the nine last smoothies

I've now reached the end of my 30 different smoothies for 30 days journey. And while it has been a delicious 30 days (well, at least the breakfast) it has alas done absolutely nothing to improve my energy levels or facial complexion. 

For that I think you need to change your diet and life more radically. Still, when you always have the fridge and freezer full of fruit and veggies anyway it's a great, tasty way to use them. And a lovely smoothie always add a touch of luxuary to the breakfast or lunch.

Welcome to the ingredients lists of my last/latest 9 smoothies:

Pale yellow above - organic (always!) banana, pineapple, oatmilk, agave, turmeric, cardamom.

Pale green - avocado, broccoli, kale, kiwi, agave, oatmilk.

Deep red - strawberry, raspberry, red- and blackcurrant, agave, oatmilk.

Chocolate - banana, apple, chili, raw cacao, oatmilk.

Red - raspberry, apple, pomegranate, oatmilk.

Bright green - banana, spinach, kiwi, passionfruit, oatmilk. 

Bright yellow - mango, banana, orange, passionfruit, agave, turmeric.

Purple - blueberries (lots!), spinach, dates, oatmilk.

And the very last one, Pale pink - banana, raspberry, ginger, oatmilk. Cheers!

Previous smoothies ingredients-lists for 30 days:

two green smoothies

carrot cake smoothie

14 days of smoothies

six more smoothies

four more smoothies

five more smoothies

my health necessities

Yes I've blogged about my essential supplements before, but this time they've been joined by the little gang I'm oh so grateful for helping me keep colds and flus at bay these days. Since I began taking the supplements in 2011 - 

I'm ashamed to admit it took me so long realising that despite a varied, vegetarian diet with lots of veggies I still lacked essential vitamins and minerals. 

And what's probably even more shocking is that not a single doctor I visited when I was at my all time low that year asked me about my diet and possible deficiencies... - 

I'm rarely sick and down with flus (touch wood) and when I do get them they are much much milder and last about a week, not nearly as bad as tin can woman and her friends. Touch wood twice.

And I do believe that the fact that I'm addicted to the goodness and benefits of fresh ginger and ginger in general now has helped greatly fighting germs and infections.

So apart from linseed oil capsules (Omega 3 for vegetarians, vegans and everyone really. Skip the fish oil Omega 3, that's such an unnecessary process when you can have nature's own goodness in the shape of linseed oil!), vitamin D2 and B-12 I regularly have fresh ginger in juices and smoothies and food.

When I have the unfortune to still getting a cold or flu I drink the Asian ginger tea which is basically grounded, dry ginger. You mix it with hot water and drink it. It's super strong and very hot and helps a lot. I usually drink two ginger tea bags during a one week's cold. 

And eat a few of those lovely ginger candy chews with tapioka.

I also find that in Germany you can find really great herbal cough drops, like these ginger ones last summer.

So, what are your health necessities, 

preventive and relieving?

four more smoothies

And the next four smoothies have been - 

apple, banana, gojiberries, cardamom, fresh ginger and oat milk.

Pomegranate, kale, kiwi, mango, raspberries, coconutwater and agave.

Spinach, broccoli, kale, banana, dates, fresh ginger and hazelnut milk. This time the hazelnut milk worked really well and gave the smoothie a hint of chocolate flavour.

Banana, carrot, peach, fresh ginger and oat milk. De-lovely!

six more smoothies

My 14 days of smoothies have now reached day 12. And I'll most likely continue and make it 20 days instead while I'm at it - there are still a lot of fruit and veggie blends I want to try. So far it's been a hit and miss ratio of 75-25. Some blends have eitehr ended up tasting a bit like drinking grass or overly sweet ones.

But honestly, while some smoothies have made me all perky and jazzed up the overal effect has most certainly NOT been the feel-the-dramatic-change! the initial blurb I read excitedly claimed. Nor can I see a visible improved difference in my skin.

Perhaps it's simply the Scandinavian winter season with its stressful and tireing blend of absolutely dreadful, glum, dark, snow-free days and the snowy, cold days with sunshine that makes it really really difficult to absorb that energy of green and fruity vitamins and minerals.

So while it has definitely been lovely to create and drink (most of) them, I unfortunately fail to feel and see the health difference. 

That said, here are the six latest smoothie blends I've concocted (as usual no measurements, I just add some pieces of this, a splosh of that and a dollop of it).

