Healthy Living in Heels

Red Pesto Pasta Salad

I started my new job 2 weeks ago and so far I like it! My traveltime to and from work is way more then before and I'm also not able to work from home anymore so needed to make some changes to my eating habits so I can keep working out every Tuesday and Thursday evening. So on Thursdays I am bringing a pasta salad with me to work which I eat during my trainride home. This one was delicious and made the guy next to me in the train jealous and that's always a good thing right ;)

Scroll down for the Dutch recipe

English recipe:

Duration: 20 minutes

The ingredients for 1 serving:

50 g spelt pasta
50 g fresh spinach leafs
8 cherry tomatoes
1 sweet paprika
75 g smoked chicken
2 tbsp homemade red pesto
20g feta cheese
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp toasted pine nuts

What you do:

Cook pasta as directed on the package. I just cooked extra pasta cooked when I had pasta for dinner. Allow the paste to cool down after it's cooked and do not forget to stir through some extra vierge olive oil so it does not stick together.
Cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters, the sweet paprika and chicken into pieces and toast the pine nuts.
When the pasta has cooled, stir the red pesto through it followed by all the other ingredients. Crumble the feta cheese on top and store in refrigerator.

Enjoy!

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Nederlands recept - Rode Pesto Pasta Salade:

Tijd: 20 minuten

De ingrediënten voor 1 portie:

50 g spelt pasta
50 g bladspinazie
8 cherrytomaatjes
1 zoete punt paprika
75 g gerookte kip
2 el zelfgemaakte rode pesto
20 g feta kaas
1 el extra vierge olijfolie
1 el geroosterde pijnboompitten

Bereiding:

Kook de pasta zoals aangegeven op de verpakking. Ik had simpelweg extra pasta gekookt toen ik pasta voor het avondeten had. Laat de pasta afkoelen als deze gaar is en vergeet niet 1 eetlepel extra vierge olijfolie erdoorheen te roeren zodat het niet aan elkaar plakt.
Snijd de cherrytomaatjes in vieren, de zoete punt paprika en kip in stukjes en rooster de pijnboompitten.
Wanneer de pasta is afgekoeld roer je de rode pesto erdoorheen gevolgd door alle andere ingrediënten. Verkruimel de feta kaas erover en bewaar in de koelkast.

Eet smakelijk!

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Looking Back at April

I often get a lot of questions about my personal life, what interests me and stuff like that. So I decided to try and make a blog post about with some of the highlights of the previous month and my favorite recipes from that month. I used an app I found after my trip to Rio because I wanted to share my holiday story with you all: 'Collect'. But as I found this app a new idea came to mind: a monthly review of each month, sharing of course lots of food stuff but also some insights into my daily life.

