Eat Dance Live

Luckily, I never really had time since I went vegan to become a "junk food vegan" before choosing to go mostly raw. However, that didn't stop me from eating my share of junk food in my pre-vegan years. Thus, like most children, I remember the very specials days when we got to make Rice Crispy Squares with my babysitter. Though the occasions were rare since we didn't eat that kind of stuff too often, it was always wonderful. The smell of melting butter, the joy of making a gooey sticky mess when I added the marshmallows in and then tried to stir in the Rice Crispies, flattening the whole thing out with the white spatula I still have in our kitchen today... pure high fructose corn syrup deliciousness. Fast-forward about fifteen years: Here I am in the natural foods store before my dance class in front of the discount shelf. And there, shining brightly in the centre of the display is Suzanne's Ricemellow Creme , a fancy vegan and gluten-free name for Marshmall...

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...

Once again, three cheers to the power of positive groupthink. I've been falling on more and more blogs over the past couple weeks talking about the advent of Fall, otherwise known as the return of pumpkin season. 'Lo and behold, I get an email from VegNews that has both the words "pumpkin" and "frozen yogurt" in the same sentence. Heck yeah! THEN, I accompany Andrew to his shift at our food co-op and I find organic soy yogurt there for the taking AND one remaining can of organic pumpkin puree. Well if that isn't a sign that the Universe wants me to make frozen pumpkin treats, I don't know what is. I highly recommend this recipe! The first step in the original Veg News recipe is to strain the yogurt through cheesecloth overnight to get rid of excess water. My soygurt was so thick that it barely let off any water at all... so I didn't get much out of that step. Also, I'm not particularly a fan of agave (this is a good article about som...

What better way to start the day than with a high antioxidant, alkalinizing smoothie? I don't think the taste of my smoothies ever significantly change when I put milder greens in them, but if you're not into the whole "green" smoothie thing, just add in greens little by little and stick with the ones that have less of a taste like spinach or mixed greens. If you want you can move on to the big leagues later and ones like dandelion or beet greens, collard, kale, and more. By breaking them up in the blender, adding greens to your smoothie makes them a lot easier for you to digest and absorb their nutrients. They're high in iron, calcium, magnesium, and Vitamins A, C, K and lots of the B family. And of course, greens are rich in chlorophyll. I just found out that chlorophyll is almost molecularly identical to hemoglobin, which means that by having your greens, you're actually helping your blood rebuild and clean and replenish itself. Raw foodists known th...

When I was in high school, if I ever asked a friend if I could come over to their place for an impromptu baking session, their first question would always be "What's wrong? Are you okay?" When I shared a place with housemates and they came home to the wonderful aroma of carrot cake or banana bread, someone would always asked "Okay, who pissed off Chantal?" In both those instances, 95% of the time they were right... I confess, I'm an emotional baker. I know I'm not the only person to think this, but baking has always been my primary method of coping with anger, sadness, frustration, stress, or some combination of those four emotions. I don't know when that habit started... it was probably when my babysitter Evelyn taught me to bake banana bread from scratch for the first time when I was about 13. Ever since that day, whenever I was pissed, whenever I'd gone through some tragic teenage heartbreak, or when I'd just had a bad day, I woul...

When pumpkin-picking has passed, when the leaves have turned their vibrant colours and fallen to the ground, and as snow starts to blanket my city for three long months of bitter cold, what food better describes the passage from fall to winter up here in the great North than the cranberry? There's something about cranberries that just remind me of the passage from fall to winter. I don't know if it's just because American Thanksgiving seems to fall during that transition period, or if it's just something about the berry's vibrant red hue, which is both such a Yuletide colour and reminiscent of those bright red berry bushes you sometimes see when you're trekking or cross-country skiing through abandoned trails. Either way, they make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. As c ranberry season comes to end, I'm assuming harvesters have long past flooded the last of their bogs before water turns to ice so I want to eat all the fresh cranberries I can get. Cran...

So, if you want to know what has happened to me since those days of yore of daily blogging, I think this explains it quite well: I call it... the PhD This means I've been really antsy because that means more time vegetating studiously writing in front of the computer and less time being creative in the kitchen. On the upside, another hoop jam (as in a hooping party not, a fruit preserve) saved my life this evening. Seriously, best thing ever, try it ! Getting into my dance trance while still being focused enough to spin a hoop is the most wonderful feeling. It's so curative, especially because I've been in such a dance rut recently... Anyway, my kitchen time has been pretty productive. I've made a beautiful love child between Meredith 's and my "grawnola" recipes, which has just about spawned the best thing ever: You know I don't take measurements, but the general idea was replacing Meredith's use of raw pepitas and sunflo...

Ah yes, that time of the year has come anew. It's one of my favourite times of the year! It's neither Christmas, nor the first day you can go for a really good warm summer tan... it's pumpkin season!!! Because we're already a few weeks into the pumpkin harvest, the blog world has exploded with pumpkin recipes for all meals and all dietary choices. While I've immensely enjoyed eyeing everyone's recipes, this one particularly caught my eye: it's Ashley at (never home)maker's tri-coloured pasta with a pumpkin sauce of awesomeness. Spiralized veggies? Pumpkin? Broccoli? Maple Syrup? What more could I want in one dish? Despite it obvious appeal, I kept holding off making this recipe because it called for coconut milk and pumpkin puree, neither of which I really use on my high-raw journey. While I know that you can puree raw squash, I'm of the belief that that the squash family is best digested when it has been steamed or cooked to some degree. I find i...

