I moved!

Hello lovelies,

I moved my yoga life to my own website!

Check it out here:

www.thisyogalifeofmine.com

Keep following me!

Stacey

No chickens allowed.

In my last blog I wrote about planning a small dinner party for some close friends. After doing loads of research, browsing through many blogs, I decided to keep it simple and make one of my favourite meals I grew up with and still love now: Surinamese Roti!

I did most of the groceries with my cousin in the morning and met up with my friend Cleo afterwards. We started the cooking process while her wonderful boyfriend was crowned “please buy the forgotten groceries”- man.  In the meantime the rest of the company arrived and helped us with drinks and an occasional stir in the many pots and pans we used.

Roti is originally an Indian dish, that consists of a roti-pancake (a large flatbread like pancake) served with curried potatoes, pumpkin, eggplant, beans, a curried egg and or curried chicken. I  tried to make “healthier” version, including loads of veggies minimizing on the fat content and skipping the chicken of course.

I wasn’t surprised to get some complaints about the missing chicken and I had to explain once more why I decided to become a vegetarian. Since I didn’t wrote about it yet, I feel now is good opportunity to share my opinion about (not) eating meat. First of all, it is important to know that I ate meat my entire life, and loved it, till December in 2009. What most people don’t know about me is that I always wanted to be a vegetarian for the sake of the animals. I just think it’s cruel the way animals are being abused, stuffed with hormones and then slaughtered for us western humans to eat. No living creature deserves to be treated this way.  On the other hand, I also know that animal products contain nutrients that are very hard, sometimes impossible, to replace completely.  This is why I first decided to minimize my animal-produce intake. I still eat eggs and other animal based products like milk and yogurt. Every once in a while I also eat fish, just to make sure I’m not missing out on vital nutrients.

A second reason I decided to lay off the meat, was to stimulate mindful eating. With mindful eating I mean being aware of the stuff you eat and what your body needs. Once I decided to skip on the animal stuff, I automatically started making more healthy food choices to make sure my body got all the stuff it really needs. This doesn’t mean I don’t indulge every once in a while, I am merely human after all. The difference is that instead of buying store-bought chips and cookies, I now prefer to make my own! This way I know exactly what goes in and how much and for some reason I now just enjoy food more.

But than again, this is merely my opinion. I’m just doing what feels right to me. Everybody can decide on their own what they want to eat, or not. I’m not going to tell you what’s good or bad for you, unless you ask my direct opinion ;). Please note that even I craved meat once, and sometimes I still do. What keeps me from eating and craving it is my stomach, which simply won’t bear the heavy load anymore…

And now, back to my dinner party!  For starters I made corn fritters served with  mojitos, made by the “please buy the forgotten groceries”- man ;). For dessert we had (not so healthy) chocolate puffed pastries with balsamic strawberries and whipped cream. After a whopping three hours of cooking we were finally done, ready to plate up and serve. It was delicious.

To wrap thing up, here are some pictures that will maybe get you inspired to host your own dinner party. I always say: Good food, happy people.

Some prep work:

The final results:

Stacey

Today’s Challenge: Spread the Love - Whole Living Daily : Whole Living

Today’s Challenge: Spread the Love - Whole Living Daily : Whole Living

Take the pledge with me :)

Let's spread a little extra love today, everybody deserves it!

My food love affair

Like many of you out there I love food. And I love cooking, especially for friends. Last year I had this wonderful dinner party with some of my best friends. I created an entire 5 course menu by myself. It was super duper delicious and I was super proud! I have to admit though; I can’t take all the credit. I got the best help of my friends and I can assure you that without them it would have been a total disaster.

Usually I think the best part of dinner events is the prep work. For this occasion it was extra challenging to come up with something that would please everyone. The reason? There were two vegetarians and one meat-lover/cheese-hater to please. And of course my best friend Cleo, but she eats everything so she wasn’t the problem ;). When I started searching for recipes, all of a sudden every single thing I was interested in making included CHEESE. How annoying! After a little while I figured out it was best to change my strategy by looking for dishes out of a different cuisine which was basically NOT Italian. That made things a lot less complicated.

