Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Everybody likes cookies, right? A perfect small treat to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee. Here is a super simple and quick recipe using only the ingredients you probably already have in your pantry. The cookies will be extremely short and crumbly, so they are perfect for enjoying at home and do not like to be transported. But in a way, it is a good thing because you just need to enjoy them at home and there are more for you! In fact, don’t let yourself be fooled by the image where the cookies are pictured in a jar – taking them out several crumbled, so I recommend storing them on a flat surface, cookie rack, or a plate. Let’s not fool ourselves, they will be eaten super quickly anyhow, so no need to place them in a jar.

The recipe I share with you is an Estonian classic. Well, almost. Traditionally it is cooked with a lot of fatty pork, but my version is completely vegan. Also, the potatoes and carrots are not traditionally added here, but rather served as a side. I wasn't planning to cook this recipe, but a fridge clean-out soup, but while cooking, it got way too thick. Of course, there is always an option to thin out the soup with extra water or stock, but this time I felt halfway through the cook that maybe a stew is a better option. So, a stew type of a thing is what I ended up with and I am most likely going to eat it for a few days in a row now.

Autumn is a perfect time to enjoy hot meals and a slightly spicy bowl of steaming soup is just a wonderful meal to have right now. So warm and comforting. Loaded with the goodness of fresh vegetables and I also added in some edamame beans to load it with even more protein. I enjoy the texture edamame beans bring to the soup. So good!

As you know, I love gardening and friends gave me two chili plants for my birthday this year. One of them is the habanero, and I don’t even know what the other is, but it has fruits very similar to the habanero. Surprisingly it turns out that they are both super spicy – so spicy that I ended up cooking 15 times more hot sauce than I intended as the batch started with was so super spicy, I was not able to eat more than a drop. And I love spice! So now my fridge is basically filled with hot sauce and not much of anything else fits in there anymore. I guess my future is spicy. And if somebody invites me to a birthday party, you better believe that the gift is going to be in a nice bottle of hot sauce. For you, I calculated the more reasonable amounts as nobody needs a ton of hot sauce.

Every summer I organize a few yoga brunches, where I host my friends with a fun yoga class at first and then feed them. These corn pancakes were a part of the brunch table last time and they were a hit. The yoga class part was a fun one too as after around 60 minutes of the class that was planned to be 75 minutes it started pouring, so we needed to cut the savasana (something I have never done before), and instead of enjoying a picnic ate in my living room. Luckily there is nothing that a nice brunch table doesn’t fix, so no harm done. But I still don’t recommend cutting savasana! The fritters are super moist thanks to the fresh corn, crispy (stay crispy too, for a relatively long time), and flavorful from the onion, chili, and coriander. They work wonderfully as part of a brunch table spread, but if you wish you can also serve them as a fancy appetizer plated up on a pretty plate with avocado puree and pico de gallo.

All cocktails don't need to be served cold and all tea does not need to be just tea. So you are free to decide if you wish to call this drink a warm cocktail or next-level tea, it is delicious either way. Truth be told, I usually don't like adding anything that contains calories to my drinks. Alcoholic beverages are an exception, but I never drink milk, juice, or lemonade if I am thirsty, and I never add any sweeteners to my hot beverages. But I needed to create a hot cocktail for an event and just serving tea did not cut it, so I experimented a little and am super happy with the result. Rooibos has a nice warmness to its taste, and mango with passionfruit complements it well. At the same time, Aperol, which is a super nice summer drink with sparkling wine, gives it slightly bitter notes and it all balances out to my liking. It is not going to be my go-to drink while reading a book late in the evening, but I am definitely serving it as an aperitif at my next autumn dinner party!

Let me introduce you to the easiest and most flavorful salad ever. This Asian-inspired salad comes together super quick and smacks you in the face with the flavor. I love the funkiness of fish sauce and probably you already know that I do love spicy food. Sadly for my vegan and vegetarian friends, I haven’t figured out a perfect substitute for fish sauce in this recipe, so my best bet is for you to just omit fish sauce and season with salt instead, but it will miss out on some flavor. Sorry! But for the rest of you – make this salad right now! Especially if you are in the middle of zucchini season. It is super light but bursting with flavor. For me, a big bowl of this on a hot summer day is a perfect light lunch. The peanuts give it a nice crunch and some plant protein. If you need more protein, it works well with fried tofu, prawns, or simply steamed white fish too.

As you already know I absolutely adore seasonal food, but the season in Estonia is extremely short. Luckily we still have super nice autumn and I can even still pick fresh tomatoes from my balcony garden, but I know that the niceness is going to be over soon. The recipe I share with you today utilizes the best Estonian beetroots, but the even better news is that you can make the pasta with the same beetroot powder that I used as it is available on Amazon. I rarely advertise anything even in Estonia, but this beetroot flour is the next level, so if you get a chance – check it out. Enough with the promo and back to the recipe.

