On The Healthy Side Of Yummy - Red Beets Pasta

I know, I know - it sounds weird. But I promise this meal is delicious and packed with nutrition!

So yummy!

What you need:
7 ts   Low Fat Crème Fraîche (You could probably substitute with sour cream)
1 lb  Pasta
1      Scallion
1 lb  Red beets
1 ts  Olive Oil
3 1/2 oz Vegetable Broth
1 splash of Apple Vinegar

To your liking:
Salt & Pepper 
Parmesan
Pine Nuts


How to:
Peel the beets and shred them. Cut the scallion into little dices and glaze them in the oil, add beets and sauté. Pour in vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Season with vinegar, salt and pepper. Covere over low heat for about 25 minutes until al dente. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted water. Mix the veggies with your crème fraîche and roast those pine nuts (careful here - they burn really fast - no additional oil needed!). Top pasta with beets mix, pine nuts, and parmesan. Voilá :)

This should feed about 4 people. Hope your tastebuds enjoy!

xx Juli

On the healthy side of yummy

Max has been gone for over a week now. That leaves me plenty of time to be bored around the day. I only have one week of school left, then I'll be done with the semester and can completely focus on getting everything ready for immigration. We haven't heard back from NVC yet, but I'm hopeful it won't be taking too long until I can finally go to the visa interview in Frankfurt.

Well, since I have plenty of time right now, I decided it would be perfect to get into a healthier mode and focus on cooking from scratch (well, for the most part). I have come to find that I don't have to go to bed hungry if I just cook food that focuses on "natural" ingredients. Meaning - I want to eat food that is not produced with a bunch of chemical substances that I can't even pronounce. So far, I've been eating that way for a week and I have to say it works! I don't really like weighing myself, I try to avoid it as much as possible since I don't think that numbers should have any influence about how I feel about myself. What I do is so simple. I check the mirror - and lately - I've been feeling pretty damn good about myself.

And isn't that what it's all about? You feeling good about yourself? I'm still curvy and I want to stay that way. I like my curves and would not trade them for anything. At the same time though - I noticed eating the way I am lately makes me feel better. It's weird but I used to have nightmares every night and they seem to be gone! I wake up every morning and am not exhausted but looking forward to the day ahead. I've been only doing this for a week, but the results speak for themselves.

I got a couple of recipes that I really enjoy cooking and I want to share them with you! I will start posting them under the topic - on the healthy side of yummy - from now on. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Juli xx

He's (been) here (for 15 days now)!

YAY!

Max has been here since December 20th. I kinda logged out of the blogging world for a while and just concentrated on being with him. We're so happy we're together right now. It finally feels like 'real' life again. And not just time I have to pass in order to be with him. This man is so unbelievably perfect for me - it's scary ;) He's the best!

In my family, christmas is rather crazy. My parents are divorced and my mom split with her boyfriend that we lived together with for more than 12 years, so he's my unofficial second dad. Needless to say, I wanna see them all for christmas and that means taking a 6 hour trip to Western Germany the day after christmas. Every year. Haha, those trips are really exhausting, but it's totally worth spending that time with my family - especially now that we're 'complete'.

ALSO. We received our NOA2. For everyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about: That is a huge milestone in our visa journey. We originally thought it is a matter of weeks since I'm getting the visa now, but it turns out that this is unfortunately not the case. Our lawyer even said it might take up unto 6 months until I'll be able to fly over there. To be honest, I don't really buy it though. Or maybe my brain doesn't want to buy it. So I'll just pretend I'll be home in the middle of February. For now.

We've used the time we had to just relax and spend time with family and friends. We're also working on renovating my mom's new house. I'm so happy she got the opportunity to finally call a house her 'almost' own. Well, it is rented, but the landlords are our friends, so it almost feels like it's hers.

Things are rather crazy right now. We want to get everything in and make every single one of our close ones happy, but that sometimes becomes a little tricky. You want to help everyone, see everyone, please everyone and along the way you use precious time that you could have spend enjoying each others company - so we took today off and just laid in bed all day. After all, I might be home with Max soon, so this might be the last time we will have to concentrate on us  - without having to think about our jobs, schedules, etc.

I'll be updating again soon.

xx Juli

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve with my mom and brother

'Rummelpott' for NYE 2013/14

'Rummelpott' for NYE 2013/14