5 Ingredient Recipe: Spiced Apple Pie Oatmeal

It's that time of year again! We start taking out our cozy scarves, hats and mitts. We crave warm and comforting meals... We've had our first real snowfall here in Ottawa, and now the holiday cheer is fully present everywhere. That's the only thing getting me through the cold weather. Well, that and my nights in, knitting and listening to jazzy holiday tunes.
This oatmeal recipe is perfect for this time of year. Yes, I know this is just another oatmeal recipe, but it's my go-to when I want something easy, warm and hearty. With only 5 ingredients, you have no excuses! And, who wouldn't want to eat apple pie for breakfast?

3-in-1 Restaurant Reviews - Toronto

During my weekend at the Vegetarian Food Festival in Toronto, I took advantage of the multitude of veg restaurants in the area to stop by a few of them. If you haven't read my posts about the festival, here are the links for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. Some of these restaurants I had heard of already, but Happy Cow definitely helped picking them out. I ended up visiting Kale, The Hogtown Vegan, and Sadie's Diner. I presented them in chronological order, but it turns out it's also in order of preference, enjoy!

Beauty Review: Purple Urchin

You need soap. P.U.

Probably one of the best slogans I've ever heard. Why? The "P.U." not only stands for "pee-you" (you stink), it also stands for the brand Purple Urchin. Genius! This is an Ottawa-based homemade soap and body product company that was originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (shout out to my Northern Ontario peeps!).

Here's a little bit about their products: (excerpt taken from their About Us page)

Our goal in making this soap was to make a wide variety of soap that contained only vegetable oils and delicious fragrances, while avoiding the use of unnecessary chemicals. We wanted to make soap that felt luxurious and would not strip the skin of moisture, and that was as natural as possible while still offering a wide range of scents...

Purple Urchin soap is not tested on animals, nor do we use lard or tallow in our soap. Most of our products are 100% vegan-friendly, and all are 100% vegetarian-friendly, and biodegradable. We refrain from using palm oil in our soaps since the demand is extremely high...

Being environmentally-friendly is also extremely important to us in our everyday business operations, and we try to reduce waste and to use as many recyclable and/or recycled products as possible. We also use local, Ontarian, and Canadian suppliers whenever possible...

Urban Craft Fall 2013 Edition

On Sunday, September 22nd 2013, the Glebe Community Center hosted the fall edition of Urban Craft Market. This event gathers over 45 local vendors in the Ottawa region and nearby to display and sell their crafts, food and unique items.



On that gloomy Sunday, I went to Urban Craft with my two favourite girlies, Myriam from BeauteOptic and Stephanie from Lip Stains & the Walk of Shame. Before we even went inside, we had a magic moment. Steph and I spotted these adorable purple bikes! This adorable bike rental stand just outside the Glebe Community Center. The company is called Right Bike and it's a membership-based bike-sharing program. Check it out!




I've always loved going to craft shows. It was one of my favourite things to do with my mom growing up, especially during the holidays. It's so much fun to try and see every single booth, not wanting to miss any of the cool new things. Here are a few of the fabulous vendors I went to see.

VegFoodFest 2013: Part 3 - Sunday

Well, waking up that morning was not easy. After Day 1 and Day 2 at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival and a night of eating, drinking and dancing you can imagine my food baby, my hangover and my lack of sleep. That said, I was still so excited and ready to discover more veg-related products and businesses.

It was such a beautiful day, with the sun shining down on Toronto like it was mid-summer. As soon as I got to the festival, I was on the hunt. Thirsty. I wanted either a green juice or smoothie, maybe I'd even try some kombucha! After doing the rounds of booths, I got very discouraged. There were huge lineups at smoothie stands. One of the kombucha vendors were gone, the other one sold out a few minutes before I got there. Sad but hopeful, I tried to find something other than a $3 water from a vending machine. And then I found it. There was a table with man holding a massive knife, beside a box of fresh coconuts. EUREKA! I had never really tried packaged coconut water, and definitely not straight out of the coconut! I watched this talented man strike at the coconut a few times just enough to make a slit to stick in a straw. Well worth the $5 I'd say, and how cool did I look walking around holding a coconut with a straw!

