Eat Dance Live

I have to start off with a confession: I've never eaten a "real" reuben sandwich. In fact, when I was in high school, I would go with my sister and her boyfriend to their favourite little deli shop near our campus. Every time, I would want to gag at the smell of the reuben they always  ordered. I don't even actually knows what goes in one of those things... sauerkraut, rye bread? That's about it. So, for some reason that still escapes me, I started suddenly having vegan reuben cravings like mad earlier this week. Seriously, I was like a pregnant woman craving ice cream and pickles... I may have spent precious hours of prime thesis proposal writing time scouring Pinterest for options, like  Option #1 : or Option #2 : I looked, I considered, I conquered... I had to try my hand at this. The upside? Since I'd never had one before, there was little chance I'd be disappointed! I knew I wouldn't make a traditional reuben anyway. I wasn't a fan o

For a change, I'll allow myself to boast and say (perhaps again) that I've always been fairly flexible. It might have been the years of dance or perhaps my obsessive childhood perseverance of trying to remember to stretch during commercials... whatever it is, something paid off.  I mentioned a while back that, for almost a year now, I've achieved my lifelong goal of easily being able to go into the splits . I also posted the basic stretching routine , which I do after every workout, that I think really contributed to where I am now. After reaching my splits goal and all sorts of other crazy stuff, I've decided to up the ante. As of today, here are some of my goals for the year ahead. Good thing I've started dancing a couple times a week again... Hopefully, that will both help and motivate me to get there. 1) The Standing Splits (not necessarily on pointe, but hey, why not dream big) 2) Laybacks like I used to be able to do... a la Rachel Brice

So I promised a coup recipe.... and I deliver! Recently, we bought one of these beauties at the market: That's a Pink Banana and/or a Georgia Candy Roaster. Now do keep in mind that those are about the size of my torso, if not longer. I haven't figured out yet if those two breeds are the same squash under a different names, sub-families, or just two unrelated squash. Anyway, we bought one and it barely fit into the oven. That's a lot of squash. It turned it a pretty wicked vegan birthday cheesecake, it was also became yummy roasted squash with honey, sea salt, herbs, and olive oil, and with all that was leftover it also became bowls and bowls of this delicious soup. Now, I know that soup is a pretty easy thing to make, but I'm a lazy soup maker. I don't know why. This one takes about 5 minutes or less to make, which is definitely a feature. I'm sure that you can also use any of your favourite squash instead of the one I used to come up with an equal

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends, family, and readers! May your day be filled with gratitude and yummy delicious food.  We had our first snow here in Ottawa yesterday, and while everyone started to complain, I'm still choosing to get excited by how magical the first snow fall looks! So to go along with the whole theme of the day, here are 5 foods that I get really excited about during this time of the year and that I'm grateful Mother Nature decided to give to us: 1) Persimmons So, I know a lot of people who didn't grow up eating persimmons find them gooey and weird, but there's something about their strange texture that I just can't get enough of. I can't say I know much about other types of persimmon, but hachiyas steal my heart away every winter. Their awesome colouring shows that they are high in anti-oxidants like vitamin A, B, and C, beta-carotene, and lycopene, amongst others. They also contain a carotenoid, called zeaxanthin, w

This was meant to come up last night, but to start off your week, here are some yummy food pictures from Andrew's birthday party this weekend. Hopefully, it will inspire you on what to bring to your next vegan potluck! 1) Harvest Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash Made by our lovely friend, Kadri, these babies were stuffed with cranberries, nuts, wild rice, apricots, and all sorts of other indescribable harvest-y yummies. They were as tasty as they were gorgeous! 2) Polenta and Ratatouille So I've been wanting to try polenta for ages now, but have never really had the opportunity. 'Lo and behold, but the wonderful Angela comes over with polenta covered in all my all time favourite... ratatouille! Now there's a winner! As for my first taste of polenta? Everyone always told me polenta is bland, and I suppose that the taste is kind of understated, but there's something about the texture that is way too fun! 3) Vegan Chili, Roasted Squash, & Soup Fixin's

Here are a few of the raw and/or delicious things I have consumed and made this week to keep you inspired in your own health journeys: 1) Can't... Stop... Eating... Collard Wraps (image source) They're so good I always end up eating them before I remember to take a picture. I've usually been filling mine with carrot, beets, tomato, cucumber, sprouts, and my sun-dried tomato/sunflower seed/almond "meat" (a variation of this old recipe). In fact, I may go make some more when I'm done writing this. I mentioned a little while back that one of my goals this winter was stay way more raw than I did last year. I know that a big part of that is finding the foods that make me feel raw and nourished when it starts to go below zero. Last year, I got too lazy to try, got cold, and just had whatever would take that feeling away (among other excuses, I tell myself that it was also my first winter in Ottawa, so I was adapting...). I know that a lot of people say

