Eat Dance Live

Happy Canada Day! Here goes... and the winner is... Congrats A m a n d a ! If this is the Amanda I think it is, I guess the kitten knew it was your birthday :) Haha, and if it's one of the world's many other Amandas please send me an email at eatdancelive@gmail.com with your contact info so I can deliver the goods! Either way, get in touch! And thanks to everyone who entered! Since the royals are in town, we should probably be punctual in heading out for the day's festivities. In the meantime, here are some awesome Canada Day recipes to consider, whether you'll be celebrating too or you just want some yummy patriotic looking food! Angela's V'Oh Canada Oats or her Strawberry Cheescake Bites (this girl is patriotic to boot!) Vegan Yum Yum's Strawberry Waffles and no Canada Day would be complete without this classic... Sarah Kramer...

I have to prelude this post with the disclaimer that I am ideally a fan of whole-food based nutrition. Having dedicated myself more seriously to LFRV-ism over the past week, it's obvious that I will always pick the banana over the vegan supplement. That being said, I do also respect and recognize the place that supplements and protein powders hold for some people, especially vegan athletes. I've used them in the past, and when they're organic, natural and plant-based, I think they're great! So last week, the lovely people at Sequel Naturals sent me a couple packs of their Vega Sport to try out. (They ship both in the US and Canada!) As you may know, Vega was designed by plant-fueled triathlete, Brendan Brazier, and if there's a guy who knows vegan fitness nutrition it's him. He's got pre-workout, during-workout, and post-workout nutrition down to a science. As a triathlete, he's worked really hard to find optimally-absorbable vegan supplements and p...

So my little blog has finally grown up. It's three years old and I finally decided to finally let it get its own URL. I'm still trying to figure out the transition, and if there's even anything to do at all... I'm already totally confused (either that, or it's so simple, I'm not even seeing it).  It'll be super easy, just come over and join me at http://eatdancelive.com and all the goodness will continue from there! For all those of you who already have my blog in any kind of list or bookmark bar or favourites section on your blogs, your feed will only update if you switch over to my new address, so I'd love you if you made the switch too!  And just to keep you interested, I feel a blogoversary giveaway coming on so stay tuned! Thanks for all your support :)

♪ ... Pretend like it's the weekend now. And we could pretend it all the time... ♪ But who says we have to pretend? It IS the weekend AND we get banana pancakes. What's better than that? Well, actually they were raw banana crepes, but that's even better! It's all the yumminess and nutrients and none of the sugar/carb-induced post-eating coma. The recipe? 3 large ripe bananas + 2 tbsp of ground flax + the juice of one lemon, mixed and spread over dehydrator sheets and left to dehydrate overnight. They made for a glorious weekend breakfast. Of course, what's a crepe without the toppings? They included peanut butter, cacao nibs, fig jam, chia seed, berries, melted dark chocolate, and a chestnut spread. Breakfast of weekend champions for sure! And as if you're weekend couldn't get any better, please check out Ayla's awesome CSN giveaway ! She's celebrating the 100th post of her blog, High on Healthy .

I believe that there are only so many instances in ones life when one is able to partake in a truly gourmet meal. Good food, yes. Delicious food, often. But truly gourmet? I can count those times on one hand. Whether at the Courtyard in Ottawa's Byward Market in 2007, at Luke's Gastronomy in Kingston, Ontario in 2008, or at Lou Fassum in Plascassier, France, in 2009 (where a French restaurant, yes a French one , accomodated my vegan diet), those experiences were rare, but all a unique delight. Tonight, I had my gastronomic experience of 2010 at none other than the Ottawan gem, Zen Kitchen . Walking into a gorgeous heritage house on Somerset Avenue, we were immediately struck by the place's vibrant energy. It was both peaceful and energetic aside, as warm as it is classy. In terms of their ethic, Zen Kitchen boasts that they are local, organic, and gourmet, but the added bonus? They're vegan. No more do vegans have to bemoan the idea that they are stuck with bu...