The red smoothie on day 7 was a blend of strawberries, raspberries, banana and a splosh of innocent orange juice plus a sprinkle of cardamom. Lovely!

The green smoothie on day 8 was a mix of kale, spinach, pear, banana and hazelnut milk. Unfortunately the hazelnut milk was really overpowering in flavour and I won't be using that again. Use oat milk for a neutral flavour that will let the natural fruit flavours come through.

The chocolate smoothie on day 9 was a blend of banana, raw cacao, goji berries, raspberries, oatmilk and a dollop of agave syrup. It was de-lovely!

The pale green smoothie on day 10 was a mix of galia melon, oat milk, fresh ginger, pear, mango, avocado and agave syrup. Use a generous amount of that freshly grated ginger otherwise it'll be rather bland and uninteresting.

The pink smoothie on day 11 was wonderfully refreshing and made of raspberries, one carrot, oat milk, dates (3-5), banana, oat milk and galia melon.

The creamy green smoothie today on day 12 was a blend of avocado, mango, kiwi, kale, dates, oatmilk and agave syrup. I should have used less avocado and added banana instead, becasue the flavour ended up just too grassy for me.

Two more days to go. Plus probably six more. And then I want to experiment with pomegranate, passion fruit, apples, beetroot, chili to name a few. It's not the season for peaches, grapes, pineapple and such but I can probably find some frozen.

And I really need to make more chocolate blends, raw cacao is delicious and full of nutrition.

vegorätt, what a fail

Today it was finally premiere for the the first Swedish all vegetarian (ie vegan) cooking-show on TV, Vegorätt (rätt = right or dish in Swedish). And a lot of us were of course super-excited by this. 'Now all the deal-animal-eaters will finally see how easy, good and right it is to eat green!'

What happened was instead something incredibly embarrassing, parodical, soppy and far from inspiring, professional and playfully educational. We got *treated* with 30 minutes of a filmed Instagram-account (filter, backlight, coolness), hipsters doing yoga on a field with flags and eating acai-smoothies sitting on top of a haybale, adorning eachother with kale and berries in the hair, constantly emphazasing how HEALTHY and NUTRITIOUS everything was, giggle giggle etc etc etc.

I'm sure the two hosts/chefs - two Swedish food bloggers I've never heard of - are great and well-meaning gals, but seriously do they know how awful this is for the much needed vegetarian/vegan movement? Talk about backlash. 30 minutes of mockery that cemented every little, ridiculous prejudice dead-animal-eaters could possibly have about vegetarians. One could easily see such a show being sponsored by the meat lobby.

The funniest thing about this awful excuse of a vegetarian cooking show - which turned out to be a health nut, yoga show for people who looove raw-food - was the Twitter-feed with hashtag #vegorätt. People are angry. And rightly so.

Because after being subjected to the dead-animal-eating norm on and off TV for decades a really good and inspiring vegetarian/vegan cooking show was badly needed. Instead we got *treated* with prejudicial mockery and parody by Swedish public television Sveriges Television.

To fritter away such a golden, much awaited, opportunity about an important issue, for the planet, the health and not least the animals - shameful.

Not a happy bunny. Or happy bunnies.

You can watch the show on SVT-Play here

the grüner smoothie

A few years back I kick-started the new year in what I thought was a brilliant way: a long, brisk winter walk (at Djurgården). Turned out that we miscalculated the distance and bridges so what was suppose to be one hour turned into three hours. My muscles were so sore the rest of the week and to be quite honest it rather put me off the idea of regular, brisk walks routine.

This year I started in a kinder, tastier way: a feast on a green smoothie I picked up at Unverpackt in Berlin last summer. Kale, mango and spinach. I've also stocked up  on kale and other greens and I plan to get back on the regular smoothie-and-juice-track. 

And be a better, diligent yoga practioner that doesn't overdo her brisk walkings.

the raw chocolate smoothie adventure continues

Yes. Again. A raw chocolate smoothie inspired by the fantastic ones I had at 42Raw in Copenhagen last summers, but I'm still not getting the consistency quite quite right. 

This time it was a bit runny - which of course had to do with that it at first was too firm so I added a splash of coconut milk. Too much of a splosh.

Other than that 2 organic (of course! one of the most important things to buy organic only) bananas, 6 organic dates, 1 tbsp raw cacao, 12 ice cubes.

