Snickers Without Guilt

New week, new tricks! Many of us spend Mondays thinking it's time to start all over, fresh, with a clean table. Perhaps the past week you allowed yourself to have a little too many treats, a few too many glasses of wine, didn't quite eat by the book, didn't do as much sports as you should have, didn't get enough sleep etc. But now it's Monday again, new week, new chance to turn it all around.

I've always had a sweet (and salty) tooth, ever since I was a kid. It's hard to resist goodies if they're lurking around in your kitchen cupboards. After moving to France, there has been temptations around each corner and it has taken a lot of strength to keep making healthy choices. To choose the sad version of ryebread (in Finland it's just so much better) instead of the fresh baked baguette in the bakery by your quartier.

I don't believe in complete denial of cravings. In my opinion if you eat clean the majority of the week, you can have some guilty pleasures here and there (this doesn't mean eating a full packet of crisps and three chocolate bars in one go though).

If you're like me and have a craving for something sweet most days but want to still look out for your weight, I might have a solution for you! Instead of buying candy from the store which is packed in artificial colours, flavors and sugar, try this homemade snickers cake! It's a more natural choice and still so sweet that a small piece will definitely satisfy any sugar cravings! I made this a few weeks ago and even my hubby loved it. The recipe is originally from a Finnish lifestyle blog that I follow regularly. The original recipe can be found here in Finnish.

Snickers Cake

Base

180g salted peanuts

80g oat flakes

8 juicy dates

4 table spoons of water

Topping

2dl cream of choice

2 table spoons of honey

2 table spoons butter 

(replace half with coconut oil if you prefer)

30g sugar free dark chocolate 

Start with preparing the base. Crush all ingredients in a mixer but leave some nuts for decoration. Add the water at the end and mix until you have a base that's easy to handle. Take a plate (pie plate/casserole for example) and spread the base on it evenly. Place into freezer.

Prepare the topping by adding all ingredients expept the chocolate, to a teflon kettle. Let boil on medium temperature, stirring the whole time until you have a thicker mass with caramel colour. Now mix in the chocolate. Take the base from the freezer and spread the topping on. Add a couple crumbled peanuts on top and put back to freezer. 

After a couple hours, take the treat out, cut a slice and enjoy! The cake keeps well in the freezer!

PS. One of my favorite training songs at the moment!

Have an active and delicious Monday!

Two Months Later

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It's been about two months now since we came back to France after a five years break and moved to Bordeaux. The beginning was a little rocky I must admit, the apartment we originally were supposed to live in turned out to be a horrible mess, we ended up staying in a hotel for one week before found the place that we now live in, I learned that my employment would be a lot trickier than I first thought, I seemed to have forgotten most of my French and even the simpliest conversations caused me headaches, my rheumathism was kicking my butt 10-0, we still hadn't found someone to rent our flat in Poland, there was a lot of paper work to sort out from getting married (some in Finland, some in France) and well, the list is endless!

One leisurely Sunday in town.

These perfectly formed little passages got my heart going...

Omelette & bananabread brunch.

One of those quilty moments... But hey, when in France, eh?

Banana bread.

Slowly getting some exercising done after an unfairly long break!

Now, we're at the beginning of October and we've settled in. I speak French rather well, some could even say almost fluently, I've sorted my CV in French and have my fingers and toes crossed it'll bring me results sooner than later on my job hunt (so far, staying optimistic, we'll see how I'm doing in my next catch up post). So far I've been sending an English version of my CV to companies (where the job advert has been in English) as well as a French language version of the original and was wondering why it resulted in zero hits or interviews so far. Back home I had been told my CV was good and although I knew it must have been slightly out of date when it comes to its' format, I was surprised when I heard the feedback from a French connection lately.

After the games there's normally a social mixer at the VIP area of the ice rink, this is where the players go greet the sponsors and other people involved with the club. It's normal for wives and girlfriends (and even babies!) to tag along in this post game gathering and socialize. So that's what I was doing the other week when I came accross someone that works closely with the team as a sponsor. I got offered help with my CV as well as help sending it over to some potentially interested companies and so on. Later on the week I met up with this contact to go over my CV and I was then really surprised when I saw how the French CVs were expected to look like. For instance, if you had no picture on your CV, you would automatically have something shady about you and nobody would give a second look at your resume despite what experience you had listed there. After a one hour session I went back home and completely re-did my resume. No wonder I didn't hear back from anyone before! Now, thanks to this great network the team has, I might stand a chance on the job market ;)
 
Besides the massive work on my CV, I've fixed my passport and other documents that needed sorting out after getting married, I've gotten some sports back to my weekly routine which has helped with my rheumatism as well, I feel at home in our apartment and the town, I've made friends with pretty amazing people, ice hockey season has kicked off nicely, I've done some things outside my comfort zone (I went to a spinning class in a pool, in a one piece swimming suit for starters, let me just say, yey me!) and a lot more. In addition, I've been spending some time in the kitchen, baked my first banana bread, created a new recipe for healthy breakfast pancakes and well, perhaps one of the coolest things, discovered how to make a healthier version of Snickers at home (this deserves a hooray I think)! I'll put the recipies up here if anyone is interested in healthier goodies :) In the meanwhile, a few pics from here and there!

Paris <3 Had to take one quick snapshot while on my way to the Finnish embassy to fix my passport.

Does this really need a caption?

Salad with chevre.

A little reading corner at our home.

Have a lovely mid-week!