Coffee Break No. 5

While I am typing these words, it is the last day of March 2019, which means my one-month break, my long holidays, my time to relax and refuel is over. I know, one full month I had off, it feels like heaven. In case you didn’t know, this blog is still just my hobby, I conciously decided this not long ago. It still is my baby, but I can only take care of it when I am not working or on weekends. I worked full-time in Hamburg, and I am also going to work full-time in Munich. But I needed a small break. I needed this month to destress. It was quite a whirlwind, moving 800 kilometers. You may be in the new city physically, but your sould is still wandering around, lost at some pit stop.

Yes, I do feel nostalgic, this one precious month is suddenly over. How can this happen so fast? Wasn’t it just yesterday when I had to paint walls white again (something very common here in Germany)? Wasn’t it just a few days ago that I taught my replacement in Hamburg the ropes of the job? The farewell party? How can it be that I am suddenly in another city and have to work again? I find it amazing how quickly each day passed without having a proper job.

This is my one-month review

  • I didn’t really enjoy preparing my dinner, but I ended up liking it quite a bit

Guess what, pasta was fun to make. You know, like kneading the dough, rolling it out, that’s baking language right there. I definitely prefer baking to cooking. I will never understand how anyone likes to take care of so many pots bubbling with something at the same time. Each one screaming, take care of me! Baking is so much easier, usually one bowl at a time and step by step, I find that much more relaxing. So when I had to make my own dinner, I decided for pasta. Pasta I could prepare without a pasta machine, so this meant tagliatelle, lasagna, anything I could roll out thinnly. My favorite recipe was below tagliatelle with dried tomatoes, spinach and walnuts.

Tagliatelle mit getrockneten Tomaten, Spinat und Walnüssen

  • Taking great pictures of pasta I much harder than I thought

Maybe it isn’t the best idea taking pictures when you are hungry. Especially if you would like the food to be warm when you finally have the chance to sit down and enjoy it. I have to say, cakes and cupcakes are so much easier to handle, you can move them around for hours and nothing happens. Thank God I have a baking blog, otherwise I would be the grumpiest person on earth.

Photo taken while preparing the triple chocolate muffins

  • I vowed to take pictures every single day

That was much easier than I thought. In addition, I had so much fun taking pictures. I have to admit, photography is definitely a new passion of mine. I find baking very relaxing, it destresses me. Photography, on the other hand, is much more art. In my opinion baking makes others happy whereas photography shows beauty. Below you will see a “Behind the Scenes” picture of the super refreshing lime bars. You will find the recipe here on the blog.

  • I baked like never before

I have never baked as much and as constant as in March 2019. I usually try to keep it to the weekend only, I usually either bake on Friday evening or Saturday morning, but this month I decided to only do things I truly enjoy and one of them is baking. Of course I had a lot of guests over, one time I threw a little get together with more than 10 guests. Below strawberry chocolate cake was definitely a huge hit and gone within hours.

Erdbeer-Schokotorte

  • Since I baked so much, I did gain weight

I find it a bit scary writing this for everybody to read. I am fairly tall, 1.77 cm (roughly 5’9, almost 6 feet), so I can eat quite a bit, but since I had so many baked goods around all the time, it did finally show on the scale. And as many women, I have tried my share of diets over the years. I have never been a huge fan of diets that restrict food, let alone full food groups. You want me to quit carbs? Are you kidding? I can’t let go of cakes and cookies, sorry, just not going to happen. I have never believed in restrictions, in severe food changes, since these are not going to be permanent. Usually what happens is that you are going to gain it all back, the typical jojo effect. Been there, done that. The only thing that has actually worked for me is interval fasting. The basic idea is that you have a window of 8-10 hours in which you can eat whatever you want, but for the remainder of your 24 hours, you can only drink water. That’s a “diet” I can get behind. I intend on starting with the soft version, which is a ten-hour window. Usually you are asked to keep this window at the same time, however, if I had to attend a business dinner or had some other kind of event outside of my normal window, I had no problem simply moving the window. Because one of the things I hate the most is that you have to explain to others why you aren’t eating or eating funny things, bla. I am really sick of that and as stated, once you go back to your normal eating habits, you will gain it back. Let’s see how it works this time, I mean, I am writing this in public, you are my witnesses 😉

Jenny is baking KeksstempelOreos with a cookie stamp, you will find the recipe plus lots of tips working with a cookie stamp here

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