I ended up doing all the groceries and with my two friends we cooked for about 3 hours. And boy oh boy was it worth the effort and wait! Our appetizer was a cucumber-humus bites we ate during our cooking adventure. For starters we had my favourite cauliflower soup with homemade croutons. Our main course was Moroccan veggie stew with mint couscous. Oh my, so good! It was salty, sweet and exotic flavoured with ginger, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, raisons and a ton of veggies. To refresh our pallets I made an easy ‘cocktail’ with Prosecco, some lemon sorbet and a sprig of fresh mint leaves. To end this incredible meal, I baked some super easy mini chocolate cakes and served them with a mocha sauce. Now if that doesn’t sound good to you, I just think you’re nuts….

The last few days I’ve been trying to create a great dinner menu for the second time in a row. Coming Saturday I’ll be hosting another cosy dinner evening just like last year J Even though you’d think I would have some dinner menu experience by now, this time I had even more difficulty coming up with something spectacular. That’s because this year a fifth friend decided to join but he’s an all round meat-lover. I have nothing against meat lovers, I used to be a big fan myself, but I just have this feeling he will be extra difficult to please with a vegetarian meal. So after hours and hours of searching all the food blogs I could find for something meat-lover-approved-vegetarian goodness, I decided to go back to my roots and make something Surinam! No one can resist a good Surinam meal, right? Won’t tell what I’m going to make just yet, but pictures will follow!

This weekend was all about food too. My cousin came over and we both had super long and tiring days. We’ve created this 4-step tradition when we have our almost monthly sleepovers:

1. Do some groceries

2. Cook awesome dinners

3. Bake cookies

4. Watch a movie

This time we made home-made pizzas. I love making my own pizza because then I can decide what and how much I want to put on it. My pizza was loaded with veggies and a little bit cheese. Nom nom nom! After we munched down our pizza’s we baked some chocolate chip cookies. The movie was nice too, but we both we’re so tired we just went to bed and talked till we fell asleep.

The next day we went down to the market. Since I’m a vegetarian its really important for me eat enough protein, vitamins and minerals that can kind of replace meat. Eating fish makes this a lot easier to do. But besides that I make sure to eat plenty of nuts and seeds and berries too! These are packed with all the good stuff I might be missing. I always my nuts and dried fruits at the same market stand of some Turkish men that adore me. They really know me by now and it’s always nice to have a little chat and sometimes even some discount ;). I always buy mixed nuts, some dried cranberries and gojiberries and throw these on top of yogurt with fresh fruit in the morning. Best way to start my day!

After our little market stroll a dropped of my cousin at the train station where another friend was waiting for me to pick him up! (Yes I know, my social life is insane…). Together we made lasagne roll ups with a pretty salad and had cookies for dessert. It was a delicious dinner and after with had some drinks at a local bar. It was a nice evening filled with laughter and loads of catching up chatter. Definitely a friend I should hang out with more often!

All in all it was a great weekend. The only thing missing: my yoga practice! So now I’m off to bed so I can get up tomorrow and pamper myself with an extra long yoga session, followed by an extra long study session. A girl has got to do what a girl has got to do…

Stacey

When life gives me lemons, I hit the mat.

This weekend I learned a valuable lesson: always stick to your personal believes of what is right and wrong. I know that this can be really hard sometimes, especially when you’re in vulnerable and confusing position. Like many others, I had to learn the hard way.

Life can be hard. I guess this is not big news to anyone really but I just got hit in the face with it last weekend. The thing is I’m the kind of girl that always longs for everyone to be happy. Always trying to satisfy everyone, living up to the demands of life, the expectations of others, making sure the entire world is content.

Fact: I am a people pleaser.

This blog was particularly hard to write. I’ve been sitting at my desk for hours now and I still don’t know what I’m trying to say. This has been a very confusing couple of weeks (okay fine, months, years even). Despite all my trying avoiding the bad and finding my balance, some things just didn’t feel right.