As I mentioned before, the Wilfa blender is excellent at ice crushing. But the dates are actually impossible to blend completely even with a powerful blender. What weird little fruits they are.

All and all a very good smoothie, just not the right consistency. Yet.

Snooperviser approved though.

sunshine mango smoothie

With the Wilfa blender came a simple, little recipe booklet that inspires me to try fruit combinations I probably wouldn't have come up with myself.

So today I made this fantastic, uplifting, sunshine in a glass smoothie - the blender works amazingly well to make a smoothie with crushed ice and if  you blend everything together at once the ice crushing isn't nearly as deafening as with ice only - with four ingredients only:

2 tins of sliced mango - I would have prefered fresh, but I also like using up what I already have in the fridge. Food waste sucks.
2 large organic pears
1 tsp grated organic, fresh ginger
10 ice cubes

Whizz together and ENJOY immensely!

hello helsinki

A belated birthday trip has taken us to neighbouring Finland and its beautiful and inspirational capital Helsinki, hooray!

For a long weekend of walk a lot, tram hopping, design, culture and architecture spotting, 

not to mention great vegan food and fabulous fika. 

And possibly a Moomin-ishly stylish dress or shoes.

Plus if you are a small sized woolly, everyting is huge and exciting. Even a rawfood chocolate cake. Or two.

Happy weekend!

yellow lemon heart

What do you do when life hands you organic lemons?
Well, colour match them with bobbaloos of course!

Also I read such an interesting piece - on LinkedIn of all places, it's in Swedish but I'm sure you can get the same info by googling - about the benefit of lemons and lemon water. And since I do feel a bit blah, pale, listless and frumpy - yup that too - at the moment despite good food and my supplements - it has indeed been a long dark winter and it's far from over... - I thought I'd give it an organic go.

Heart bowl by ceramist friend Lena

hello there morning juice 2015

A year ago I got the fabulastic juicer. I made and drank so so many freshly made juices during 2014, during some periods one per day, but usually it was about 3-4 per week. Then during the last few months of the year I admit I slacked. Badly.

I hope I will be able to rectify that and get back into that great habit of very regular juicing again. Because it is awesome. Both for body, soul and planet.

My favourite combo is still carrot - apple - ginger and that's what I thoroughly enjoyed this morning. Looking forward to many many more of those to come this year.

What's your favourite juice combo?

superfood, the book

This is a book I'd never heard of. By a writer I'd never heard of. John Opsahl, a Norwegian lifestyle coach, is supposedly the leading expert on superfood in Scandinavia. Call yourself an expert and I'm immediately very sceptical. That said, the book (which I got from mum) "Supermat - läkande mat från naturens hjärta" (Superfood - healing food from the heart of nature) is quite interesting.

I see it more as an encyclopedia of fascinating natural ingredients jampacked with nutrition and healing qualities rather than a book I will read from beginning to end. And the tone of the book is *quite* preaching, which is *rather* off-putting imho. But it also deals with the sad fact that so many people abuse both their own bodies as well as the nature around us with the food they eat - hey, meat eaters, fast food- and sugar lovers I'm looking at you!



And it's about high time we talk about how important it is for parents to be responsible with the food they let their children eat. Especially in the Western world. The above passage is from the book, it's a very matter of fact put fact that is *rather* taboo to talk about -

"I find it very provoking that we, despite all the information about food and health today, continue to put our children in danger of lifestyle diseases, allergies, behavioral imbalances and food addiction by feeding them nutrient-poor and unhealthy food. We must stop projecting our own food addictions on our children in order to justify ourselves."

Word.

The book also contains a generous recipe section with mouthwatering food, rawfood. Unfortunately I think the recipes hold too many ingredients that are not available in well-stocked supermarkets, you have to look for them in speciality shops. And I always find that a bit tricky. I'm all for not buying super cheap stuff, but quality and organic, but I'm not keen on running around town to get the stuff only to find I really didn't enjoy it. Waste of time, money and food. Plus I'm allergic to when people companies authors try to push their own food brand (in this case it's called Supernature) with sneaking them into the recipes.

