La Belle Vie Holistic Living

I've moved! Visit my new home  Make Life Beautiful for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks xoxo Things have been pretty crazy since I got back from Iceland (more about that in a later post), with all types of stress and change being thrown my way. I won't say I've been dealing with it the best that a person could hope to...there has definitely been some ups and downs. And I've broken out and become permanently bloated and haven't been sleeping all that wonderfully. But - a BIG but, and one that I am quite proud of myself about - I have managed to maintain a relatively healthy diet. (Relatively as there were a couple of nights where a bag of daiya and gluten-free bagels and tortilla chips were my dinner.) Normally when I get really stressed, I eat more processed foods and I skip meals or have "salads" made from lettuce and some kidney beans with maybe a tomato thrown in. Now there have been a far a...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks xoxo Salads are an amazing meal option. They offer a variety of tastes and textures and a mega dose of nutrients. They're also super portable and don't require heating, which makes them a great lunch for work. Sadly, many people have an irrational hate for the salad. A hate that stems from the unfortunate myth that salads are confined to two to three ingredients, one usually being lettuce, and that they can't ever be enough to fill someone up, and that they're just for diets and therefore a food you don't really want to eat but do occasionally and grudgingly like it's a punishment. The truth is that salads, with their endless combinations, are a form of culinary art; they require imagination and innovation. And without it, salads are in fact just lettuce with a slice or two of tomato and cucumber, maybe some onion. But do...

I've moved! Please visit me at my new home at labellevienutrition.blogspot.com for more recipes and healthy tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! xoxoxo I love kale. It's one of my favourite foods, my preferred leafy green and the last name of one of my best friends. Kale, also known as borecole, is a a member of cabbage family ( Brassica oleracea Acephala Group ), along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and brussel sprouts. Easy to grow and full of nutrients, kale was a choice vegetable for England's Dig for Victory campaign during World Way II. The history of this magnificent leafy green dates back at least 2000 years, when Sabellian kale, the ancestor to the kale we know today, was cultivated by the Greeks and the Romans in the fourth century BC. It was the most widely eaten green vegetable in Europe until the end of the Middle Ages, when cabbage eclipsed it in popularity. In fact, in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 13th centuries it found i...

I've moved! Visit my new home  Make Life Beautiful for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks xoxo Broccoli smothered in cheesy tahini sauce I already toted the many amazing benefits of sesame seeds here so we'll skip that part in this post and go straight to the awesomeness that is tahini. Raw tahini is delightfully easy, and inexpensive, to make. And you can do such awesome things with it! I personally love using tahini as salad dressing. And when I discovered you could make a delicious cheese sauce with it...!! You can't really tell from the photo, but this makes a deliciously creamy and cheesy sauce that you can use on zucchini linguine, or for kale chips, or really just about anywhere that cheesy goodness could go (which is pretty much anywhere). The cheesy tahini broccoli is my version of Julie Morris 's awesome recipe. While you're there check out her other recipes, yum they sure do look good! How t...

I've moved! Visit my new home  Make Life Beautiful for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! Curried lentil sprout salad with carrot, corriander and sundried olives. Have I spoken yet about the amazing wonder that is sprouting? I've wanted to try sprouting for a couple of years now, but have always put it off because I figured that it would be hard. Even though everyone says it'll be super easy, it still seemed kind of difficult. And they sell sprouting helpers for like hundreds of dollars, so why would I be able to do it on my own for free? Well, I finally did try it. And wow, it actually is super easy! And AWESOME! I used an old spaghetti sauce jar and a piece of mesh - the kind that is used for screen windows (I have a whole roll - live in toronto? I'll hook you up!). I just put some sprouting seeds in the jar, let them soak for a couple of hours, then drained them and left them on an angle in my dish drying ra...

I went to Cuba recently for a very belated honeymoon. And let me tell you, Cuba is no place for vegans. And especially especially no place for vegans who cannot eat gluten. I was very lucky that my hotel at least had an amazing salad bar. And even luckier that I love love love salad. But even still, seven says of salad, 2x a day, everyday...well, it can leave a food-happy vegan girl a little...unsatisfied. And this is coming from someone who ate salad for a year straight. But at least that salad had beans. I think I could have made it through a little better if there had been coconuts, the soy yogurt that's supposedly ubiquitous in cuba, or even cuba's "famous dish" of beans and rice. But, nada. I tried, quite hard and in my brand of broken spanish I might add, to monetarily convince someone - anyone - to send some soygurt my way. No one was having it. And you should have seen the looks of confusion and, dare I say it, concern at my sanity when I asked for beans an...

