Quiche is my go to dish for dinner very often, I make some kind of quiche every week and serve it with cream soup and salad. I kind of consider quiche french version of pizza :) as pizza was actually a poor men's meal where they preety much made a dough and used the fridge leftovers as toppings as many or as little they had.

HOME MADE QUICHE DOUGH

I often make my own dough for quiche (bigger quantity) and then I freeze it and use it when I want to make a quick and healthy 30 min meal but store bought quiche dough or puff pastry can work good as well. The beauty of quiche is that you can tweak it to be richer in ingredients or as simple as you want. Depending on your food preferences you can make it with or without meat, with eggs or egg substitute, heavy cream (milk/coco/soy) or regular milk to make it light and fluffy.

Here is the quick, healthy and easy recipe:

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp chopped green onion
4 oz chopped smoked salmon
1/4 cup (60g) crumbled goat cheese
1 cup (236 ml) cooking cream or whole milk (I use soy cream as alternative)
2 tbsp fresh dill (I also used dry spice when didn't have fresh)
1 pack frozen puff pastry or quiche dough (or use this recipe to make it on your own)

Optional:
2 shakes of Tabasco hot sauce

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven on 375F / 180C.
2. Spread the dough in silicon quiche dish and poke it with a fork. Use aluminum foil and raw beens as a weight and bake the dough like this for 15 min. (Don't throw away beans you can reuse it next time you bake quiche).
3. Whisk together in a bowl eggs, cream, salt and Tabasco (optionally).
4. When dough baked, take it out of the oven but leave the oven on, remove the foil with beans, poor the egg mixture into a baked dough and dot with salmon pieces and goat cheese crumbs, add fresh dill and green onion on top.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes on 375F/180C. Let cool for 10 minutes and serve.

This is one of my favorite salmon recipes! If you try it, let me know how you liked it in comments.

CHRISTMAS IN BARCELONA

Christmas in Barcelona is somewhat different for our family then in Croatia. There is no snow here (which I like) and some celebration customs are much different. Here in Spain Three Kings celebrated on January 6th are more important holiday then Christmas Eve (Nochebuena/ Navidad).

Also, interesting figure in nativity scene in Catalunya (but also parts of Italy and France) is Caganer (a figurine of a peasant literary pooping with his naked butt showing).

Caga Tio (tio means uncle) is a wooden log with a smiley face painted onto one end. Caga Tio also wears a traditional Catalan red hat and is basically the Catalan equivalent of Santa Clause. Tradition is for Caga Tio to be 'cared for' by kids from 8th December until Christmas Eve. The kids need to cover the back of Caga Tio with a blanket to keep him warm, they feed him with orange peel and depending how well they care for him that is how many gifts Caga Tio poops out for them. On the Christmas Eve they beat the log with the stick and sing a song to persuade him to 'poop out' their presents.

Our Family traditions include long preparation and cookie baking. We start decorating and playing Christmas songs beginning of December, also we kept some Croatian traditions so we buy or make an advent reef with 4 candles, we light one every Sunday until Christmas.

Also, we buy Christmas bouquet from local florist early December and then we dry it (contains eucalyptus) and eat lots of Panettone with dry orange peel and black chocolate.  Ante, my boyfriend is in charge of building nativity scene in Betlehem under the tree and we all decorate the Christmas tree together a couple of days before Christmas.

This year my whole family is coming to stay with us for holidays so we will have a full house!

OUTFIT DETAILS

In the post I am also wearing J.Crew striped turtleneck, pearl embellished mom jeans from Uterque and black suede pearl booties from  & Other Stories. I shop a lot from J.Crew because they have tall sizes so I can order denim, tops and especially jackets with sleeves long enough for me but with skinny fit.

Some underwear brands researches say that up to 80% of women are wearing wrong bra size! This is quite shocking but looking back at my own years long search of finding a perfect bra in terms of fit and comfort I actually think this statistic might be true.

My cup size has changed during last two years since I had a baby but generally I can say I am a 85 B. Usually I wear wired bra's with minimal padding. I own a lot of bras including popular bralettes and padded push ups but I daily wear something in the middle of the two which is wired but soft organic cotton seamless bra in neutral colors (black, nude or white). Generally I have been avoiding wearing more structured pushups on a daily basics as my chest felt sore once I would take the pushup bra off after wearing it them for more then just a few hours.

NEW KIND OF PUSH UP BRA

Last several weeks I have been testing new kind of push up bra - Upbra®. Upbra® Cleavage Enhancing bras use the new patented ActiveLift® technology to give more cleavage to smaller cup sizes and more lift to women with larger cup sizes than any other bra. 

CONTROLLED LIFT

STAY UP STRAPLESS

What surprised me the most about Upbra is how well it holds and lifts breasts when worn strapless. the Upbra® Miraculous Stay-Up Strapless Bras have a specialty formulated grip around the band of the bra that will keep your girls up, even when going strapless. This strapless lift up bra also comes with bra straps for when you it's not a strapless kind of day.


The grippy hearts on the inside of the bra and swim cups have been added to the Upbra bras & swim tops to ensure that your cleavage will stay up throughout the day.

BEFORE & AFTER

Luxury Unique Travel Set has also tule scarf and tule t-shirt pictured bellow which ads a bit of sass and a bit of sexy to your classic black outfits.



In today's post I am posting a dressy look where I have styled tunic dress from the set with black Stuart Weitzman thigh high suede boots and Gucci belt. The short sleeve tunic dress features loose fit, it can be worn off shoulder and it has a sheer tule back and sheer tule patching under arms. The tunic has elastic band which allows you to adjust it's length so it can be tunic, mini or knee length dress. 


Removable sleeves can be useful addition when you wear a tunic dress without a blazer or a jacket which makes this set an appropriate year around go to outfit set for your short travels or a daily use. 


What I found is that Unique Travel Set really looks best and most complete for each of us when we style it with our own personal touches and accessorize in the way that best fits our daily lives.

I personally change my outfits 2-3 times per day. In the morning I literally jump out of the bed and have just about 2-3 minutes to dress as I spend most time trying to persuade my toddler daughter to let me dress and change her for school.


I usually wear the leggings or pants from Unique Travel set in the morning with a sports top (so my sporty version of it). I run to the gym right after I drop Anabela to school. Next, I run home and change for work (yes, I dress up most days although I work from home office). This is when I combine my tunic dress with leggings and comfy cashmere sweater blazer in nude and a belt to create a waist.

If I need to run to the meeting outside of the home office I just grab my boots, coat and hat and replace my sweater with more business like blazer.

Voila! Morning through evening kind of set!

WOMEN BEHIND THE SET

MY FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT UNIQUE TRAVEL SET

THE PREMIUM COMFORT

STYLING VERSATILITY 

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