A great and easy way to moisturise your body February 15, 2013

This moisturising lotion takes only 3 ingredients and a minute to prepare. It’s just amazing – not only does it hydrate your skin, but also smells delicious…

Ingredients:

• 7 ml coconut oil
• 7 ml almond oil
• 3-4 drops rosewood essential oil

Now, you can use any essential oil you would like, in my case I decided on rosewood as it has a calming effect and is also good in the cases of stretchmarks. You can use up to 5 drops, but I prefer only 3 as essential oils tend to have really strong smell and I like the coconut oil aroma to be prevalent.

Also, this looks as a really small quantity, but your skin only needs a bit of it, otherwise it absorbs the oils harder. I even had some left for my face as well. Even if you feel that your skin is still oily, it is not an issue to put your clothes on, they won’t be affected in any way, only the smell of your moisturiser will linger for a long time after that.

Hope this helps. 🙂

Bean Salad February 14, 2013

When I was little, my mom used to make bean salad very often – the classic mixture of beans and onions. I hadn’t eaten this meal for years, so the other day I decided to make my own bean salad. Now, the thing with me is that I love complexity, so only 2 ingredients simply did not work for me. That’s how I ended with the thing below:

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Serving size: 350 g

Portions: 2

 Nutritional values per serving (approximately) – no oil or other additional fats included:

Calories: 150 kcal

Fat: 1.2 g

Carbs: 18 g

Proteins: 12.4 g

Ingredients:

• a tin of mixed beans – around 250 g when drained (it’s better to cook the beans yourself, I just did not have the time to soak some in advance)
• 200 g mushrooms
• 50 g carrots
• 100 g onions
• 100 g pickled gherkins

Seasoning – a pinch of:

• sea salt
• dill
• parsley
• a bit of squeezed lemon
• hot chilli powder
• garlic powder

Firstly, I chopped the carrot, onions and mushrooms and put them in a pan for 10-15 minutes. As I did not add any oil or fat, I added a small amount of water so that they wouldn’t burn. After that, I added the beans, chopped gherkins and seasoning to the pan, and left them to simmer for 5 more minutes. Easy and delicious.

P.S.: As I love bright colours in my food, I think that natural sweet corn would be a good addition.

Peppers, mushrooms and lentils meal

So, I decided to experiment with food yesterday, as my only other option was to write an essay. I told myself: ‘Cooking it is.’, and grabbed the apron. In the end, I prepared something that does not look very flattering, but it turned out just amazing.

Cooking time: approx. 40-45 minutes
Nutritional information (approximately):
Serving size: 400g
Portions: 2
Calories per serving: 210 kcal
Fat: 3 g
Carbs: 31 g
Proteins: 13 g

Ingredients:

• 3 Bell peppers
• 300 g mushrooms (the type does not matter)
• 70 g green lentils
• 100 g carrots
• 100 g onion
• 400 g sieved/chopped tomatoes

 Seasoning – a pinch of:

• sea salt
• dill
• parsley
• hot chilli powder
• fenugreek

(I did not use oil or any additional fat, so if you decide to use some, add it up to the nutritional values.)

Firstly, I chopped the peppers, mushrooms, carrots and onions, mixed them in a bowl and also added the sieved/chopped tomatoes. Then, I put them in a large pan and boiled them until they became soft and the juice from the tomatoes started to thicken, stirring them from time to time. That took around half an hour.

As for the lentils, I added аround 250 ml water to them and left them to boil for 5-10 minutes and then left them to simmer for 20-30 minutes.

In the end, I mixed the lentils with the other ingredients, added the seasoning and left everything to simmer for 5 more minutes. Then…voilà. 🙂