Australia - Balance & Spice

Food Plans

Good afternoon, friends!

Today started out very chilly here in Brisbane, but full of exciting news that got me out of bed. I skyped with my mom, who told me to check my e-mail…and look what it said! coming to Australia!

I am so excited, I can’t even handle it! My mom and aunt Marcia are coming to visit me, and so very soon! I’m counting down the days, and Chewy is pretty psyched to meet her grandma and great Aunt!

Sleepy puppy

We’re already making plans to head to Cairns to see the great barrier reef, which will be awesome. If anyone has any tips, that would be amazing!

Food Plans

For a while, I was doing really well with food blogging. Then, we went to Europe, my camera broke, and I am finding it so challenging to get back in the swing of documenting my meals, which I found to be a really helpful tool. Lately, I’ve noticed that my meals have been feeling less like meals, and more like day long snack-fests. While I haven’t put on any noticeable weight (noticeable, as in, changing the way my jeans fit) I feel uncomfortable and icky. So, I’ve decided to renew my commitment to food blogging as a tool, and also use a food plan as a tool, at least for a little while, to keep my meals on track.

For me, for a food plan to be successful, it has to fulfill the following criteria:

It needs to have variety
It needs to be delicious
It needs to be filling
It needs to have three meals and at least two snacks
There has to be some flexibility

Today’s food plan:

Breakfast: kidney beans, one egg and one egg white with spinach and a dash of light mozzarella cheese.

kidney bean breakfast bowl

Snack: pear

Lunch: salad with tuna, two tablespoons of greek yogurt mixed with a teaspoon of sun dried tomato tapanade, with black olives, chickpeas, spinach, silver beet, and two gluten-free buckwheat crackers, one with almond butter.

tuna salad

Snack: fruit, yogurt, and gluten-free homemade muesli

dinner: gluten-free pizza and wine.

Optional: almond milk with carob powder and cinnamon

I tend to nibble a lot while cooking, so I am choosing to be gentle on myself around this, but having this laid out is so very helpful to make sure that I am not going to the kitchen just because I am bored.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Today’s workout will involve a yoga video of one of my all time favorite teachers – Dana Flynn. So looking forward! sleepy puppy 2

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Australia, Chewbacca

Five Things Friday

20 Apr By Kat Reiner Leave a Comment

I’m sitting on the couch this shabbat eve, staring at my new iPhone (the old one’s battery went kaputsky, so the kind folks at Apple Store Chermside replaced it for me!) with it’s blank Photos page, and hitting myself on the head for not backing up my photos before waltzing into the Palace du Pomme.

So, instead of mourning the loss of my luscious breakfast snaps, I thought I’d share Five Things Friday – Aussie Edition

1. From Earth and Water

Raw vegan tacos - delicious!

[source]

Ant and I were originally driving 1.5 hours to the Gold Coast of Australia to “run” – which basically means, eat at my all time favorite Australian restaurant, From Earth and Water. Then, we realized it would be too hot to run by the time we got there…so we decided to run first, then make the drive for the deliciousness to see the beach. Last time we were there, we got tacos and ravioli, and didn’t feel crappy and bloated afterwards – miracles do happen, folks! Totally worth the trip.

2. Ellie Krieger’s Tuscan Soup

Ellie Krieger's tuscan soup

[source]

I love this soup. I made it again today, the first time being, appropriately enough, in Tuscany. Even with canned beans and tomatoes, plus dried spices, it tasted absolutely divine. It’s so easy, gets tons of vegetable servings in, and takes about 30 minutes from pulling the vegetables out of the fridge to ladling the luscious soup on a plate.

3. Chandon Australian Sparkling Wine

[source]

Tonight, Ant and I are snuggling on the couch, watching MI4: Ghost Protocol (so far, so fun!) and decided to crack open our bottle of Chandon we’ve been keeping for a special occasion since December. It’s perfectly dry, tastes as good if not better than a crisp prosecco, and is just fancy enough and affordable enough to make any night a special occasion.

4. The Gold Coast

Gold Coast

[source]

I am so excited to go the beach, that I can’t handle it. I’m going to go to sleep early, just so I can wake up, run, and get to the beach!!

5. My teddy bear.

This is Hope the bear. Snuggled up behind her is Mr. Bear, my companion since I was 12. Hope has only been in my life since the year before I went to college. My mom and I went to Build a Bear and built each other bears. Hope is so amazing – not only has she travelled the world with my in her “I <3 New York” Pajamas, but if you squeeze her hand, she says a special message directly from my mom. I treasure her.