Let me introduce the most common way I am cooking. I have an idea or too much of something at home waiting to be used up. So, I browse the web for a perfect recipe. I find several and then decide on one. Almost every time I decide that “this time I will be following the recipe to a t”. And almost every time I end up replacing half the ingredients, and changing the cooking time and ratios. This is what happened this time too. The base recipe is here, and I am sure it is delicious, but I have no way of telling for sure.

As with most of my recipes during summertime, even my cocktail is inspired by fresh local produce. Not grapefruit or tequila, obviously, but the super fresh honey that I got from my aunt. I don’t usually drink tequila, but I recently went to a restaurant where the bartender mixed a cocktail that matched all my desires perfectly and it was tequila-based, so figured I try my hand mixing a cocktail at home myself. And oh boy it was a success! I’m not sure how I had never had Paloma before, somehow I never even thought about having a tequila-based cocktail instead of my usual favorite, gin.

Here is a super light summertime dessert for you to enjoy. In fact, it is light enough to enjoy as a breakfast, but for breakfast, I would substitute the coconut shavings with granola and add more fresh berries. Did you know that parfait means two different things – it is a classical French dessert meaning a frozen treat that is super similar to ice cream. And it also means a layered dessert like this one here. I like both of them, but as my freezer is usually fully stocked with all kinds of things there is usually not enough space to place a whole loaf tin there to set the frozen parfait. But I always have space for layered desserts that feature coconut and rhubarb! I love all kinds of food served in tiny jars so much that last summer during my travels in France when I discovered they sell yogurt in cute glass jars I knew I needed those jars at home so I brought back 6 of the little jars. You can bet that airport security had a few questions to ask about them, but here they are at my home and being used almost every week.

If there was a competition for a healthy, yet delicious cookie, these here would definitely be in a running. They are not too sweet, they are gluten-free and completely vegan, and they contain a good amount of protein thanks to using chickpea flour. I sometimes call these hummus cookies as chickpeas and sesame (in a form of tahini for hummus) are the main components for both snacks, but in reality, they don’t taste anything like hummus. Luckily. I know that sweet hummus exists, but it is really not my thing. Now, of course, I started wondering if savory hummus cookies could also be a thing. I think they could, but this needs some extra exploring from my side first. I will keep you posted if my trials turn out to be a success!

Drinking from a hollowed-out pineapple (or any other fruit for that matter) instantly makes me feel like I am on vacation. But instead of a rum-based drink, today my pineapple was filled with a super healthy oat-pineapple smoothie. Still felt like a vacation drink to me, but this might be enhanced by sunny weather. Of course, if you have something better to do with your time than spend 20 minutes carefully taking the flesh out of a pineapple trying to not pierce the skin, feel free to drink from a glass. This is also a good option if using frozen pineapple cubes and the smoothie will be just as delicious, but you just need to get into the vacation mode some other way.

I love this time of the year when all the fresh produce is available at the farmers' market. In this salad here, the watermelon is from the market (growing watermelon on the terrace in the city center is too much even for a loco person like I am), and all the herbs, cucumber, and strawberries are from my terrace. I just love going out and picking a little something from one pot and another thing from another. Pure luxury and it does not get any fresher. This salad is something I could eat every day right now. I almost do eat it every day. So light, refreshing, sweet, and also slightly salty from the feta. I do play around with different seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds) instead of pine nuts and different herbs, but the combination I bought out in the recipe is my absolute favorite.

I don’t know who said it, but I really like the quote “if cauliflower can be pizza, then you can be anything you want!”. It is pretty much the same story here with these fries. Of course, they do not taste like potatoes and this is also not a goal, but they sure are delicious and crunchy (well, for a while at least) and I like them much more than french fries. I don’t know what it is like where you live, but here in Estonia at one point in the summer, we all have way too many zucchinis. This is one of the ways to eat them!

Tacos are definitely on the top of my all times favorites list. They have so many different versions, but for me, they always need to be spicy, tangy, and fresh. And these fish tacos here cover all the points. I have given you a simple recipe to prepare the actual tortillas from scratch too. I recently got myself a tortilla press and have been making my own little tortillas at least once a week. For me, it is so satisfying to see how two simple ingredients make something so wonderful. Before I had a tortilla press I once organized a taco party and hand-rolled 80 little tacos. After that, I took a long break from any homemade tortillas, but once I got the tortilla press, the break is over. So much easier than hand-rolling. And they look prettier too. Not all the kitchen gadgets I get end up being used much, but it seems that the tortilla press is here to stay. That all said – if cooking is not something that you voluntarily spend much time on – just get the tortillas from the shop and the rest of the recipe is easy-peasy!

