posts will be a lot more uplifting.

For now I'll leave you with a couple of funny pictures of my lovely furry creatures. When I am having a sad day they always find a way to make me smile!

Sun lover Menelao,

yogi Piccolo,

and explorer Panda.

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It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But the is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life and in change there is power.

Alan Cohen



How do you deal with change? Is it something you are afraid of? Are you the type of person who remains stuck in a situation (even though you know it's not doing you any good) until you can't take it anymore? Or are you the type of person who can easily embrace change?

Love,

Elisa

When Starting Is The Most Difficult Part

Good evening everyone!

If yesterday I thought I was busy, today gave busy a whole new meaning! From this morning at 7.30a.m. I didn't get the chance to sit down until 1p.m. and then again I was running around for the whole afternoon!

The weather wasn't as helpful as yesterday to improve my mood... it went:

from this

to this!!!

Come on!

***

So, beside the crappy weather, how did my 1st day of my 28-Day Challenge go?

Well, let me just say that I'll have to work a lot harder than I thought but I am not giving up!

* Exercise didn't happen, yet, but I might try to squeeze in some core exercises before bed but I'm not all that sure, I'm pretty tired already.

Note to self: it is not a good idea to stay up till 12a.m. if you are planning a 6a.m. workout, especially if you are desperately trying to get back into the habit of working out!

* Eating 5 meals today was quite hard too. I had my snack all planned out for mid a.m. but I was out with some clients (I currently work for a real estate agency) from 10a.m. to 1p.m. . I mean, seriously?! Needless to say I was going to eat my arm off by the time I got home. Anyway I did get a chance to have a snack between lunch and dinner and it was yogurt, a huge apple (I can't get over how huge it was! And it was from the farmer's market) and 10 almonds. Quite satisfying! I love this combo, it has the tartness of the yogurt, the sweetness of the apple and a lovely crunch from the almonds.

* Water was a challenge too. I didn't have my water while I was out with the clients this morning so as soon as I got home I gulped down almost 1liter of water, I was so thirsty! The afternoon got better though and eventually I ended up drinking just about two liters of water plus a cup of tea.

* On a brighter note I did a little bit of cleaning after dinner, so I guess this went better.

All in all, there's still a lot to improve but at least I know I am going in the right direction. I do know I would have done a lot worse if it wasn't for the 28-Day Challenge.

Off to bed in a bit, I need proper sleep if I want to avoid going nuts!

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How was your day? Do you find it easy to stick to a challenge once you put your mind to it? Or do you need a few days to adjust?

Love,

Elisa