VegFoodFest 2013: Part 1 - Friday

First, a tidbit about me:
2013 is my first year being vegan... Weird, I know. I almost feel like I've been vegan forever because I've been researching and dipping my toes into it for years. I grew up in a smaller northern Ontario town that had little (read: nothing) to offer the veg community, so it was difficult for me to make the jump from vegetarian to vegan. Immersing yourself into this culture and connecting with people in it is so amazing. I did this mainly online and with social media, since I felt I was so far from it physically. Toronto, by far, is the closest veg-destination and will probably always be my favourite (to be determined...) Their annual vegfest was the next step in strengthening my vegan lifestyle and of course, to be shared with you lovely readers.

My wrist tattoo - April 2013

VegFoodFest 2013: Part 2 - Saturday

Day 2 of the Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival was amazing! Haven't read my post about Day 1? Read it here.

The first event of my day was Marni Wasserman's presentation called "Fully Nourished". I have to say she looked absolutely ravishing and glowing, even on that icky rainy day.

The cooking demo was really informative and nutrition-focused. She talked about multiple uses for ingredients like quinoa (the nutritional superstar) and cooking tips for different uses like porridge and salads. The quinoa salad recipe demonstrated was amazing - it really was great for a full meal type of salad. It had quinoa, chickpeas, shredded beets and carrots, kale, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, avocado and a homemade dressing. And we all got to taste it afterwards!

Marni Wasserman's Quinoa Salad

Value Village Hauls

Thrift shopping is something that you are really into or not at all. It has been pretty trendy lately so I think a lot of people are jumping on board, which is great (especially from the environmental standpoint). I've always loved it. I love the treasure hunt, the lower prices and the smaller environmental footprint left behind.

The people who know me know that I always head straight for the sale rack every time I go shopping. It's always been my instinct to only buy things on sale or to save money everywhere I can. So naturally, I'm a fan of second hand items. I'm am even bigger fan of the value village giant half off sales that they have every few months. I'm all over their social media to make sure I know when the next one is. This one was right before they started setting up their Halloween merchandise... Heads up for next September! :)

Coco-Berry Oatmeal

My last post was about pancakes. This one is about oatmeal. You can tell I like breakfast foods! Just like pancakes, oatmeal can be customized in limitless ways. Every once in a while I do something crazy with my add-ins and it actually turns out pretty delicious. I've had this huge jug of coconut oil that I've had for months, so I'm always trying to find ways to use it up. When I bought it, I didn't realize it was unrefined. I got a big surprise when I opened it and found out it smells and tastes very coconut-y. It's a good thing I like that flavor!

I've also been playing around with cranberries and goji berries lately, putting them in salads, cereal, trail mix, and most recently oatmeal. I came up with this recipe for some tasty tropical oatmeal. This mix packs a solid blend of nutrients to kick-start your day with protein, carbs, antioxidants, fats, and of course the deliciousness... That counts as a nutrient, right? The best part about this recipe is that the measurements are totally up to you. You can mix and match and add more mix-ins all you want with this, just make sure the oats/water ratio stays proportional.

Pancakes with Red Wine Peaches

I looooove pancakes!

This little plate of heaven is all from improvising in the kitchen! There's something so exciting about starting to cook and having no idea what will come out of it. One day, I woke up at my usual weekday alarm time on my day off. What do you do when that happens? Make pancakes. Always make pancakes if you're up early on a day off. Why? Because by the time they are done it's a decent hour and pancakes are a classic weekend breakfast food. Queue the nostalgia.

The Green Diet?

I'm sorry for my recent absence lately, busy busy! Today is actually my graduation day! I'm so excited, it's finally here! Here's what I've been up to: this blog post came about pretty unexpectedly... What kind of diet is the Green Diet?

Okay, so it's not actually a diet per say, but I've noticed a trend in my diet lately. Most of my meals are mainly composed of... green! The staples have been green smoothies, and then just about anything green tends to make its way onto my plate. Here are some examples of my recent foods;

*The Works veggie burger with avocados, spinach and sundried tomatoes

5 Ingredient Recipe: Kale and Carrot Stir-Fry

Wow, April already! Time sure flies by when you've got exams to study for, a school club to run and an apartment to pack up. Here's another 5 Ingredient Recipe.