I and most of my fellow food bloggers are some "special" diet. Whether we're are vegan, bee-gan, vegetarian, high-protein, low fat, raw, or some permutation of all of those and more. The other similarity between a lot of us is that we have a significant other, one who may or may not be on the same dietary road as we are. Now, a lot of you might think that that could lead to some complications, that we would have to prepare two different meals three or more times a day, and that our choices could quickly become a hassle, inconvenient, or downright frustrating. But not so! This post is about how you can make a his and hers food lifestyle work for you, if the two of you aren't 100% on the same culinary wavelength. I'm lucky enough that my other half is on the same path I am. For the most part, we are both raw bee-gans (though we both hate that kind of categorization, as Andrew just said he doesn't want to be an "-an" or "-ist" anything). The o...

Hope you all had a great weekend! But more importantly thanks to this super random number generator : TO ANDREA FROM Eating with Good Intentions for winning my first ever giveaway: Andrea, given that I'm leaving the country in a couple days, could you please send me your address (to eatdancelive@gmail.com) asap so I can send off this raw food baby to you? (I've sent you an email about it!) Best of luck on your raw food journey! I hope this dehydrator helps you as much as it helped me keep at it :) Let the raw dehydrator goodness begin! Thanks to all of you who also participated and since I realize I really like spreading the raw love, look out for more raw food goodie giveaways in the future! Have a wonderful Monday!

Again, keep up the entries to my dehydrator giveaway , only 3 more days left (Sunday night at 11:59 all bets are off!) Everyone has their eating ups and downs, but on a raw diet it seems that most the time the options are up, higher, or highest. Today was our big packing day which included lots of furniture, 53 boxes, and our kitty and plants still in tow... sounds tiring right? Well after the power breakfast we had, I've gotta say I've never felt better! To prepare for our big day, I listened to an intuition I had yesterday to make something with chia. I always listen to these types of "cravings" because I believe it's often your body telling you that you might be missing a key nutrient found in the food you are craving (obviously this only works on a raw diet, I doubt a craving for Doritos is really anything to get worked up about). So I made Meredith 's Blueberry Chia Pudding and added mesquite and maca powder to the mix. I know it seems a simple thing to ...

First off, keep up the entries for my dehydrator giveaway ! Secondly, Andrew made this pretty drawing for me with the top of an heirloom tomato I used in our lunch today. I cut the top off of it to avoid eating the stem, and found that our tomato actually had a little face under its top. This is why I'm in love: Adorable, right? Thirdly, with that little tomato, I made an amazing super cauliflower couscous inspired by the one in Matt Amsden's Rawvolution : Finally, for dinner, I also had my second chocolate cherry bomb ever :) I just had to try the infamous recipe that was all over the raw food blog world! I gotta say, I actually like it better without the chocolate part (I know...), so I made one without the cacao for me and one with for Andrew. They were both delicious! Thanks for an awesome recipe Kristen ! Great day, great food! Just what I need to fuel the last 48 hours of my life before our moving truck comes! Also, our kitty thinks he's a box car race car driver: Zo...

As promised, come one, come all, for my first giveaway! The winner will be selected one week from now, at 10am on Monday, June 21, 2010 . At this point and for shipping reasons, only US and Canadian readers can put in their bids this time. For your pleasure, I'm offering what every raw foodists needs: YOUR VERY OWN DEHYDRATOR! Sure a raw foodist can eat fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds, but a dehydrator is just so much fun! Owning one has completely satisfied the needs of my inner baker, and has made both Andrew's and my tummy very very happy since I got into raw foods. After one absolutely flawless year of service, I'm giving away my 4 tray Nesco Dehydrator because I'm "upgrading" to a 9 tray Excalibur once we move up to Canada. My lovely dehydrator comes with 3 fruit roll sheets , and 2 Clean-a-Screen trays . The Nesco has served my every dehydrating need: raw cookies, raw burgers, tartlet crusts, calzones, pizzas, crackers, breads, kale chips, panca...