feel food club

Breakfast

The meanest green sandwich with grilled halloumi and lemon spinach

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Who doesn’t love a good sandwich? And not just a good one but a really delicious and healthy one. Marinated lemon tomato spinach paired with pesto, avocado and perfectly grilled and soft halloumi. Every single bite is a pleasure. 

Sandwiches are truly one of the best meals you can have. I mean, they consist of bread, and who does not love bread? And you can fill them with whatever you like!! Pretty genius to be honest. But really, today we are not going to make a basic boring sandwich. We are going to make a next level sandwich that makes your mouth water and still is ready in 15 minutes! 

What is special about this dish?

It is the unusual fillings if the sandwich! How often is the bread just spread with butter or mayonnaise and topped with ham and cheese? Way too often in my opinion. Not only, that it really is not healthy, but kind of boring right? In this sandwich we have an incredibly delicious combination of incredibly delicious marinated spinach that is tossed in a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, dried tomatoes and chili flakes, some delicious creamy avocado, a gentle spread of pesto, and let’s not forget about the star of the show, the soft halloumi. If you have never had the combination of avocado and halloumi, then now it’s high time.

Are sandwiches healthy and how to make them healthy

There definitely is no yes or no answer to this question. This really depends SO much on what the sandwich is made out of. If you have some white toast with butter, cheese and ham, then no, it is not healthy. There is no fiber but lots and lots of fats in it. But if you make one like this, it is fair to say that it is healthy. You have got nutrients and vitamins from the spinach, healthy fats and vitamins from the avocado, and a bunch of fibre and complex carbohydrates from the whole grain bread. The halloumi is nit super duper healthy but it is super delicious and the combination is what makes it. The sandwich is very well balanced out with healthy ingredients such as spinach and also deliciousness as the halloumi. 

But how can you make a healthy sandwich? With very easy changes, you can get a big difference in the nutritional value. It already starts with the bread. Instead of white toast, you can long for whole grain bread. More fiber and more complex carbs which will provide more nutritional value and will keep you full for longer. Then it comes to the spread. Instead of using butter, you can long for avocado, pesto or hummus for example. They all are loaded with unsaturated fats and are a healthier choice over butter. 

Then, what I always love to do is adding some kind of veggies. You can do some salad, like in this sandwich, or you can also do something else like cucumber, bell peppers, radishes or whatever you like! And for me, personally I always like to have something to be kind of the „star of the show“. So something kn the middle that really fills the sandwich and makes it taste amazing. This could be halloumi, scrambled eggs, smoked or pan fried tofu, smashed chickpeas or anything else to your desire. 

How to make this sandwich:

This is truly simple. First you need to marinate the spinach. For that you just need to combine the oil, tomatoes, lemon juice and chili flakes. Next you need to toast the bread. This is not obligatory but crispy bread just tastes better in my opinion. Next, you need ti spread the pesto on both sides. This way the bread will not taste dry and it adds a bunch of flavor. Now, we need to pan fry the halloumi. For this just add the halloumi to a pan and heat it up. And then it already is down to being assembled. Yep it is that easy! 

I really love this sandwich as a brunch, a quick lunch or an easy but still fancy dinner! It is packed with so much flavor, pretty healthy and incredibly delicious while it still is super easy to make! 

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do and will make it ok repeat! 

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Meanest Greenest Sandwich with Lemon Chili Spinach and Grilled Halloumi

a delicious, easy and healthy sandwich that is ready in basically no time! Perfect dor meal prep or as a quick lunch!

Course Breakfast, brunch, lunch
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 5 Minuten
Total Time 15 Minuten
Servings 2 Sandwiches
Calories 413 kcal

What you will need

  • 4 slices Whole grain bread
  • 1/2 Avocado
  • 125 G Halloumi
  • 2 Handful Spinach
  • 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
  • 1 Tbsp Chopped dried tomatoes
  • 1 Tsp Chili flakes
  • 1/2 Lemon juiced
  • 2 Tbsp basil pesto

How to

  1. Combine the olive oil, chopped dried tomatoes, chili flakes and lemon juice in a bowl. Add it to the spinach and mix to combine. Let sit to marinate for about 10 minutes.

  2. Toast the slices of whole grain bread. Slice up the avocado. Heat up a pan and add the halloumi. Fry for about 2-4 minutes on each side.

  3. Spread the pesto on one side of every bread. Add the spinach on top, followed by the halloumi, the sliced avocado and close with the second slice of bread!