Typical Brazilian Food - Rice & Beans

From March 29th until April 12th I was on holiday in the absolutely amazing Rio de Janeiro! Oh my I love this city! I needed to go their for my work as I had to present some of the results of my research on the 'International Conference on Physical Activity and Prevention' so I figured I really need to book a holiday in advance! As I surfed twice before, once in the Netherlands and once in Bali and absolutely loved it, I decided to go to a Surf Hostel 40 km outside of the busy city centre of Rio. I stayed at the Surf 'n Stay hostel which is a super chill and relaxing hostel in Recreio. De people working there are all very nice and I've met some great people from all over the world in the hostel. Every day from 8 till 10 A.M. we had a surf lesson and optional one in the afternoon from 4 to 6 P.M.. The surf instructors were great and really took the time to get you up on your board and catch some great waves. They are all professional surfers so they know what to do ;). So how are my surfing skills? Well, to be honest, I'm not a natural, and after 2 days we figured out that I was standing normal when I'm actually Goofy (right feet in front). But at one point it started to go great! I even got some waves by myself, can stand up every time and even steer a bit. It was awesome, and actually there are no words to describe the feeling you get when you catch a good wave. We've also done some excursions and went walking in a sort of rainforest nearby, jumping from rocks and drinking beer and playing pool in a small sort of bar in a very tiny community build on the mountain. The food in Brazil is delicious! Lots of fresh fruits! As I was staying in Recreio which is not a very tourist like place we had lunch every day at someone's house in the neighborhood. They cook from their own kitchen and for not more than 3 euro's you get a really big plate of rice, black beans, salad, carrots, beets and fish/chicken/beef to choice. It was perfect, super fresh and just fun to figure out who was cooking that day. Made some great walks alongside the beach and also walked to Prainha Beach which is a true surfers paradise! Great big waves and only local people who are really good surfers in the water! Amazing nature surrounding it and just my absolutely favorite spot in the whole wide world right know. Oeps, the story of Brazil is getting long, but when I'm thinking back all the memories come back and I just felt so relaxed of there, nothing to worry about, just chill and enjoy! Hakuna Matata as a friend of my always says. So after 9 days of surfing, having fun, eating burgers at night, drinking beers every day with Richard and Stacey from New Zealand, going partying, surfing, relaxing and what else, I was sad because I had to leave the hostel to go to the conference. I met up with a colleague of mine who also needed to give a presentation and was on holiday with her husband and together we of course did some sightseeing in the city centre! We visited the christ statue, sugar loaf mountain, escadaria selaron, the favela's, copacabana beach and many many more stuff! It was great to see it up close, but if I'm honest I preferred my stay in the hostel and surf every day.. Can't wait for the next surf vacation!

My favorite spot!

The favela's

And then Sunday 13th of April came and I was back home, had only Monday off and on Tuesday I started my new job as a Research Consultant for ArboNed in Utrecht! Got a beautifull bouquet of flowers so felt really welcome. But this new job is one and a half hours by train from my home in the morning and in the afternoon. And it's 40 hours a week at the office. So I needed to take food prepping to a new level and make sure that every night I prep my breakfast and lunch for the day after. And also a pasta salad for Thursdays so I can get to the gym straight from work to save some time.I actually really like the pasta salad and it will be up on the blog soon!

My favorite recipe this month: Fish Quesadilla's

The first weekend I was back in Holland it was Easter, I celebrated the birthday of Lieneke on Saturday and on Sunday it was the birthday of one of my best friends. The wheater was great so we decided to go to DGTL festival in Amsterdam. It's a festival with techno, deephouse, electro music and so on and we love it! So we had a super fun day! Luckely on Monday we were free from work. Had a relaxing day reading one of my favorite magazines: Womens Health Magazine so on Tuesday I was ready to go to work again. More food prepping, and on Friday I always plan my meals for the next week. So I was getting some food ideas from Delicious magazine.

On saturday it was Kingsday which is a national holiday in the Netherlands. There are flee markets and party's all over the country and everybody dresses up in orange. I decided to stay in my hometown and get a drink with Charlotte. We had a super fun and absolutely hysteric day. Celebrating sunday pancake day with my delicious banana-egg pancakes and the weekend was already over.

So this month was about holiday, having fun, eating healthy during the week and cheating a bit in the weekends. I'm so busy, so I think it's important to relax and have a good time when you can so yes, some drinks this months, but I had fun, remained eating clean and healthy and I feel great! Hope you liked reading this post and get to know me a little bit better!

Party in Recreio

Quark Bread // Kwarkbrood

For a while know I see all sorts of banana and quark breads on Instagram. Of course I also made a banana-blueberry bread, which was absolutely delicious! But more like a cake. So time to try out a new recipe. I used the basic recipe from Puur Suzanne and oh my this one is delicious! Need to make sure I don't eat the whole thing at once. This is also perfect to take with you to the office and makes a nice and healthy snack!

For people living outside of Eastern Europe Quark isn't that well known. Just replace it with the same amount of Greek yoghurt and it will be perfect!

Scroll down for the Dutch recipe