Amayzine

This is how you keep a fit body if you love pizza and pasta

Few people know this, but on my mother's side (my mother was born in Papua New Guinea, which sounds pretty cool in your passport) I have a handful of Indian roots. Now you can see this much better in Otis than in me, but thanks to my grandmother, I grew up with the Indian cuisine alongside some Indian words. I don't trust all those restaurants that have Indian on the menu next to Chinese for a cent: that's absolutely not the refined taste I grew up with. And just as my grandmother passed all her recipes to my mother, she in turn passed everything on to me. Together with Marly, I learned the fine points of Indian keuken cooking and now it was our turn to prepare all the dishes without help. We were quite apprehensive about the end result, but everything tasted exactly as my grandmother and mother would make it. On Instagram, I received dozens of messages asking if I would share the recipes, so especially for you, I am sharing my favorite dish Rendang.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

600 grams of beef (cut into pieces)

1 large onion (chopped normally)

2 cloves of garlic (pressed)

3 tablespoons grated coconut

Quarter block of coconut cream

1 beef bouillon cube

Spices:

1.5 teaspoons sambal

2 teaspoons galangal

1.5 teaspoons coriander

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 stalk lemongrass (cut into pieces)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt (to taste)

Preparation:

  1. Sauté the onion in sunflower oil, adding the garlic and spices.
  2. Let this sauté for a while over medium heat to release the aroma of the spices.
  3. Lightly brown the coconut in a frying pan, stirring constantly and staying close because this goes very quickly; once the coconut is lightly brown, remove it from the pan and place it in a bowl.
  4. Add the beef, the bouillon cube, and the roasted coconut to the spice mixture and let everything fry for 2 minutes over medium heat.
  5. Add water so that the meat is “under” and then add the coconut cream.
  6. Let the dish simmer with the lid on the pan for 3 to 4 hours until the beef is tender (do not let it boil to avoid the coconut cream separating).
  7. Add water if the dish becomes too “dry”

Otis is going through a growth spurt again, so that means a new shopping session for a bigger size. Luckily, I can still score some nice summer items on sale, but my eye immediately falls on those lovely new collections: lots of brown and yellow tones, which look so cute on Otis.. I can't help but check my favorite site BonBon on the Block and I immediately stumble upon the new Bobo Choses collection: alright then, one outfit for this fall should be fine. I can't wait for the new collections from Mini Rodini and Tiny Cottons to be online this week.

In the meantime, I have a pretty strict workout schedule in my routine: three times a week I am at the gym at 7:30 AM (never thought I would make it to these times, but that's the advantage of such a small one) for a Shred class at Saints & Stars or a spinning class at Rocycle. But to keep that body in shape even on vacation, which is quite a task with my pasta-and-pizza pattern, I need to come up with something sporty to do on location. Now I have tried the 7-minute workout before, but for four days that alarm on my phone went off so often that I immediately deleted that app permanently. If you become too pushy, it totally backfires. But then I saw last week on Thijs Römer's account that he took the DISQ on vacation: a belt with two discs and loops attached plus ankle bands where you attach those loops. This connects two ropes from your hips to your ankles, and by turning the discs, you determine the resistance on those ropes. Every day you receive a ten-minute workout in your email, also executed by Wendy van Dijk. When I see that toned body, I feel both motivated and frustrated: can't I just buy such a killer body somewhere? With healthy tension, I start my first session and that thing literally works me into a sweat. And those ten minutes are quite manageable, so who knows... I'll talk to you again in fourteen days, twelve pizzas, and sixteen pastas to see if I've managed to stick with it!