I love beans. They're delicious, full of nutrients and incredibly easy to make dishes from. They're full of fibre, protein, iron and folate. Here's a simple bean salad. You could make this salad from any mix of beans. 1 1/2 cup white kidney beans, well rinsed 1 1/2 cup red kidney beans, well rinsed 3 medium tomatoes, chopped 2 bell peppers, chopped (I like using one yellow and one orange. adds beautiful colours to the salad) 1 cup sliced olives 2 tbsp chives, chopped finely (or coriander) 2 cloves garlic, grated 3 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp cayenne Mix all ingredients well in a large bowl. Serve and enjoy!

Revered by the ancient Incas as the "mother grain", quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) is quickly becoming the hot new superfood. Sown seasonally by the Incan emperor with a gold shovel, quinoa has always provided those who enjoy it with its many health benefits. Incan armies were sustained by a diet high in quinoa. Those in Peru, Chile and Bolica cultivated it also for its nutritional value. Although often associated with grains, quinoa is actually a seed related to leafy greens, including spinach and swiss chard. This gluten-free food is fluffy and chewy in texture, subtley nutty in flavour and has an impressive nutritional profile: a complete protein, it contains all nine essential amino acids neede for tissue development excellent source of dietary fibre, iron, magnesium and copper A bitter coating consisting of Saponins keeps birds and other animals from chowing down on the crops. For this reason, and also because little stones and bits of dirts can be transported with it...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! I'm lucky in that my family is super open-minded, particularly when it comes to the culinary world. They've always been big on trying new things and have always had a strong leaning toward healthier foods. Of them all, I'm actually seen as the picky one. Strange, I know, given that one of my favourite foods is nutritional yeast...I remember once suggesting we go out to Veggie Haven, a vegan restaurant I wanted to try, only to find out that having been there three times in the last month or so, were wanting to try something new. I was a bit surprised at this, given that I am the only vegan of the bunch... Anyway, I am generally the one who makes the dessert at family dinners, birthdays, the such. When I was younger, I would make mostly mereinge items - such as mereinge baskets filled wih fruit and whipped cream - and truffles. Since I...

When I first met my now husband, I was back in school for a post graduate certificate diploma thingie. Being the brilliant person I am, and being in the desperate situation I was in of hating my job and feeling increasingly trapped and depressed by it, I took the first out I could see: My friend had taken a program at Sheridan College and said I'd like it, so I quit my job and went back to school. Of course, I didn't feel a need to stop and think about the fact that I live in Toronto , a city with many colleges, and thus probably didn't need to choose one all the way in Oakville...But, like I said, I was desperate, am incredibly sketchy like that and thus didn't even consider the whole matter...that is until I realized I would be waking up every day at 5a.m. to get there by 8...And that, given this lovely commute, I wouldn't be home until the evening...at which point I'd only have a couple of hours before my 10:30 bedtime (necessary when you...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! The boy and I were supposed to go paddling today; spend the day on the lake and the likely to be uncrowded (given the strike, which has also stopped ferry service) islands. Instead, it rained. So today very quickly became a lazy Sunday. You know, the kind where when your phone rings you feel a bit indignant that someone would be so inconsiderate as to interrupt your doing nothing and want something of you. For me these days go hand in hand with something yummy to eat. Sadly I'm out of fruit, so smoothies were out of the question, and out of agave, so any easy chocolate yumminess was also a no go. And so were born these muffins, tasting deliciously like cookie dough. to make 1/2c almonds 1/2c macadamia nuts 1/2c dates, pitted and packed 1/4tsp nutmeg 1/4tsp cardamon 1/4c raw cacao nibs In a food processor pulse the c...

I've been eating a boatload of hummus. I really want jalapeno hummus but apparently the stores by me don't sell any jalaps (grrr!). But yes here's the recipe I've been using: 1 can chickpeas 4 cloves garlic (we really really like garlic) cayenne pepper (to taste - i like it spicy, i like everything spicy) 3 tbsp tahini lemon juice (about 2 tbsp) 1/4c water (sometimes up to 1/3c, start with less and add a bit at a time till you get the ideal consistency) food process the sucker up and serve with carrots, celery and cucs