Massaged Salads & Budget Friendly Vegan Pesto

Hey boys & girls! Great responses (& questions!) to both my sugars & sweeteners post & exercise tips post. I tried to answer all questions as good as possible .

Did y’all have a good weekend? The boy and I didn’t end up going rock climbing unfortunately. He had a massive headache all Saturday, and I was dealing with a rashy skin. I think one of my new iHerb face products is the cause, boo . I am suspecting it’s the BWC facial cleanser and not the Aloe Vera since I have used Aloe Vera in the past and I have been using it on my burnt stomach with no problems. My skin is very coarse and bumpy (not visibly thank God) and it was itching very bad. Itching is gone now, I hope the coarseness will go down soon.

Anyhoe, I also had a bit of a headache/pressing feeling in my head yesterday and the boy still suffered from that headache so we decided to postpone rock climbing all together, probably to later this week.

Instead, we channeled our inner domestic nerds and cleaned, cooked and visited farmers markets. We cleaned the entire house which now looks spic-and-span. I made vegan pesto (what, you want a recipe or something?), cashew butter (it had been too long) and falafel. We walked for about an hour in gloomy weather to get fruit, veg, organic fresh bread and dried fruit.

Organizing my nut, seed & dried fruit drawers:

Bonding with my Vitamix:

Oh vanilla/cinnamon cashew butter, how I missed thee

We walked to the cinema to see Alpha & Omega (we’re both suckers for animated movies), found out only the Dutch version was shown, saw No Strings Attached instead (ladies, if you want to get your guy to see a romantic comedy this is the way to do so ), got take-out (which meant a huge tub of grilled potato & veg for me, a veg burrito, quasedilla, and half a bag of fries for the boy (guess where the other half went…)) and relaxed at home. We’ve been going to bed at 22:00 for three nights in a row and waking up at the break of dawn. New, but I like it actually.

From the salad bar @ La Place:

I have still been juicing religiously and LOVE it. Did you see my new Daily Juice page? I am super stoked about filling it with 300+ pictures of juices. My goal: one juice per day for (at least) one year, with the exception of me not being at home of course. If I were to go to Denmark for a week I think I’d have to bring it though. Not new but still very cool: did you see my archives page? I love having a visual overview of all my posts

I went to a different type of Yoga than my usual Ashtanga/power Yoga class last week: Prana Yoga. Prana in Sanskrit means life energy, comparable to Chi. Prana Yoga was much more mellow, easy going and meditative than Ashtanga Yoga. I really liked meditating and consciously focusing on certain poses. I’ll definitely be taking this class again, and I’d like to try some new classes too, Vinyasa for example. I also simply MUST start & up my running mileage if I ever want to finish that half marathon in May alive :p. I’ve been putting it off for too long. Come on guys, tell me that I have to start!

Me posing in Yoga outfit & Isa creeping up on me:

Some weekend eats:

My first massaged kale salad! I massaged my kale with avocado, topped it with tomato cuke & olives and sprinkled hemp seeds on top. It was pretty good, but I still have to get used to eating kale ‘straight up’!

Eaten with leftover meatless metaloaf <3.

Huge salad beast for lunch. Massaged kale (massaged with my homemade vegan pesto), lettuce, cuke, tomato, sundried tomato, sprouts, sesame seeds, pepper & salt, lots of pesto. It was good, but too much veg for me haha. Maybe a hint of sweetness would’ve helped, like a dried fruit.

Mini burger of fresh organic bread (& the usual: mayonaise, tempeh, sprouts, lettuce, pepper & salt)

Forgive me for I have sinned: I bought strawberries in February! The yumminess made me forget all about my sin

That’s it for today!

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Ok ok I won’t longer torture you! Here’s the recipe for my scrumptious, vegan, budget-friendly, homemade pesto!

Vegan Budget-Friendly Pesto
* 1 small basil plant (leafs only)
* 130 g sunflower seeds (raw)
* 5 cloves garlic
* 60 ml extra virgin olive oil
* 30 g nutritional yeast
* generous shake of salt, pepper

Throw everything in blender and blend until smooth but with some texture left. Taste and add extra salt/pepper if needed. Add more oil if you like a thinner, more runny pesto (I like mine a bit firmer!).

Pesto is traditionally made with pine nuts and Parmesan cheese, but sunflower seeds and yeast taste really wonderful as well, and won’t break your bank. It always amazes me how expensive most nuts & seeds are. They fall on the ground for free for crying out loud! Sunflower seeds however are pretty cheap, even the organic ones. Nutritional yeast costs about €2,5 per tub, and a tub lasts months.

Ok that’s really it for today! I am off to run with the boy .

What would you like to see tomorrow, a post on Romaine lettuce or a review on Skinny Bitch?

I’ve read a ton of great books in the past half year but forgot to write reviews right away….. I’ve decided the best solution is to re-read them all . I am not kidding. I think rereading books is great actually. The knowledge will stick with you much longer if you’ve read it twice or more .

Did you make anything yummy this weekend?!

Love,

Sabine