La Belle Vie Holistic Living

Basic white layer cake with chocolate chips and chocolate mousse Like the little black dress, the basic white is a timeless classic. When you can't think of a dessert to make, or want something that will go with everything, the white cake is the perfect thing to fall back on. What's even more is that it's the perfect blank dessert slate, totally customizable to whatever creative inventions you're feeling in the moment - much like dressing up a LBD with accessories, making for a totally different outfit each and every time, even when starting with the same thing. You can make it a layer cake, add chocolate chips, make it an ice cream sandwich and top it in many different ways. Serves 4 To make * 1 cup macadamia nuts 1 cup cashews 1 cup walnuts 1 tsp cardamon 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup dates blend all dry ingredients in food processor until finely crumbly. Add dates and blend until dough sticks together. Press into 2 small springform pans. Remove from pans. Sh...

Spiced apple pie It's thanksgiving weekend. I'm not so happy about it this year as my parents are leaving for a pan-asia tour on tuesday and thus my mom is unable to prepare our usual thanksgiving feast. That means no wild rice salad, lentil-carrot salad, or squash patties for me :( And I will miss having dinner with my side of the family - it's what we do best! To make up for it, I made a bunch of delicious fall food. Tofu stuffed with brown rice and mushroom gravy from Fat Free Vegan and raw spiced apple pie. I've made the stuffed tofu before and let me tell you, it is aMAZing!! Although, word of warning: it does take like three hours to make. No joke. So make sure you have enough time! plate on right, clockwise from back: roasted potatoes, honey-maple turnip, tofu stuffed with mushroom brown rice, brown rice stuffing, mushroom gravy, green beans, carrots The apple pie is made of of sweetly spiced apple slices on a sweet pecan crust. I piled the apples ...

For all Canadians, there's a sense of fear and anxiety associated with fall. Yes, it's beautiful and lovely with the leaves and whatnot, but it also signifies the end of what's normally a very short summer and the doomed coming of what will be (or at least feel like) 6-8 months of dark and cold, cold, cold. This fall has so far been particularly distressing as in Toronto we didn't really have a summer at all; warm days were few and far between, and what we've seen so far of fall is cold, dark and wet. And of course there's the feeling of foggy inertia that comes with each windy blow of a spray of cold rain in your face; the inevitable feeling of needing to cocoon - and fast - as the cold comes in. I'm trying to focus on the positives: fall fashion, fall foods. The fall marks the arrival of chunky gray cardigans, wellingtons, root vegetables and soups... It means baked goods and warm drinks and woolen tights... Now, those are things to look forward to! T...

On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I went for a walk in my old neighbourhood for a little organic oven love. Oh my do I love it there! We had vegan sandwiches on aMAZing gluten free bread, Dav had a vegan black forest cake, and I had a vegan and gluten-free brownie with fudgy icing. Truly, I wanted to buy everything there: they had cookies and muffins and other muffins (!!!). Somewhat luckily, they were out of many of their vegan and GF items, so I had a bit of an easier time deciding. Too late I saw the german chocolate cake - next time!! I also bought two pizza crusts for dinner. My parents, taking pity on us as we were sick all last week, brought us a container of delicious antipastos!!! Olives (!!!), peppers, mushrooms, artichokes, YUM. So for dinner, I made pizza with red wine tomato sauce, crumbled and panfried tofu and antipasto. Oh my, I wish I was eating this again. right now. mmmm pizza

This past weekend the boy, his sister who is visiting from Hungary, and I went camping on Franklin Island in the Georgian Bay area. It was absolutely beautiful; super sunny, sparkling water, tons tons tons of frogs. It was supposed to be a paddling trip, but I spent most of is lying in the sun, drinking cold tea (much better than algae-flavoured lake water), reading and eating. Oh my god, I ate so so much that I actually couldn't have paddled. We did go on a very nice little trek before the eating began; there was a beautiful little washed out beach, lots of beautiful lake and much general georgian bay gorgeousness. For food, we had: trail mix (naturally) PC brand vegetarian chili (I was very perturbed and disappointed to realize that it had no vitamin C in it, despite being a tomato base and having veggies in it...maybe because of the cooking process? unfortunate as I was counting on it to ward off the scurvy) bbq beans sesame fudge cookie balls brown rice tortillas (to...

Ontario peaches are so so good this year; juicy, sweet, beautiful! Here's a super easy recipe for a delicious raw peach pie. The crust's ingredients combine for a caramel-y and candied pecan flavour. Cinnamon and nutmeg blend perfectly with the juices of the peaches, creating a naturally sweet spiced syrup.   To make Crust/base: 1c pecans 1/4c - 1/3c dates 1/2 tsp cinnamon pinch, sea salt In food processor, blend pecans with cinnamon and sea salt until crumbly. Add dates, starting at 1/4c and blend. Add dates as needed until doughy consistency is reached (i.e. the mixture sticks together). press into pan chill in fridge 1-2 hours filling: 4 peaches, sliced thinly 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg mix all ingredients together in a bowl until peaches are well and evenly coated with the spices. spoon into crust serve topped with almond cream serving suggestion: in a springform pan, form dough into a base (1/4"-1/2"); chill in fridge 1-2hours. Remo...

Ok, before I even get into anything food related, I'm just going to go on for a bit about the fact that I feel really down right now. It's an easy kind of down in that it has one specific cause and one specific cure. For the past week or so our bathtub has been blocked up. Nothing too bad, just you know, your feet get a little bath while you're showering. WELL.Thursday it STORMED. Like, there were tornados nearby! That's insane! We don't have enough good weather to ever make tornados ok. And thursday night, our bathtub had a lot of other weird stuff in it. It was gross, we were worried the pipes overflowed and backed up or something. Well, this morning I wake up to find more gross gunk in the bathtub, and that's when I realize, the KITCHEN SINK is backing up into the bathtub, and then because the bathtub is plugged, it's not draining! There was a BLUEBERRY in my bathtub today! Very upsetting. Doubly so as I really need a shower. Sigh. Luckily I have a very...