La Belle Vie Holistic Living

As far as I'm concerned, it's always the perfect season, day, week, year, moment for ice cream. If you're looking for a fix of the delicious stuff right now, try this ridiculously easy and super healthy dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free peanut butter banana ice cream . xo Selene

It’s officially fall! How super exciting! I’ve already started wearing layered sweaters and cute ankle boots in celebration. The apples are out, squash in every possible shape, colour, and size abound! Turn on your ovens, pick up some pumpkins, and let’s get our fall food fun on! Here are five deliciously simple, tasty, and healthy autumn inspired recipes for you to enjoy while watching the leaves change colour. Pumpkin pie smoothie Raw pumpkin mousse pie Baked apples Raw apple pie The healthiest carrot cake ever I’m off to jump in piles of leaves!!! xoxoxox Selene p.s. what's your fave fall food??

Carrots are amazingly naturally sweet and full of awesome health super powers, like their crazy antioxidant strength and eye-boosting magic. If you're looking for a new and delicious way to enjoy this fall's harvest, try this carrot cake that's not only super healthy, but also raw, vegan, and free of refined sugars and gluten. xo Selene

Ok, confession time...I totally hated carrot cake as a kid. In all fairness though, I never really gave it a chance. Well, accidental chances that obviously led to disappointment due to expectations that could never be met. What do I mean by that? Let me paint a picture for you... As a kid, you see the dessert offerings in the restaurants. ONE of the cakes has icing and a pretty candy carrot on it. So, naturally you assume that this cake will pack the most sugary flavour of them all! You get it, you taste it, you think what the...!??!? Flash forward a couple of decades and that early non-attachment to carrot cake is still alive and kicking! My friend, Shannon, kept mentioning a carrot cake that she swore by. But I just couldn't shake that deep-living memory and kept right on hating the carrot cake without ever trying it again. And then I went to Ecuador and moved to a house on a mountain. And, I'm not even sure what brought it about, but one day I was astoundingly lucky and lik...

As promised, here is the ridiculously easy recipe for this amazingly creamy peanut butter banana ice cream. It's dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, but insanely delicious! The peanut butter can be swapped out for your fave nut butter (almond, macadamia, pecan...the possibilities are endless!) or try a combination. You could use an ice cream maker...personally, I just moved back from South America and am moving again in a couple of weeks so I am not about to start unpacking boxes only to repack them again. It's easy to do without an ice cream maker, there is just one extra simple step. To make 2 bananas (the riper, the sweeter) 1/4cup nut butter (I used chunky so there were yummy nutty pieces in my ice cream) 1/2 can full fat coconut milk (mix it together before using) uhhh that's it! Blend it all together in a food processor and freeze. Every hour or so, mix it about so it freeze evenly. And after a couple of hours, blend it again in a food processor and then return to th...

(note about comment posting since I've been told it's a tad bit confusing...the link to post a comment is under the title of the post) Back in Ecuador, I discovered chocolate making. Ok, no, that's a lie. My history with making chocolate actually dates back to childhood. Since I can remember, I have loved creating culinary yum yums for those that I love. My parents for their wedding were given a chocolate cookbook and as a child I became a voracious reader of this miraculous book and tried numerous of its magical recipes. My favourite one to make and share was for decadent chocolate truffles. But in Ecuador, I bought a 10lb bag of cacao paste, and a 10lb bag of cacao butter, and went to town. Like, literally, I would make a ton of different types of chocolate and then go into town and hand them out to people (while, of course, eating a number myself for Quality Assurance purposes). My specialty was a raw peanut butter chocolate cup variety, which definitely won me many frie...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks. xo I've been meaning to do a detox for a while now. I've been feeling less than awesome - the state of limbo I'm in with waiting to travel and dragging my feet and the season change toward cold cold cold and wet have not been helping. I've been tired, unmotivated, anxious, and a bit down. Add to this a weekend of eating almost nothing but processed soy, and a switch flipped and I was suddenly ready.  I've been on the detox for about a week now and have felt great about the foods I've been eating. It's been about 95% raw, tons of veggies and fruits, with some seeds and nuts for protein and healthy fats. I've steered clear of concentrated sweeteners and anything processed or refined. I've had no cravings, which is great. I was experiencing detox symptoms, but they seem to be on their way out.  ...

Terrible picture, I know. I can't find my camera, so this was taken on my cousin's cell phone. This is a super easy fall time dessert I made for thanksgiving dinner with the family and some friends who don't have family in Canada. It tastes just like apple pie! My parents always travel in the fall, and I was in Vancouver with my best friend last year, so we've missed the past three years of Thanksgiving. So this year it was kind of a big deal. And we ended up with ten (!!) people - the four of us, my sister's boyfriend and friend, my couch surfer from France, my cousin who is visiting from India, and his two roommates who are also from India. Overall, it was an amazing Thanksgiving weekend and gave me so much to be thankful for - I spent all my time doing amazing things with amazing people including some very close friends and some new friends.  One negative thing about the whole weekend was around someone who I thought was close to me. I tend to take m...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks There are few things I love more than dinner parties. They're pretty much my favourite way to see and chill with friends - especially when it's not beach picnic weather. Here is the deliciousness that was enjoyed at one I went to the other week (all photos by Lucas Soloway). Oven-roasted peppers, mushrooms and aubergine with a cesar salad. Salad made by the lovely Joanne of We Animals . Lasagna in an alfredo sauce made by the amazing Lucas. The lasagna recipe is by PETA and can be found here , the alfredo sauce is by Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan . You can get gluten-free lasagna noodles at certain stores (check Kensington if you're in Toronto). If you can't find them, then make this dish with gluten-free pasta as a casserole! The Kind Life's Candied ginger pears by Joe and my chocolate orange gluten-free biscotti (re...