  4. Serve and enjoy!

Happy cooking, 

Enjoy,

Katie

Double Blueberry Breakfast Parfaits with Easy 10-minute stove-top Granola

by 1 Kommentar

In the mornings it has to be quick. But still delicious, nourishing and filling. A lot of criteria to fit. A challenge, but not impossible. Double Blueberry Breakfast Parfaits with 10-minute Stove Top Granola is one of the best things you could have in the morning. Prepare the night before, enjoy in the morning. Literally, just take it out of the fridge, and there you go!

What’s special about this recipe?

The combination of the textures and flavours from the jelly-like chia pudding, the softened blueberries, the creamy yoghurt and the crispy granola. Not only the different textures work in great harmony together but also the flavours are amazing in combination.

Also we are not using your regular granola from the oven but a really simple one, that is made on the stove top. Ready in 10 minutes, super crispy, super delicious.

What are parfaits and what’s in it?

Parfaits are a dessert/ snack or breakfast that is usually served in a glass or a jar. Depending on the meal you have it for it usually is yoghurt or a dessert cream paired with fruits and layered up in a jar. The different layers make it more fun to eat and combines the flavours perfectly.

In our breakfast parfait we are having 3 different layers. The first one is a blueberry chia pudding. A creamy combination of blueberries, chia seeds and plant based milk. The second layer are blueberries. I believe frozen blueberries that have been thawed work best, because they add a bunch of flavour with their juice that is all over the jar now. Our third layer is just a delicious layer of plant based yoghurt (oat is my favourite) and our fourth and top layer is the crispy pan-fried granola!

Are they healthy?

Yes, yes and yes! Loaded with nutrients! So, let’s take it one at a time. The chia pudding is a great way to already have a super nutritious breakfast! Chia Seeds are loaded with fibre, protein and Omega-3 fats. Plus a bunch of minerals! The fibre really supports your digestive system and will keep you full for longer.

The blueberries, too, are loaded with fibre and vitamins, as any fruit is. The plant based yoghurt usually has a healthy amount of carbs and most also have probiotics in them too. And the granola, adds a great mix of carbs from the oats, fats from the almonds and some delicious sweetness (and even some nutrients) from the honey. All in all a very balanced breakfast with a combination of all food groups.

When and how to have it & meal prep friendly?

It is best to prepare everything the night before. So you make the chia pudding and layer the parfaits and make the granola ahead of time. Keep the jars in the fridge overnight and store the granola extra in an air-tight container outside of the fridge. In the morning just grab the jars, top with the granola and enjoy! You could also have this as a delicious snack or dessert. And as said, it works great for meal prep!

I hope that will add a fun twist to your breakfast and that you will have them over and over again (just as I do)! A delicious way to make your mornings a bit more nutritious!

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Double Blueberry Breakfast Parfaits with 10minute stove top granola

Easy, nutritious, delicious. We all need a delicous & quick healthy breakfast that'll fill us up and keeps us full! This is the most delicious solution!

Course Breakfast, brunch, Dessert, Snack
Prep Time 15 Minuten
Chilling time: 4 Stunden
Total Time 4 Stunden 15 Minuten
Servings 3 servings
Calories 298 kcal

What you will need

For the Chia Layer

  • 30 g chia seeds
  • 150 ml (plant based) milk
  • 100 g frozen blueberries
  • 1 tbsp honey

For the other layers:

  • 300 g (plant based) yoghurt
  • 200 g frozen blueberries
  • some fresh blueberries for garnish

For the super quick granola:

  • 1 tbsp vegan butter or oil
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 3 tbsp rolled oats
  • 2 tbsp walnuts chopped up roughly
  • 1 tbsp coconut flakes
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • a sprinkle of sea salt

How to

  1. Mix all of the ingredients for the chia pudding and let sit in the fridge for 4 hours to overnight.

  2. Layer the jars with the chia pudding, on top the thawed frozen blueberries and on top the yoghurt.

  3. For the granola melt the vegan butter and honey in a pan until it is hot and starts to bubble. Add the chopped nuts, oats, coconut flakes, cinnamon and coconut shreds and keep on medium high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. When golden brown, take off the heat and add it to a bowl. Let it cool (the cooling will make it crispy). Once cooled add on top of the parfaits along with some blueberries! Serve and enjoy!

Happy Cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

The only healthy Plum Compote Recipe you’ll ever need

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Plum compote = Zwetschkenröster

Plum Compote – an austrian staple

If you are not from Austria and have never heard of plum compote or Zwetschkenröster I can understand that you may be confused about this. Zwetschkenröster is a compote made out of plums, which mostly is eaten with Curd Cheese Dumplings (Topfenknödel) or Kaiserschmarren. It is sweet and still have fruit chunks in it so it is not the same as jam.