I keep telling everyone around me that you should be honest and true to yourself. I mean, life is too short to play pretend right? The fact of the matter is that I haven’t been practicing what I preach. I created my own little secret life, and I started to believe in it. The reason I believed in it was because it just kind of happened at time when I was completely off balance. It was the only thing I felt I had left to hold on too. Once everything around me started to get better I guess I was afraid to let it go. So, even though I knew I really was wasting my time, investing all of my valuable time and energy in something that didn’t exist I kept doing it. It felt like defending a bad relationship: hoping you're wrong about it, and every time something happens that tells you its no good, you ignore it. And every time something comes through and surprises you, the lie wins you over, and you lose that argument with yourself.

I’ve been able to keep this secret to myself for a very long time now. But as we all know, truth will come to light eventually. And once it does, you’re just silly if you keep pretending. In yoga there are these 10 commandments that can help guide your life. It consists of five Yamas (don’ts) and five Niyamas (dos). Yama means self-restraint and Niyama means observance. Living by these ten commandments will lead to self-realization and liberation. It’s important to remember that the purpose is to aspire to live by these commandments. I mean, we’re merely human. We should remember these “rules” and really try to live by them. Today I looked up these ten commandments again and I can proudly say that I’ve been living by all them accept for one: Satya, meaning truthfulness and honesty. Figures huh? Luckily I’m smart enough to realize this, and starting today, finally do something about it.

One thing that I am sure of is that I’m on the right path. It’s time for me to move on, let go of things that aren’t worth investing my time in. Though it feels as if I’m being punished for doing the right thing, I realized that my idea of what was right is actually wrong. Using my good heart to defend the bad is useless. I think I’m not even scared anymore of what will happen to me if I let go. I know that my heart always was, is and always be in the right place.  

Be sensible, follow your intuition and always follow your heart. And now it’s time for yoga.

Stacey

More candles and salsa...

It’s incredible how fast time goes by when you’re extremely busy. It’s already week 3 of January and it feels like it was yesterday that I was standing outside in the cold admiring the firework’s in Amsterdam… Looking back on 2010, I came up with a few new years resolutions that I’ve been able to keep so far!

Resolution number one: more yoga (duh!) and MEDITATION. Yoga is something I introduced myself to and fell in love with the past year. I feel it’s time to take our relationship to the next level by introducing meditation!. At first I thought meditating isn’t necessary for practicing yoga but I’ve come to realize that meditation completes it. To me, it feels like it’s the missing puzzle piece.

I read about meditation in the wonderful book (almost) everybody knows: 'Eat Pray Love’. When she just arrived at the Ashram in India, Liz describes how incredibly difficult it is; her thoughts constantly taking control. That is the stage I am in right now and I can tell you that it feels absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. Sometimes I wonder why I’m making my life harder then it already is. But I just keep telling my self this will be good for the long run.

At my first yoga class this year I learned a certain kind of meditating that I think is pretty easy though! The trick: looking at a candle, lit up of course. This way it feels like you’re actually doing something, not just sitting there with your eyes close looking like a complete idiot. You have and object to focus your attention on besides your annoying thoughts! It makes the whole practice a little bit easier.

Another thing to consider is that you shouldn’t make it a battle between you and your thoughts. The trick is to let them in, but also show them the door. I know I know, this sounds silly, but suppression really doesn’t help!! It even has this nasty habit to backfire on you. Don’t believe me? Well then, try this: Once upon a time there was a White bear. The End.

Now I’ll give you this assignment: DO NOT think about white bear while reading this blog. I can guarantee you’ll fail! Psychology proved it ;). Experimenters gave people this assignment and everybody reported that it they weren’t able to do it! Every time they realized they weren’t thinking about the white bear anymore, they were thinking about it again… 


My point is that it makes sense that there is no use in fighting against your thoughts while trying to meditate. Embrace them, let them in, and then out. Focus on your breath and on the pretty candlelight! The trick is to do this actively. When meditating with a candle this is what you should do:

1. Light a candle

2. Sit comfortably in front of the candle

3. Focus on the entire space that is lit by the candle

4. Focus on the entire candle

5. Focus only on the fire, the colour, the shape, the way it moves etc.

6. When you feel ready, close your eyes and breathe.

Try staying in steps 3-6 for a few minutes each (you’re allowed to decide yourself!). I promise you you’ll feel completely relaxed afterwards! Pretty darn easy right??  ;)

Okay, enough about meditation for today. Moving on to my second resolution: MORE SALSA dancing!!!! Oh my passion for salsa… How I miss you. But I promise, this year we’ll have more intimate moments. Starting this Friday! Can’t wait!!!