A while back, the beautiful folks at Namaste Foods sent me some of their products to try. They specialize in allergy-free (no wheat, gluten, corn, soy, potato, dairy, peanuts or tree nuts) mixes for baked goods. They have a mix for everything from breads to brownies to cookies to frosting to pasta meals. They also have recipes for a gazillion ways to use each! And they're vegan (many gluten-free mixes out there have egg and milk in them)! You may not know this about me, but I have a bit of a cookie "problem". I love love love cookies. The chocolate chip cookie was actually one of the first recipes I ever mastered and I did so when I was like seven, so was my need to be in control of my cookie supply. So naturally I chose to sample their cookie mix . I also chose to sample the bread mix , but that will be for another day as I wish to make banana bread and keep using up all my bananas in my breakfast smoothies. I was very excited when the package arrived. But it t...

Taking a little break from my Preventative Nutrition studying to drool over the stunning photography and recipes of amazing raw chef Golubka . Some of my faves... Sun Dried Tomato, Basil and Olive Tart   Falafel and Tabouleh Chocolate Persimmon Tart

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks. xoxoxo I heart nanaimo bars. My friend Shannon also loves them. I've seen gluten-free vegan ones, and eaten the delicious ones from LPK culinary groove. But traditional nanaimo bars are a heavy-on-the-refined sugar affair and both of us wanted to create one that steered clear of the white stuff. We both thought of recipes  separately and came up with almost identical ones - funny how that happens. The base and the chocolate ganache were easy to create. The middle layer, however, which gets its flavour and texture mainly from the sugar, was more of a challenge. The vanilla almond cream is delicious in its own right, but not quite like the sugary yellow filling of a nanaimo bar, leading this tasty square to be dubbed by Shannon's husband the Tofino Bar. To make base 1c macadamia nuts 1c cashew nuts 1/2c coconut, shredded ...

I've moved! Please visit my new home at  labellevienutrition.blogspot.com for more recipes and healthy tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! xoxoxox I heart thanksgiving with my family. When I was young, we'd go to a family friend's and enjoy the three amazing pies they'd make. And for the past while, we celebrate with delicious fall dishes, such as wild rice salad and oven roasted root veggies. Well, last year my parents were in Korea and Japan for Thanksgiving. And this year they were going to be in Turkey. After not having a dinner last year, we decided to simply postpone the holiday this year. And that instead of the usual faves, my sister and I would do all the feast-making. We didn't really coordinate our different menu responsibilities, but somehow ended up with a completely gluten-free, vegan, pumpkin-y thanksgiving! I'm the only vegan in the family, but we're all of the mentality that delicious food is delicious food. My siste...

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....

I've moved! Visit my new home Make Life Beautiful for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks Ok so clearly at this point my mango obsession is not a secret. And to be honest, I'm not actively looking for things to do with mangoes, as I love mangoes in their natural element. But I had some that were starting to turn and I was feeling creative, so I whipped up a mango cheesecake (recipe to come later) and mango ice cream. Get the recipe now!

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! Back in september 2009, I climbed the CN Tower in support of the united way. It actually wasn't bad at all, I was just horribly thirsty as you're not allowed any water throughout the whole thing. Anyway, I had a fundraising gift setup where for different amounts of sponsorship, I would give you homemade raw treats made by moi. Anyway, at the $50 level, I offered a homemade gourmet meal. Well, 3 people made that level! Namely, the boy's mom, dad and dad's girlfriend. So last night we had my father-in-law and his girlfriend over. I made a three course meal, and I must say it was definitely one of the best meals I have prepared to date! starting course: salad with chopped cucumbers and mushrooms, dressed in a creamy tomato miso dressing and sprinkled with almond and sunflower parmasan entree: zucchini linguine in a sundried toma...

IMPORTANT NOTE: I now have an email address, which you guys can write me at. If you have any questions, if you'd like to see a post on anything in particular, if you want to send me photos of your versions of my recipes, or if you just want to say hi, email me: SeleneAtVeganlicious @ gmail.com I'm pretty excited these days because it's finally MANGO SEASON! Yes, I don't think about the year in terms of winter, spring, etc.; I think about it in terms of what fruits and veggies are seasonal. Winter would be unbearable if it wasn't for clementimes and pomegranates. Spring brings mangoes (another reason it's my fave time of year), summer is about the berries, fall is for the apples...TNT, an asian supermarket, was having a special on them and we got a huge case for $7.99! So I've been having mangoes everyday for my morning and afternoon  snacks. I'm also excited these days because I have just discovered the most amazing breakfast ever: ice cream! One...

I've moved! Visit my new blog La Belle Vie for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! chocolate raspberry torte: chocolate nutty crust, topped with fresh raspberries and fudgy sauce I'm not going to lie, I totally make up whether to call it a torte, a tart or a pie based on what sounds nicer. I'm pretty sure this is not a torte...aren't tortes filled with denser fillings or something? I have no idea. Anyway, I know it's been forever forever forever since I posted anything. The reasons are many-fold: we had to bring our computer in for fixing so it was away for a while we both came down with the WORST FLU I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. It is horrible! And it's still kicking! Thank god it's on the way out now at 1.5 weeks. I actually didn't get out of bed for 3 straight days. And then, when I did, I could only do light activity because simple tasks like cleaning the cats' litter exhausted me too much....

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 ...