Traditional plum compote & how it is made

There is more than just the country it comes from, that connects me to plum compote. I have always had a passion for cooking from an early age on, and apparently a very big one for plum compote. A few years ago my parents showed me pictures of me, when I was a little kid, 2 years old or so, sitting on the counter in the kitchen and making curd cheese dumplings and plum roaster with my uncle. So yes, this is a very traditional recipe.

In Austria you can find it in pretty much any house hold, which makes sense when you realise how easy it is to make. And how delicious it is to enjoy. Making this actually is pretty simple. It really just is cooking plums with sugar, lemon juice, spices and some cornstarch until the skin separates slightly from the fruit. Then you let it cool down and fill it into jars. That is it.

What it special about this dish?

The only really special thing here is that it is healthy. Regular plum compote comes with loaded sugar, which obviously is not healthy so we are making a healthier version of it. Besides this, not too much is fancy here because we want to keep it quite traditional.

How to make it healthy

The main ingredient, the plums, stays the same of course. But instead of regular, white, refined sugar, we are using a mixture between coconut sugar and dates. Both of these have a great sweetness but are packed with less actual sugar and come with fibre, which makes the sugar be digested better.

How to best have it:

As I already mentioned, you can have this really well with desserts such as Kaiserschmarren (which is like a destroyed dutch baby) or with dumplings. I also love to have it on top of yoghurt with some granola or with some ice cream. I am sure this would also work really well on top of a creamy porridge. It is a great addition to pretty much anything sweet!

I hope that you will enjoy this recipe and that you will also have memories that are as great as mine!

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Healthy Plum Compote

A healthy version of the austrian classic. Perfectly sweet and juicy plums cookeed into a long lasting and super delicious compote!

Course Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine austrian
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 1 Stunde 15 Minuten
Total Time 1 Stunde 25 Minuten
Servings 2 jars à 3 servings
Calories 133 kcal

What you will need

  • 1 kg plums
  • 50 g dates
  • 50 g coconut sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • a sprinkle of sea salt
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 50 ml water

How to

  1. Cut all of the plums in half and remove the pit. Slice the dates very finely or cut them into amll pieces. Add them to a pot along with the coconut sugar, water, lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about an hour at medium heat.

  2. After an hour you will see that the skins of the plums started to seperate from the fruit and are rolling in a littlw bit. Now combine the cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water in a seperate bowl and whisk until smooth. Pour it in and stir through the compote very well so everything is combined.

  3. Take off the heat and let cool. Then fill into jars and stor ein the fridge! Enjoy!

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Ultimate healthy and creamy raspberry overnight oats from dahoam

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Summer is a tough time for all porridge lovers. As good as porridge is, who wants to have a steaming hot bowl of oat in the morning when you already start to sweat when you just take a look outside. That’s why we need a cold alternative. Cold oats? Yes, that’s a thing. Overnight Oats. And no, they are not boring or taste like a babyfood.

What are overnight Oats?

As the name already suggests, overnight oats is a form of oatmeal that is prepared overnight. Well not exactly. Usually they are prepared the evening before by mixing together oats and milk and then they chill in the fridge for a few hours, mostly overnight. This way the oats can really absorb and soak up the milk to get soft for the next morning

What is special about this dish?

Well, first, and most important, this breakfast, snack, dessert, whenever you want to enjoy it, is SO EASY to be made from LOCAL ingredients only. Why? Especially here in Austria we have a lot of farmers for local dairy products (but you can find this in most countries). Also, in pretty much any supermarket or bulk store you can find rolled oats that are grown in Austria, because we have an ideal climate here. And lastly, at the moment it is the season of berries, which means nothing is easier than finding berries from Austria right now.

Why is it better to buy local?

There is no single answer to this but I divided it into 4 main reasons:

  1. You support your local economy. Especially during or after a crisis like the one we are going through right now it is important to really support the country you live in. The farmers who produce Austrian products have also been hit by the crisis and as a nation it is important to help together. With supporting the economy you also save and maybe create new jobs, which is very important at the moment, since a lot have gone to loss.
  2. It’s environmental impact: when you buy locally, the goods do not have to be transported for a long time by ships, planes, cars or trains. Especially in a country like Austria, transport way are not very distant and this way we save a lot of CO2 and therefore have a positive impact on the environment.
  3. To be independent: This may sound weird at first but the importance is shown in crisis like the one at the moment. of course raspberries from countries like Spain or Portugal may be cheaper. But when we all keep buying those because they are cheaper, the amount of Austrian raspberries planted will be reduced. And then, when facing a crisis as the current, where delivery and the entire transport system suddenly stops or is interrupted we will not have enough berries to satisfy our needs. So when we consume the products we produce in the country we live in, we, as a nation, are more independent.
  4. Quality: when you buy local products (at least in Austria), you can expect the quality of the product to be at a high standard and you know this. When buying from other countries, where you may not not the quality standards, you may be disappointed and the product may contain some unnatural additives.