1)  Making my own Version of this  Raw Chocolate Orange Cheesecake Gorgeous, isn't it? I did get to taste it, but it was for my catering gig. I changed the crust from the original recipe. I also tweaked the proportions of the filling and omitted the orange extract because I was out. It's the perfect for the Fall! 2) Pairing an Awesome Chocolate Orange Cheesecake with a Raw Pumpkin Cheesecake This is one of my own making. The crust was pecan, walnuts, and dates. The filling was pumpkin, lemon juice, soaked cashews, agave, vanilla, pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, allspice), and sea salt. 3) Receiving a Stash of Sunwarrior Goods in the Mail So over a month ago, I won a giveaway from the lovely Ayah over at  Healthy Tasty Cheap . When I won, it totally made my day since that was around the time my laptop had gotten stolen. However, the package must have had quite the journey to get to me. I'd been in and of town, there was a mail strike up

Just a quick hello to share 5 of the awesome things that have made up my weekend (yes, 3 out of 5 of them are food... what did you expect?): 1) Ottawa Thai Massage 's 3 hour Couple's Workshop  The workshop was run by our amazing and absurdly multi-talented friend, Devin Johnstone . For a really quick idea of what it is: Thai Massage mainly involves deep stretching and massage. It's usually done on the floor or mat, and the masseuse guides the receiver into a variety of yoga-esque/stretching positions and then applies firm and/or rhythmic pressure like a normal massage. While that made sound a little strenuous, it isn't at all. It's really relaxing, and after all, I'm one to love  a nice juicy stretch. We absolutely loved it! It was broken down into partner awareness exercises, a quick partner meditation, and then down to the dirty work. It was absurdly relaxing, and a wonderful way to connect. I may or may not have gotten a little emotional... We'

How to have an epic birthday, tip #1: Have awesome friends. There are little things in life that you just don't realize how much you appreciate 'til you take a step back and realize how awesome everything you have is. That was how yesterday went for me, which also happened to be my birthday. It was everything I wanted nothing fancy, nothing crazy, and yet nothing boring or simple. After a year of crazy and self-inflicted ups and major downs, it was, in all respects, perfect. Friends, food, spontaneous music, laughter, happiness, all coming together under our roof. What more could you want, really? I also can't say how grateful I am that everyone went out of their way to make beautiful and tasty dishes that fit within my vegan ethic. It was even an added bonus and awesome coincidence that everyone unknowingly ended up bringing a dish that completely randomly either had a) one of my favourite ingredients of all time b) something I've been jonesing for recently

One of my favourite captioned photos of all time is of this kid: Seriously, he's the cutest. Doesn't he just look SO excited? If you look at that picture though, that's kind of how I feel about fall. I love fall. Really it's kind of insane. A few days ago, I was trying to explain that the feeling I get in my mind and body when fall comes along. The only real way to describe it was that fall actually turns me on. Now don't get me wrong, if you actually look up the definition of a "turn on" in the dictionary, it doesn't have to apply to something sexual. In fact, it just means "something or someone that causes excitement or pleasure," and Hello does fall do both for me! Since fall started a few weeks ago, everything has been amazingly falling into place. Yesterday, Andrew and I met at Dow's Lake for a kayaking date, and this is just one shot of my beautiful walk from class through the Arboretum to meet him: No crazy colours

Whether you're from there or just visiting, everyone knows that London is a pretty conservative town. Generally, conservative town = not super vegan friendly. Every time we go there, I tend to kind of forget about that, probably out of some sort of denial. However, if you know where to look, there are a fair number of organic and veg-friendly options. Especially if you choose to go the DIY route, their health food stores stock some very decent options: downtown London hosts the London Food Co-op , Wortley Village's Quarter Master Natural Foods , and the East End has Lyn-Dys (they are a bit pricier). Even more exciting, we discovered Organic Works ' new location, a mostly vegan and gluten-free bakery and cafe for all your yummy bread/baked good needs. We even got to meet the owner, Peter, who took us on a quick tour of the bakery! A foodie's dream come true! (If you're not in London, you can still find their stuff in most cities in the province and I would defini