La Belle Vie Holistic Living

Very excitingly, on Wednesday while I was at work a package came for me. It's always fun when packages come at work. Especially when the return address on it is not from our fulfillment house. I tore open the envelope (ok, I cut the side off neatly with scissors after I struggled for like three minutes to tear the envelope...) to find Rawlicious a raw food cookbook by Peter and Beryn Daniel. Rawlicious was originally published in 2009 in South Africa and will soon be available in North America. Rawlicious offers a nice sampling of a variety of dishes, from smoothies to soups to mains with a section on combining the different components to make a gourmet meal. The recipes are easy to make without many specialty ingredients, which I personally always look for in a cookbook. There are tons of recipes I'm excited to try, especially ones using sprouted legumes, such as the sprouted lentil burger and sprouted chick pea falafels. I love sprouting legumes because it's so easy ...

Happy New Year! Here's to a 2011 full of healthy, delicious food! I've decided to make some resolutions this year, something that I haven't done for the past few years. I have a couple of them, but the general idea behind them all is being a healthier, happier me.  When I think about it and about the steps it takes to be a healthier, happier me - creating and eating delicious food, being around people I like, traveling, drinking tea -  it seems pretty stupid that I've put it off this long. The slush, freezing wind and damp chill of winter can make it hard to have the energy and enthusiasm needed to go out after our goals. Here's a hearty winter soup that will warm you up and keep you going through the next couple of months. Ingredients 1 small yellow or white onion, sliced 2 tsp canola or grapeseed oil 1/2 cup brown rice 1 cup brown lentils 4 cups water 1 low-sodium boullion cube 1 large carrot, sliced 2 Tbsp ginger 1/2 litre low-sodium vegetable ...

Iris at The Daily Dietribe recently hosted an adopt-a-gluten--free-blogger-athon. I thought this was a super cool idea. Ever since I first came across Lisa's blog, Raw on $10 a day , I've been meaning to test drive some of her recipes; this was the perfect opportunity. Of course because timing always works out so perfectly, I ended up having an event to plan at work. I had great teammates helping me to do so, but it still took up an insane amount of my time. So, I ended up not being able to really try out any recipes for a while. But then! Kate and Robin emailed me that they were stopping in Toronto as part of their cross country tour. So we got together and had an awesome uncooking party of Lisa's fabulous recipes. The food was amazing and the company awesome.And, like any good dinner party, there was lots of kitty hugging. Ryder, the amazing foster kitty/best kitty ever was so excited and ran around so much that he was panting by the time Kate and Robin were leaving....

The boy came down with a nasty cold bug that's going around.  I made him put his face over bowls pull of steaming water and eucalyptus oil, drink lots of honey-lemon-ginger tea and, of course, made him soup. We didn't have that many ingredients kicking around so the soup was very simple, but incredibly delicious. It was so good I had to have a bowl too! Ingredients: brown lentils, organic low-sodium vegetable broth, water (because lentils take a lot of water, I didn't want all the broth to be absorbed with none left for the soup!), tomato, collard greens, yellow onion, garlic

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! One of my favourite things to make raw food-wise is soup. Not only are raw soups a healthful and tasty addition to any meal, but they're also super easy to make. Have a bowlful as a starter course, a snack or even as a meal. A great way to use up any veggies you have kicking around, you can make them from just about anything. Have a tomato and only one lonely carrot left over from other cooking ventures? Instant, delicious carrot-tomato soup! Incredibly and refreshingly easy to make, just throw all the ingredients in a blender, add some water if needed and blend, blend, blend. Seriously, raw soups can be made from anything! Well, anything that blends well...Tomatoes, herbs, garlic, avocados, mushrooms, the list goes on! If you want a creamy soup, add avocado or soaked cashews. To thin the soup to the right consistency, add water. For this d...

noodle bowl! noodle bowl! noodle bowl! Lately whenever I go to sushi places, all I want is a noodle bowl. My father in law always gets one and I look on in envy while he eats all the noodle bowl-deliciousness. Sadly noodle bowls are made with udon or soba noodles, both very full of gluten and thus very not for selenes. There was one chinese restaurant that made one with rice noodles, but it was not so great and its veganess, as with most dishes in most chinese restaurants, was questionable. So I made my own! And my god was it delicious and everything I dream of a noodle bowl being. (recipe after the jump!)