Beat the Fall blues with plush flush of sensual and cozy burgundy knits! As a person who suffers from meteoropathy, dressing against my mood helps me to battle rainy and gloomy Fall weather.  In Barcelona Fall is rainy and windy but mild in temperature, it still allows bare legs which is great for someone who wears lots of dresses like I do almost daily.

MY FALL DRESSING RECIPE

The base for my personal recipe for Fall dressing are midi/maxi viscose or wool dresses. My dresses always have a generous amount of floral pattern (yes in Fall too! In nature leaves are drying out and falling while I continue to bloom 😃 ) which I combine with chunky wool and cashmere sweaters and leather or velvet booties. On colder days I replace my dresses with denim or leather pants worn with colorful coats, loose fitting cashmere sweaters and silk cami tops with lace trimming.

B LIKE BURGUNDY

After almost a year of eating everything Anabela started to be a picky eater over Summer. As I am adamant to keep her eating veggies and proteins well so I found alternative ways to get all that good stuff, vitamins, minerals and proteins into her without forcing her to eat what she doesn't want to - I packed it all into bite size mini muffins.

As a member of various mommy facebook groups and curious mom cook who likes trying new recipes (which are super quick to make) I tried a whole lot of recipes given by moms, nutritionists and cooks throughout the vastness of internet platforms, forums and Pinterest, after Anabela tried the prepared muffins I tweaked each recipe here and there to make it more healthier or more toddler taste buds friendly and I came up with 10 quick, easy and healthy recipes for your fussy eater toddler.

Before listing out the recipes I listed some useful kitchen tools and gadgets which are not mandatory but are super useful for preparing these muffins, although most you can prepare by using just fork, 2 mid size bowls, baking pan and the oven. :)  The tools listed will make preparation quicker and cleaning after much easier as it all goes into dishwasher and voila, you are done!

All of the recipes are within 8-30 minutes preparation range.

Bellow I am listing some good substitutes in case you want to replace (or omit) any of the ingredients:

• White/brown sugar can be replaced by honey/maple syrup  - for every 1 cup of sugar, substitute 1/2 to 2/3 cup honey and reduce oven temperature by 25F
• To avoid egg -measure 1/3 cup applesauce for each egg you are substituting for
• You can replace white flour with integral flour or you may substitute oats for up to one-third the amount of flour called for in the recipe
• To replace butter for coconut oil - measure coconut oil in a one-to-one ratio and substitute it for butter

My closet is packed with floral dresses but I realized I have almost no orange piece of clothing! This season I decided to invest in (another) boho maxi floral dress but this time in orange with long sleeves and gorgeous button details and front draping.

Obvious brand to start my search with was Free People which is indeed where I found one. The only issue with shopping from Free People when in Europe are customs fees. Asos sometimes also carries Free People items which is one of the ways to avoid paying import fees on their products.





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As I had issues with my stomach most of the Summer and had to eat exclusively cooked food with no spices and no nothing (think 6 months old kind of meals) I got craving today to prepare a healthy, berry, low sugar version of my favorite recipe - Mrs. Deb's banana bread.

This delicious dessert is kids friendly and it stores (well wrapped) on home temperature so you can have a great breakfast treat for several days.

My daughter Anabela absolutely loves this strawberry version of banana bread and for her I make it with coconut or all wheat flower and low fat greek yogurt.

INGREDIENTS

Dry Ingredients
1 3/4 cup (414 g) all purpose flour (coconut or all wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients
1 egg
1 cup ripe mashed banana (about 2-3 bananas)
1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted and cooled
1/3 cup (79 g) packed dark brown sugar or coconut sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup (59 g) nonfat plain greek yogurt
2 tablespoons unsweetened almond/coconut milk

Spoon in last
3/4 cup (178 g) strawberries
1/4 cup (59 g) raspberries/blueberries or strawberries
1/2 cup (118 g) unsweetened coconut
2 tbsp chia seeds

DIRECTIONS 

After restful and calm whole Summer long family vacation I came back to terror struck Barcelona and I couldn't make myself post anything, anywhere. I was out of words, out of motivation, I felt emotional, empty and hurt. I felt angry at criminals momentarily robbing me from my sense of safety and security in this truly most beautiful and lively city in the world - Barcelona.


This feeling of anger quickly turned into need for action, rebellion, compassion, grieving for the people hurt and love. Yes, love. I tried, hour to hour during last couple of days to bring myself to see the fight and love for freedom and peace on the faces of people of this city which is absolutely indestructible. No matter what, they, we, are not afraid, we keep on living and we keep on celebrating the freedoms and versatility this gorgeous city has.


Andrina and I shot this look before I went for vacation but the mood of the photos felt oddly appropriate and fitting to these new feelings I have after days of feeling shocked and empty. Emotionally it feels as if Fall came early this year and it's up to us to bring back the sun.

So this post is not about clothes and #ootd looks. This post is about coming back home, getting back to our daily routines in this amazing city we are lucky enough to continue to call our home. To drinking coffee in near by Starbucks which, however crazy or basic it might sound does provide me with sense of belonging, sense of homey and sense of known wherever in the world I might be; to going to our favorite park to play in sand and getting dirty; to eating lunch super late in the afternoon and having dinner after siesta far later then appropriate for toddler parents out on the restaurant terrace surrounded with all the other families with equally obnoxiously loud kids - tranquillo, no rush.

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Denim is not my usual fabric of choice for evening wear however I did try to incorporate one evening denim dress in my Puppa capsule collection collaboration. Here we were playing with sharp cut of a pencil dress and firmer denim while adding open back element with romantic back bows and adjustable back straps to accommodate bra wearing. I mean, I am all for free your boobs movement but for particular dresses and when going to an evening date I try to keep those babies in place, more or less.



This dress as a first sample has somewhat wider back strips which could be made thinner for girls who prefer to bare their back a bit more. What I love about this dress is how lighter pieces of denim fabric were strategically placed to flatter and elongate figure. Another obvious detail are the super cute bows. I wear bows quite often now especially since I got daughter and got all girly all over again.

This gorgeous shoot location was Monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona, very peaceful and historic with gorgeous museum and friendly staff. The entrance to this Monastery is absolutely free on Sundays so it can be a useful information for tourists visiting Barcelona on weekends.



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This tunic top features lace up details on each side and on the chest. It is up-cycled from mens denim button up out of soft and light weight cotton denim.


I styled the tunic for this post with rose and gold sparkle skinny denim pants, 70s round frame sunglasses, velvet rose sandals with sparkling heels and denim ruffle tote bag also from my up-cycled denim capsule collection for Puppa.