bearystrongchantal

Eggplant Brownies

Dark chocolate meets veggies.

If you are a long-time reader of the Beary Strong blog you know that I love baking and always try to find a way to make some desserts a bit less heavy on the calorie account. I would not define them as “healthy” as I do not like do divide food in good or bad. Nor do I think they will substitute a proper meal: sweets should always be an enjoyable treat but not the major component of your diet. I am also always searching for new interesting flavor pairings and since our experiment with the root veggie cake I was intrigued to build even more unconventional vegetable-based sweets. This is how the eggplant brownies were born.

Beary Birthday!

Beary Strong 2nd anniversary

We can not believe it: our small business turned two! And the last year was amazing!

Pan De Mej

Corn bread the Italian way

My hometown is Milan, one of Italy’s biggest cities and famous for its fashion. I don’t travel back often because my parents are here in Austria most of the time. To be honest I don’t miss the city that much even if it has its own beauty and there are places, memories and food that are unique to Milan. One of the most traditional but less known sweets is pan de mej, a hybrid between corn bread and corn cookies. The recipe is a winner: it is incredibly easy and delicious. Soft, not too sweet and an incredible corn flavour. Give these cookies a try, I am sure you will like them!

The Waning Power Of Genetics

A deeper insight on the role of genetics and the new trend of genetic testing.

In the evidence-based natural bodybuilding scene it is currently very popular to make genetics responsible for all the good results (mostly of someone else) or blame genetics for not achieving goals (mostly the own ones). Compared to the 90’s and the early 2000’s, genetics is very tangible as genetic tests are sold as a solution to fix diet and training. Long-time readers of the blog know my opinion on it, but I’ll repeat it again: you should rather invest your money in healthy food and a good coach than on expensive DNA testing, since their validity is still very questionable. Nevertheless, genes do play a huge role, especially in elite sports, but a lot of us do focus a bit too much on it and limit themselves by blaming genetics and resigning too soon.

Apricot And Root Veggies Cake With Honey Curd Frosting

A delicious cake with unusual ingredients.

One of my favourite childhood desserts was “Ruebli Torte” which is Schwitzerdütsch (=Swiss German) for carrot cake. My mum was born in a small city near Zürich -Aarau- which is famous for its yellow and orange carrots. And as everyone in my family loves cake but not veggies, she smuggled them into this nutty and juicy very traditional cake. Sometimes we had a zucchini cake or pumpkin pie too, therefore the veggie and sweet pairing was never new to me. Years ago I’ve also baked a beetroot chocolate cake which even my very sceptical brother loved and since I first ate a parsnip cake at London Borough Market I wanted to reproduce this taste. As I discovered a mixed root veggies cake in an old Jamie Oliver paper magazine, I decided to make this as a dessert for a Magic The Gathering evening with our friend Alexa.

Intermittent Fasting

The new magic pill for health and performance?

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his research on autophagy. Since then intermittent fasting has received increased overall attention as it is related to autophagy with potential health benefits. If you have been in the fitness game for quite a long time, this is nothing new. Many people have succesfully lost weight with this strategy, but is intermittent fasting the ultimate panacea for health, fat loss and/or muscle growth?

Happy Holidays!

Dear BearyStrong-Blog Reader,

we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed the days with your beloved ones. The Bearystrong team (Stefan & Chantal) is taking some days off, therefore the next post will be on Thursday, 2nd of January 2020. In the meantime:

let this article inspire you building a new training plan to get even stronger in 2020!
read our all-time favourite article: the hypertrophy range myth
make a refreshing zero-calorie granita or
a comforting pomegranate beef stew , depending on your mood and how much you ate during the last days 😉
read about habits before making New Year’s resolutions.

We at Bearystrong wish you a Happy New Year and a lot of gains for 2020! Special thanks to all the friends and clients who supported our business this year. You rock!

Chantal & Stefan

Mailänderli

Three generations of Christmas cookie-baking.

Our regular readers know that we are alternating a recipe and a fitness-related article every week but for Christmas we decided to give you one more recipe to have one more batch fresh cookies before Christmas. It is also a perfect match to the last week’s Hazelnut Kisses as you need only the yolks for this very traditonal Swiss recipe.

Fish Pie

For comfort food aFISHionados.

Austria is beautiful: I love my new home country and I never regret moving here long time ago. The quality of life is gorgeous and the quality of food too: a high variety of regional veggies, game meat, poultry, fantastic dairy products… But there is one thing that Austria lacks: fish. Well, you can get it, but you have to pay quite a lot for decent quality. No wonder that every time Stefan and I are travelling somewhere, we crave for fish like mad: seafood, sushi, salmon, smoked fish, it doesn’t matter, we eat it all. Having a fishmonger near to our Airbnb during our last summer escape in Edinburgh was a blessing though. I always wanted to do a fish pie and finally got the chance to create this simple yet comforting dish.

Pumpkin Poppy Crumble

A delicious Halloween-ish pudding.

If you did not already know it, I am half Italian (and half Suisse) and even if the Italian cuisine is fantastic, there is something we do not have. And that is warm puddings. I LOVE hot desserts and -besides Stefan – it did definitely play a role to choose Austria as my new homecountry 15 years ago 😉 . Kaiserschmarrn, Milchrahmstrudel, Scheiterhaufen…comfy, calorie-dense winter soulfood you can enjoy in some old-fashioned Viennese caffee and you should definitely indulge on it if you visit Austria. English speaking countries have also a nice variety of warm puddings and one of them turned to be easy to make and very customizable: crumble. We experimented a lot with it: rhubarb, strawberries, apples…and then it was pumpkin season and I rescued a lot of crushed poppy seeds from a local grocery store where the best before date was exceeded. We love pumpkin and we love poppy seeds. The Pumpkin Poppy Crumble was born.