Resolution number three: Less studying. Yeah right… haha I wrote down these resolutions on a piece of paper once. But I have to say that I failed with this one already. I’m just too big of a nerd to study less. I want good grades. Guess it’s not that bad of habit, right? ;) You remember all those exams I had the last couple of weeks, tight?? I nailed them ALL, thanks to being the nerd that I am. And I guess I just like keep it that way!

Number four is one I am defiantly sticking with: Continue writing this blog!! I promise, my dear followers to have a new story waiting to be read every single week. I want to finish writing that book one day you know ;)

Well that’s that for my New Year resolutions!  Are you still sticking to yours??

Stacey

Christmas in a hurry

My dear followers!

I know I know, I've been slacking. Big time! But I really do have a good excuse. You may remember that I was stressing about all the studying I was doing lately. Guess what, I still am :( Next week I have three exams and a huge paper that's due. No Christmas vacation for me...

That's not really true though. Being the huge Christmas fan I am, I did take a little time off from studying to spend some quality time with family and friends of course! Mostly with my mom who is visiting :) Hence, my lack in blogging. She's staying at my grandmother’s house and I decided to stay over there too. The thing is that my sweet sweet grandma does not have access to internet. The first few days it really felt like a rehab centre for internet-addicts. Luckily I still had all my Christmas shopping left to do and we still had to figure the entire Christmas-dinner menu.

I have a huge passion for cooking and baking. I think it's genetic in my case. Both my grandmothers are Surinam and bake cakes and make the most delicious Surinam dishes. They even have a few customers, just like my mother and some of my aunts. My mother also bakes the best Surinam cakes and has a few signature dishes she makes on delivery. I grew up sitting on the kitchen counter, watching and helping my mother and in my spare time I always watched Foodnetwork on television. When I got older, I always took in upon myself to cook dinner for the family in the weekends. I am used to eating a home-cooked meal everyday.

Even though I love all of my families cooking, most of the dishes include meat... At family occasions, like Christmas, it really makes being a vegetarian complicated sometimes. Luckily I found a way to make it so much easier. I just make my own vegetarian dishes for the entire family! This way I can also introduce them to some of my favourite (healthier) recipes. This year my family decided to have a Christmas brunch, which means we would be eating the entire day. Knowing not all of the dishes would be figure-friendly I decided to make two super-food dishes: cauliflower-soup and a quinoa salad with cranberries and spinach. Sooo ridiculously good!!!! (Almost everybody agreed, even the biggest meat lovers! ;) ) I got these recipes from some food bloggers and I will be sharing them with you in my next blog. In my opinion blogs are really the best way to get the most delicious recipes, because unlike recipe-books these dishes have actually been tested, sometimes modified, and tested again by actual people who have a bigger passion for food than me. 

I didn't spend all my free time with family, but also with my very best friends! I even got to play cupid! (I know, not really appropriate this time of year with Santa and all, but in the end it all evolves around love right??).

Two of my friends celebrated their 4-year anniversary and without them knowing I played a crucial role for them to have a wonderful evening and it worked out perfectly! I love it when a plan comes together. They had a romantic dinner for two and then some. 

The week before Christmas I also had dinner with some friends. We all had to bring our favourite dish we would like to share others. It was a absolutely delicious, though there were more cakes and sweets then actual food. I didn't mind AT ALL ;) I even celebrated winter-solstice! Come to think of it. I’ve been eating A LOT this past week. It’s obviously time to make some new years resolutions…

After all this fun I packed up all my Christmas outfits, gifts and study books. I even packed my yoga-mat and of course my two little birds (Mido and Mickey) and moved to grandma’s house for the next couple of weeks. I have to say, nothing beats being in the company of the ones you love most! I really had a wonderful Christmas.

I’d love to share more stories, I forgot to mention that I’m in a bit of a hurry. I recently became a blood donor and I have an appointment to make my first donation! I promise my next blog will follow really soon, including the recipes mentioned earlier, new years resolutions and even some pictures

Stacey