For most of the year, I don’t care much for the cabbage. I do eat it in stews, soups, and salads, but I rarely make a main meal out of it. But the fresh spring and early summer cabbages are something else. So juicy and tender, bursting with freshness that I often end up eating the whole thing raw, before I even get a chance to make something out of it. But I also love all cabbages roasted. I am also convinced that roasting cabbages are how you make cabbage-haters like them! Brussel sprouts, kale, cauliflower – in Estonian they are all called cabbages and they are all wonderful roasted! This time, inspired by a recent Masterchef Australia episode, I added a slightly Asian touch to the cabbage. It is not the same recipe they did in the show, as some internet gods have decided that the content of some Australian websites should not be visible in Estonia, so I don’t even know the exact recipe, but it sure looked amazing on TV.

Who said that smoothies need to be sweet? I highly recommend giving this one a try. It is also a good way to get in your recommended vegetable portions for a day and you could even blend in some lettuce or spinach leaves to make it extra nutritious. I always find that smoothies need some kind of a creamy element. In sweet versions, I usually use banana for that. In savory versions, avocado works well, making this smoothie creamy and luscious. As tomato is rather watery, I recommend preparing this smoothie right before enjoying it as otherwise, it will split. If you need to prepare it in advance, make sure you shake it well before drinking!

Whoever invented the breakfast burrito is a genius in my eyes. Such a filling start to a day. Lots of veggies, a few eggs, and a little bit of cheese all wrapped up into a tortilla make me so happy.

Everybody loves chocolate and everybody loves muffins, right? At least everybody I know does. Chocolate muffins do not really scream healthy. You might already know that I like to make otherwise indulgent recipes somewhat more healthy without losing any flavor. I did the same this time by making the muffins 100% plant-based and choosing the oat flour carefully, also gluten-free.

Asparagus season is a short one, but oh boy how enjoyable it is. I love fresh asparagus and to be completely honest – I often end up just snacking on raw asparagus before I get to cooking them. Sometimes I don’t even have anything left to cook… But some other times I am patient enough to start cooking and today were one of those days. Asparagus only needs gentle cooking and overcooking them does not make them any favors, but rather turns the gentle crunchy sprigs to stringy and tough. Less is more also applies to seasoning them. No need to overcrowd it with flavors – a simple buttery sauce is enough.

Confit means baking something in fat. In this recipe, the tomatoes are not fully submerged in the oil, because I just find it unnecessary. I think it is enough to make sure the bottom of the tray is covered in oil and then just move the tomatoes around halfway through the cooking. Of course, if you feel like splurging, you can always add more olive oil – the oil will be infused with tomato flavor and herbs if you are using them, so you can use it to season salads, pasta, and simple sourdough bread…. So feel free to do this. Here in Estonia, the summer is slowly arriving, but our tomato season is still a few months away. But even the imported tomatoes already taste better compared to the mid-winter ones that taste like nothing.

I just got back from a holiday in Jamaica (a fabulous place, definitely go!), and brought a few ripe mangoes with me. So today's breakfast was again my buckwheat muesli, served with fresh ripe mango, Greek yogurt, and some pomegranate seeds. So, so good! Muesli is usually made with oats, but my favorite version does not contain any oats. And buckwheat, at least in Estonia, where I live, is usually considered a savory food. But still, this mildly sweet and crunchy raw buckwheat muesli has been a favorite of mine for a long time now.

Truth to be told - this is not an authentic Spanish paella but as I saw somebody cooking paella in a movie, I felt I needed to give it a go myself and sooner rather than later, so there was no time for shopping. I needed it right this moment. I somehow always manage to have at least 3 different types of rice, so this was covered. I used risotto rice as this seemed the closest to Spanish rice, but feel free to use Spanish rice as this is used in the original. I also happened to have a classic risotto spice saffron available (even two jars, both unopened) and some frozen seafood too, so an hour after I was done with the movie I, already had a plate full of this delicious treat in front of me. And delicious it is! Classically paella is cooked on a paella pan, which I didn’t have, so I just used a normal frying pan, so no need to panic if you don’t have the right pan – if you don’t plan on becoming a professional paella chef, the normal pan will do just fine.

Here is a simple recipe for you that so far everybody who has tried it loves. The middle eastern recipe called tabbouleh is based on a load of fresh herbs (really, make sure you use a lot of herbs) and bulgur. Bulgur is wheat that is crushed and pre-cooked, then dried again, so there is no need to boil the bulgur before adding this to the salad – the moisture from tomatoes, oil, and lemon juice soaks right into the grains making them softer and even more flavorful. Of course, if you don’t have 40 minutes to wait until the bulgur slowly absorbs the liquid you can also quickly boil it for 5 minutes, but I really do not recommend this. The salad itself is already quite filling in my opinion, but I recently hosted a dinner party where a vegan main was needed, and so I felt the need to add another element.