That’s all for now – can’t wait to post more after our day at the Gold Coast! Have a good one.

Filed Under: Balance & Spice, Food, Recipes, and More! Tagged With: Australia, Gold Coast, vegetarian

Dinner Partay

7 Jan By Kat Reiner 4 Comments

Last night was such a blast.

After a late-ish lunch of left-over roasted vegetable salad with chicken sausage…

roasted vegetable salad with chicken sausage

…and a very quick workout (I was still totally exhausted from the day before’s 30/60/90 workout, and was quickly running out of cooking time, so we did a 15 minute treadmill elliptical combo. Quite lame.) I started cooking for our dinner party!

Naked chicken

We held a little dinner party for two of our dear friends. They’re from Sydney and live in New York, so it was so great to catch up after being in their home town.

I started cooking at around 5:30. I decided to make something rustic and simple, but of course very healthy and nourishing.

They arrived at 7:00 and we sat down for prosecco, homemade hummus, carrots, and gluten free cracklebread.

Butternut Squash and Chestnut Soup

We chatted for an hour about life and Australia, and then sat down for dinner.

We started with butternut squash and chestnut soup, which was even more delightful than I remember it from Thanksgiving. Creamy, rich and filling, it was a great way to start a winter’s meal.

For our main, we had roasted chicken stuffed with lemon, cooked with sweet potatoes and carrots, as well as sauteed rainbow chard and mashed cauliflower with cannellini beans, adapted from Pickles & Honey recipe.

Roasted chicken with two lemons

mashed cauliflower

sauteed chard

roasted carrots and sweet potatoes

Best part is, save for about a teaspoon of olive oil for the chard and the caulfilower, this meal had no added fat. It was all healthy, whole foods, and was so delicious.

Of course, the “no-fat” thing went out the window with our desert…

strawberries and whipped cream

Long stemmed strawberries, fresh whipped cream, with a drizzle of balsamic. It was fantastic, fresh, and comparatively healthy.

After dinner, we stayed up till all hours talking about Australia, politics, and how we plan to save the world.

They brought us the best bon voyage gifts ever…

A travel spork for each of us, peppermint tea and tea filters, and some my all time favorite, McClure’s Pickles!!

It was such fun to get to entertain and hang out with such fun people.

Of course, Ant and I are never up past midnight, so our 2:00am bedtime shocked our system a bit. We spent today noodling, hanging out with my parents animals, and I taught a few classes at the JCC. All in all, a pretty chill day.

Tomorrow, we’re setting our alarm early to get back on the pre-breakfast cardio bandwagon. I really do see how hard it is to workout after breakfast, so we’re just going to try and keep the old habit strong!

Night, all.

Filed Under: Food, Recipes, and More!, Life in NYC Tagged With: Australia, dinner, party, whipped cream

2011 was Heaven!

1 Jan By Kat Reiner Leave a Comment

Peer pressure, peer pressure. I wasn’t going to do a 2011 recap because I haven’t been blogging daily for the full year, but everyone is so excited to share their moments and photos, that I just couldn’t resist creating my own highlight real.

January:

1. We moved into our new apartment, and our first real home together, for just the two of us.

2. We went to Sedona, Arizona, and hiked the grand canyon.

February:

1. We experienced a huge freakin’ snow storm. Anthony’s first!

2. I started my 500-hour yoga teacher training..

March:

I turned 24 – yay birthdays!

April:

1. We went to Los Angeles and visited some of my best friends and toured all over.

2. We went to Los Vegas, where Anthony debuted Glimpse to rave reviews. We also had a total blast and a half seeing shows and experiencing the lights of Vegas!

May:

We celebrated mother’s day and my mom’s birthday.

June:

I taught my first class at Lululemon!

July:

I graduated my 500 hour teacher training!

August:

I went to Dana Flynn’s vinyasa intensive, which changed my practice forever.

We went to Canada and made a life-changing decision.

September:

I taught the cutest kids in the world yoga. (Yeah, that didn’t start in September…but apparently September wasn’t a photogenic month!)

I took the Karma Kids Yoga Teacher Training, which helped the above infinitely.

October:

I was on the radio!

November:

I took a restorative teacher training with the incredible Cyndi Lee.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family.

We moved out of our beloved apartment, and said “good-bye.”

December:

We celebrated the Holidays with my family.

We moved to Australia!!

We had a lot of day trips…

I guest posted for Peanut Butter Fingers about Chanukah.

We celebrated Christmas with Anthony’s amazing (and huge) family!

2011 was an amazing year. I can’t wait to see what 2012 holds…plenty of travel, love and adventure awaits!

Happy New Year!

Filed Under: Balance & Spice, Spiritual Tagged With: Australia

What are you doing Christmas Eve?

24 Dec By Kat Reiner Leave a Comment

Daily Jab:

Happy Christmas eve, all! It’s so weird to realize that by the time anyone reads this, it will be Christmas here, and only Christmas eve for all of you. Sorry about that. Today was spent with Anthony’s friend Jeff in Southbank, followed by drinks at his cousins, where an exciting announcement was made.

Today, I started with yoga again. The practice was longer, but I spent more time on fewer poses. I was very focused on working my inversions, so I did fewer chattarungas and more shoulder openers. Chrissy would have been proud.

Yoga Practice of the Day:

Kneeling on a block (Virasana)
Virasana meditation
Raise and lower block in Virasana
AMS
Knee into chest (going into plank) – 8 times each side
Plank Chattarungasana to AMS 5x
AMS –> Lunge –> easy twist –> intense twist (R + L)
Surya Namaskar A – 5x
Shoulder openers
Handstand 3x
Headstand 2x
Supine twist
Savasana

All told, the practice lasted around 40 minutes. It’s so ridiculous – when I’m not thinking too hard, handstand and headstand balance are both easy. Then, I do it once, get so excited, and try to recreate my first experience, which never freakin’ happens. What can I say? As a yoga teacher, I have so very much to learn.

After savasana, Anthony’s sister made gluten-free buckwheat pancakes that were absolutely divine. I’ve never been a big weekend breakfast girl, but Ant’s family is a bit, so I’m more than happy to oblige and indulge in fluffy, moist goodness!

chia seeds pancakes

I only had one, and saved the other for a snack. It was totally delicious. I enjoyed it with a teaspoon of macadamia butter that I brought back from Binna Burra. Slightly sweet from the roasted macadamias, as well as rich and light – Biscoff spread, eat your heart out! (Admittedly, I’ve never had it, but my spread kicked any sweetened spreads bum any day.)

After breakfast, we went for an hour walk through the neighborhood, and talked a lot about our dreams of the future, our budgeting strategy, and what we would do if we won the lottery. I love our walks for the incredible conversations we have, as well as for the exercise. Double win.

After coming home, skyping with my family, and getting dressed, it was time to head to Towong to see Anthony’s friend Jeff, who stayed with us some months ago in New York. It was great to see him again, and after catching up in his apartment, we headed to South Bank, a very posh neighborhood of Brisbane for lunch at Ginga, a Japanese restaurant.

Lunch:

Ginga was a lovely restaurant located on a main drag of South bank. It was quite empty due to Christmas Eve, so we had no problem finding a table, ordering, and getting served in a timely fashion. I had steamed vegetables and tofu, as well as a salmon roll which two 6’2 Australian birds stole pieces of when I wasn’t looking. It was quite fresh, simple and delicious – exactly was I was craving.

After lunch, we wandered around South Bank, and took in the sites.

I felt like such a tourist, but I begged the boys to ride the Wheel of Brisbane with me. I figure, when we come back in April, we’ll truly be living here, so I won’t be able to ask to go on tourist attractions like a $15 ferris wheel. However, for the next week, a tourist i still am, so I figured, what the hell?

Brisbane eye

The wheel was a very lovely way to see the city of Brisbane, and escape the intense sunshine. It was about 12 minutes long, and showed many views of the area. I’d recommend it for the views, but I did think it was a bit overpriced for what it was.

After we said good-bye to Jeff, we headed home where I promptly fell sound asleep for two hours, because I’m cool like that.

Dinner:

I was awoken to enjoy a delicious dinner of steak and salad. I hadn’t had red meat in quite a while, so the steak was a welcome jolt of protein to my body. I felt it instantly, and enjoyed it tremendously.

After dinner, we headed over to Anthony’s cousin Tenille’s house for Christmas eve drinks.

She and her partner, Marc, had an exciting announcement to make – they’re engaged!!! They’ve been together for eight and a half years, so it was a very exciting day to get to share with the family.