After a rejuvenating trip on the Continent, I'm back and ready to start my new life in Canada for real this time! The way I've been eating over the last little while has totally justified my recent choice to adopt a more LFRV lifestyle (that being Low Fat Raw Vegan). That means a focus on living raw fruits and veggies, while treating nuts, seeds, and dehydrated goodies as goodies not every day foods. Having inadvertently followed a LFRV diet over the last little while, I've been feeling amazingly energized and happy in ways I haven't in quite some time! However, that hasn't stopped me from getting right back into the game since my return. After all, I still have a hungry monkey loving partner I take joy in feeding. First, as you may have noticed from my stay in Santorini , I've been most recently obsessed with the Santorini Salad. I loved it so much that I exported some of its main ingredients from Greece into our home. Already, I've made it twic...

As I've said countless times by now, my initial fear of the juicer was that I would be wasting all this lovely fruit and veggie fiber to make myself a little glass of juice. As you know, juicing separates the 'liquid'/nutrient substrate of a fruit or veggie from its pulp/fiber content. While drinking juice makes nutrients much more absorbable by your body, I can't help but sigh at all that lovely fiber-y goodness that stays in the juicer. I do love increasing my nutrient intake, but at what cost? The suggestion I always got was compost the pulp, it makes great compost whether you do it directly in your yard or have a home vermicomposter . Though that might be a great solution for a lot of other people, on a raw diet, Andrew and I already produce LOTS of compost for our garden wormies. So, I wanted another option. Once again, raw food was the answer. Since I started making juice on a raw diet, I've had a purpose for all that pulp: crackers, and now yummy carrot cake ...

Tempeh is one of those foods that's still okay on my list. I make it for Andrew every week, and of course, if I make something, I'm bound to taste if it's okay. Unlike other foods that I don't even allow to pass my lips anymore, tempeh still has benefits I don't mind getting a couple tablespoons of every once in a while. Tempeh has been a staple in Indonesia for over 2000 years. I've tasted all sorts of tempeh, both yummy and totally nasty (Australia, I don't know what's up with you, but you've got to do something about your tempeh). Of course, being made up of soybeans, it's a great meat substitute in terms of protein, and also has a heavier meaty texture that's great for mock dishes. It's made by cooking hulled soybeans, adding in a culturing agent, and incubating them to let them ferment over night until they form a cake. Tempeh is one of the few soy-based foods that actually uses the whole soybean. Fermentation also makes it extra he...

Our simple but tasty dinner will be the subject of today's post: Grapefruit Fennel Salad with a honey mustard dressing . The tanginess of the grapefruit goes really well with the licorice-y taste of fennel. 1. Cut 1 grapefruit into large-ish chunks 2. Cut 1/2 fennel bulb into strips (I used them all the way to the branches) 3. Mix 1 tbsp of raw honey, 1 tbsp of cold-pressed olive oil, with 1 tsp of stone ground mustard, pinch of salt and pepper to taste 4. Mix sauce in with grapefruit and fennel and mix well (I threw in some romaine lettuce too) 5. Serves 2! Also, we also went to go see the Charles Darwin biopic, Creation , today, I highly suggest you go see if, it it if seems like something that would be of interest to you. To think that someone would publish such a theory at the height of religious zealoutry in England is quite ballsy if you ask me. It's also kind of scary to think that it's only playing in independent theaters in the US because it was deemed too contro...

I love the world when there is just snow, when all is quiet, when the cars don't dare come out. That's been the state of DC since friday afternoon and it's been wonderful! When the quiet does break it's with the sounds of happiness. I wonder if people realize how much happier they are when the cars aren't running, how they actually talk to one another and share in the similar experiences. I've seen people on cross-country skies, sleds, and walking the happiest looking dogs! I'm sending out a care package up to my cousin, who is up at Brown, and it's also high time I posted a new recipe. To deal with the snow and cold, I'm sending up some superfood mix (goji berries, turkish mulberries, cacao nibs), hemp-based lip balm, some of Amazing Gras s 's Green Super Food, and yummy baked vegan goods. I figured that one of the best things to do to cope with the cold winter days is nothing better than the epitome of comfort baking: oatmeal raisin cookies! Th...

So I know I don't usually post on Sundays, but I've created yet another wonder that I just have to share with the world. One of the non-vegan recipes I've always toyed with is variations of Heidi Swanson's Black Bean Brownies . I don't know that I've ever made the same recipe twice, but every time I've tried to make them, they've turned out wonderfully rich, fudgey and amazing. I've tried to make them as vegan as possible (and as healthy too) so I don't believe I've ever actually made them using eggs or butter, but the concept of black bean brownies so fascinated me it was something I've come back to over and over again. Tonight, I think I've nailed it for good. It being Sunday, we took our usual trip up to my parents' place where it was time to make my dad some more vegan goodness. With no more flour in the house, and forgetting to bring my own ingredients, I had to throw together something with what I had available. Though I di...