I understand that superfood en masse may not be something easy available in your local grocery store, but still I would appreciate more basic ingredients for such recipes. After all, all vegetables are good ones and good oils, nuts, herbs, seasoning and such are always within easy buy for most of us. You don't always have to complicate things you know. And sometimes common sense is a very good thing.

a bag of happiness

This is the special delivery of my day - a true bag of happiness. In the shape of the most deliciously scented lotions and potions from one of my favourite skincare brands Bath & Body Works. Which sadly still isn't available in Sweden. So I have to rely on kind souls from overseas bringing the bottles of goodness.

Every single bottle is of a different scent. And they all smell absolutely fantastic. I will reveal the content another day.

The special delivery person, who happens to be vegan, and I also had lunch at Falafelbaren as well as fabulous rawfood fika at little organic shop/cafe 8T8 - I think you can tell how delicious these chocolate treats were from the picture alone...



And she got the beanie. Despite the continous lack of sun it was a day of a very fine sort. It was a day to be grateful for.

Even if there's no hedgehog around to endorse the bottles of sweet scented things, like past summer.

this is october

the one, undeniable truth about autumn is that it's certainly the most colourful of seasons. 

crisp and clear or deep and bright.

and eating in season is affordable and perfect.

even the most unattractive of train stations has a romantic, soft glow about them.

and socks in colours rock.

oh, october, you charmer you.

spread joy with fabulous colours and happy patterns

Three years ago I bought the fantastic strawberry shirt. Which initially brought not only me but the people I met a lot of joy. It was a truly happiness instigating kind of shirt.

At least until it turned out the soft, stretchy cotton jersey fabric went inelastic after following the washing instructions. I know, I could should have made a complaint in the shop but I didn't. Instead I wore it very rarely, because it was simply too uncomfortable and restraining. Which was a pity since it's a beautiful happy garment that screams "flaunt me!".

So as much as it pained me I recently decided to sell it, preferably to someone considerably smaller than me so the shirt could flow like a tunic instead of a tight fitting shirt. It now lives with and is worn by the pug named Malte's owner and (according to my mum) she looks lovely in it. The strawberry shirt/tunic was worn to a birthday party recently which both children and grown-ups attended and everyone loved it. The grown-ups thought it was lovely and the children were borderline exstatic. Especially one little disabled girl who was completely mesmerized by the pretty, colourful strawberry and clouds piece.

This made me well chuffed to hear. As much as I miss having it in my wardrobe I'm not exactly lacking in the clothes to wear department, ahem. And hearing about it making both wearer and others that joyful, well it even makes me a bit teary eyed.

It also makes me think about the fact that so many too many people wear black and overall boring, unobtrusive colours, anti-colours - example of the kind of people I feel I'm living in a parallell universe to. When in fact that never make anyone happy, neither the wearer nor the people crossing its path. Spreading light and happiness in an unpretentious everyday way can be so simple, wear something colourful and smashing. And possibly with a fabulous pattern.

With the strawberry shirt now off to a new home I can at least be very very grateful for a grand kind of carrot cardigan to wear.

So what are you going to wear tomorrow?

focus on happiness

Actually no, I didn't buy this T-shirt, but I really adore the print. Simple and oh so important. Here are five things that made me happy today;

Instead of the T-shirt above I got me a lovely, cool knitted linen sweater on sales with another fabulous statement - The heart is a compass. From the same line as the stay inspired T-shirt. It'll be perfect for cooler summer evenings and for many years to come. That made me happy, that one sweater was left, that it was in my size and that it looked good.



It rained today! Finally. And a great deal of water poured down. And the temperatures sank to very pleasing degrees. It was again possible to breath and think. Energy returned. It still rains. And hopefully it will be possible to actually get a decent night's sleep. Touch wood.



Not the least bit as good as the peach pomegranate one, but still this kombucha was refreshing and uplifting. Yup, I need to drink this more often.



Stockholm Pride week started today. There are rainbow flags and signs everywhere and somehow the city seems a bit kinder and more loving. Even the Oatly drinks packaging is rainbow coloured. Their packaging design is awesome any day, but rainbow coloured even more so.

And you know me, I just match. Even if most summer days are Impi dress days it was a slightly more befitting day today.



This made me happy. But then this makes me happy and grateful everyday. To be surrounded by gorgeous, loving, quirky cats. One of the best things in life. And I have that in abundance. Lucky, lucky, lucky me. Happiness indeed.

What made YOU happy today?

from carrot to juice

it seems like there are a crazy amount of supersized carrots out there these days.

quite a few end their days in my juicer. and get thoroughly enjoyed by yours truly.

and always snoopervised by cats.