Where I get my local products from:

The main ingredient, so the Oats I buy at a bulk store. The one I go to is called Lieber Ohne and it only has organic and unpackaged food, mostly from the region but you can see from any product where it comes from.

The Dairy products I get at Joseph Brot. They are an organic bakery and always have dairy products from Austrian farmers in reusable jars and bottles. A great way to buy local and without producing waste.

The berries I get at a local market. I know where they come from and I can choose the ones I want myself!

The same goes for the honey and nuts. I either get both at Lieber Ohne or I get them at a farmers market!

How to make really good overnight oats:

As I said, overnight oats usually are prepared by solely combining oats with milk. Since this tastes a little boring as you can imagine we are taking a regular version and making it fancier, while still keeping it simple. By adding fruits we add an extra kick and we also use some more ingredients to make it extra creamy and delicious!

This already starts with the oats. Maybe you already know, maybe you do not – there are different kinds of oats. Larger (whole) ones and finer ones. While large ones work great for things like granola, finer ones are best for porridge and overnight oats. This may sound a little stupid because they are the same product in the end of the day but this really makes a difference! Finer ones just absorb the liquid better and therefore make it creamier.

Also, when wanting really creamy overnight oats it is best to add some yoghurt. In here I like to use greek yoghurt because it also is very easy to get in reusable glass jars but any other yoghurt or plant based yoghurt works just fine. Again, this makes it super creamy.

Another two ingredients which I would always recommend to be adding in are chia seeds and a little syrup. The chia seeds will swell up and make everything stick together better. The syrup adds a little sweetness (even if it just is a tiny drizzle) and make it 10 times better!

My last tip on making overnight oats is to add some fruit when making them. You for sure can just add some fruit on top the next day but adding them the night before helps the oats to soak up some of their sweetness, taste and juices, so it’ll infuse the entire dish.

More oat inspiration…

If you do like oats, just as I do you can check out a few other recipes of mine, which you are going to like for sure, like the Mango Overnight Oats, Oatmeal with Caramelized Bananas, Bircher Muesli with Honey Poached Apple, Healthy Peach and Cherry Crumble, Mango Coconut Granola or my Apple and Cranberry Granola !

How to make this dish low waste

Making delicious dishes while not producing much waste is actually pretty easy. If you wanna learn how, then you can read this at my Andalusian Gazpacho Post, My Easy No-Waste ice Cream Sandwiches or my No-waste French Toast with Basil Apricots blog post!

So just to summarise:

  • buy your oats at a bulk store! You can go there with your own jars or Tupperware and buy lots and lots of grains without packaging! A very sustainable way.
  • Get your dairy products at your local bakery. Most times bakeries have a small section with dairy products, which most of the time are packaged in reusable jars or bottles
  • Go to a local market. Getting fresh fruit there often is better than at the supermarket. Primarily, you know where it comes from easily and it most of the times is not packaged in plastic. I am aware that you will not find berries without packaging but mostly they at least come in paper or cartoon.

To sum up

I hope that this little guide and explanation really helps you to understand why it is important to buy locally and also include more local products easily into your daily life. Plus, you have really incredibly delicious breakfast recipe for these late summer days!

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The Ultimate Healthy and Creamy Raspberry Overnight Oats

A delicious, creamy and refreshing summer breakfast for those hot summer days with regional ingredients

Course Breakfast, brunch, Snack
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 10 Minuten
Servings 2 servings
Calories 414 kcal

What you will need

  • 100 g rolled oats the finer the better
  • 100 g greek yoghurt
  • 200 ml milk (you can also use plant based milk)
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 tbsp chia seeds
  • 200 g raspberries
  • a few walnuts and raspberries for garnish

How to

  1. In a large bowl mash the raspberries until mushy. Add the rolled oats, yoghurt, chia seeds, honey and milk and stir until everything is combined well.

  2. Keep in the fridge for at least 4 hours to overnight.

  3. Take out the next morning and top with extra greek yoghurt, raspberries and nuts. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy,
Happy cooking,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière