Valerie, your fitness buddy

Discover the best of you: we are all different but whoever we are, we all underuse our potential. Let's find out together what you are really capable of!

The pleasure to make your own soymilk

Since I was a child, I have always loved making things with my own hands, especially when it is about cooking. Even if you can find easily soymilk in a shop, cooking your own will give you the assurance that there is no junk in it.

4 servings

Calories: about 80 per serving.

Cooking time: about 20 minutes

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup dry yellow soy beans
  • Water

Directions:

Measure ½ cup dry yellow soy beans and wash them over cold water. 

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  1. Place beans in a container with a lid and pour water over the beans.
The height of the container should be at least 2-3 times higher than the quantity of the soy beans since the soy beans will expand.
  2. Let the beans sit for 8 hours (or overnight). Then drain and rinse beans.
  3. Put the beans in a pot and pour water, about 5 times the volume of the beans. Cover, and let cook for 15 minutes. 
  4. Let cool down then put it in the blender and blend it.
  5. Strain your blended soymilk into a large bowl with a very fine strainer. 
  6. Keep the leftover pulp from straining for later use. There are many recipes that use it.
  7. Your soymilk can be flavor with honey, agave syrup or vanilla extract that will add few calories. Pour your soymilk into a glass container with lid and transfer it to the refrigerator and cool. Your soymilk should last about a week in the fridge.

First step in the raw

For many years, I try to figure out how to improve my health by nutrition. I feel good but I wonder how could it be to feel really good, to have the highest energy level, a beautiful glowing skin and a stronger immune system.

A friend introduced me to the raw food diet. Eating raw is supposed to increase energy, improve digestion and skin appearance, help to loose weight and reduce risk of heart disease. Cooking destroys most of the vitamins and enzymes, whereas raw food brings you all the nutritional content of the food you eat.

Tonight I prepared a 90% raw food dinner: a soup made with carrots, avocado, cucumber, cilantro and different spices and a raw sandwich made with tofu, tomatoes, spinach, kale, pepper, alfalfa and millet and flax seed (this last two ingredients where the only cooked). Have you ever try to eat raw? If so, what did you eat?

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Delicious mashed zucchini with ginger

Today, I would like to share with you a easy and fast recipe. I’m fond of zucchini because it is low in calories and contains folate, potassium and vitamin A. Ginger adds a special flavor to the recipe: spicy and aromatic. Give it a try.
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Serving: 4
Calories: 60 per serving
Cooking time: 30 min max

Ingredients:

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  • 5 Zucchini Squash
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 onion
  • Ginger root
  • ½ cube vegetable bouillon
  • Salt, pepper, Herbs of Provence
Directions:

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  • Wash and cut the zucchini into chunks about the size of your thumb
  • Peal the onion and the garlic cloves. Cut the onion into quarters
  • Pour water in the tank and place all ingredients in the steamer basket
  • Sprinkle with herbs de Provence and crumble half a cube of vegetable bouillon and set the timer for 20 minutes

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  • When the zucchinis and onion are cooked, put everything into the blender 
  • Peel the ginger root and cut into about half an inch
  • Blend all and add a bit of salt and pepper and mix. Test the flavor and add the spices according to your own taste. Serve with steamed rice (preferably brown rice, which is healthier than white rice)

Bon appétit!