This was one of those leftover madness dishes that happen to turn out really, really good. After making this batch of fabulous carrot and cucumber sushi rolls, I had lots of shredded carrots and rice leftover.

I'm always trying to fit more greens into my diet. Kale is my go-to green because not only does it taste fabulous, but it's also a nutrient superstar. There is a great business in Sudbury, ON called Adoro that sells this amazing selection of infused and flavoured olive oils and balsamic vinegars. I had purchased a great sampler pack from them at a women's show a few months ago, and I've been incredibly impressed with the quality of their products. Today, I'm using the Wild Mushroom & Sage flavoured olive oil because I think the flavours work really well with the other ingredients.

5 Ingredient Recipe: Grilled Apples with Hazelnut-Maple Caramel

There I go again, another 5 Ingredient Recipe for my lovely readers, and it's a sugar-free desert this time! This one was a very spur-of-the-moment post, here's why:
If you have ever had supper with me, you would know that when I finish supper, I usually want to have a little something sweet to finish it off. It turns out, I'm the queen of throwing random ingredients together after dinner and making up a desert as I go. While I'm still working on emptying pantry items, I had a huge bag of apples that were starting to go bad. So I cut them up and grilled them, of course! I already had our George Foreman Grill (our awesome yard sale find!) set up from supper, so I used it again for desert. Why not! I wanted some sort of dip for them, and to the pantry I went. Maple syrup, hazelnut butter and cinnamon answered my call. This sweet yummy dish turned out to be extremely easy and sugar-free too!
I have to warn you, it doesn't photograph very well, and neither do I. It would seem that I need to do more collaborations with Myriam from Beauteoptic. And by collaborations, I mean using her photography skills for my blog. So, I'm sorry about the awful photo, but here is the turn out:

5 Ingredient Recipe: Spicy Artichoke Quesedillas

I have news: I will be moving to Ottawa in the spring! In preperation, we are trying to empty out our pantry as much as we can before the move. I'll be posting many recipes using ingredients from cans, jars, boxes and the freezer. Lately, I've also been attempting to make dishes with the least amount of ingredients possible.
This is the first post in an all-new series of recipes with 5 or less ingredients! (5 Ingredient Recipes) Easy peasy and super delicious are my goals for this new series. Being in a time-crunch or just plain lazy, these are fantastic!

I apologize for my awful photography skills, but here they are:

Campus News: Vegetarian Club

I have great news! I have officially started a vegetarian club at my school, with the help of a few others who wanted to get involved. Just wanted to share this with you because I'm SO very excited!

I'm a fourth year student at +Laurentian University - Université Laurentienne and I was always somewhat dissapointed in my campus experience since I lived off campus the whole time. The clubs aren't very active either, so I haven't participated to much as far as our campus community. There is more of a focus on sports I find, and that's not really for me.

Being vegetarian for most of my schooling and now fully vegan, my food options on campus aren't even close to being accomodating. +Tim Hortons has a few vegan bagels that I can get without butter, and the cafeteria has a fruit and vegetable bar that is usually quite unapealing, but it does have some tasty homefries and hummus snacks. So those are about all my options as far as food, and the prices are outrageous. Not really worth it.

I have started going to the Northern Vegetarian Society's monthly potlucks on a regular basis now, which have been fantastic! It got me thinking about wanting to be more involved, going to more events like these. In this town, that's about all we got. So I somehow got the idea to start a vegetarian club on campus. How have I never thought of this before?!?!? Now I'm graduating in 2 months and that's all I have left to be involved on campus! Better late than never I guess.

Beauty Haul: Lush Cosmetics

On my recent trip to Toronto (see my restaurant post) I did a bit of shopping on Queen street. I spotted on a Lush store on my way to the Loving Hut restaurant, and prepared myself for some massive splurging. I'm a huge fan of Lush for many reasons, one of them being the labelling of vegan products. The majority of their products are vegan and have this little V symbol to identify them. What a great way to kickstart my vegan beauty regime! Here are the all-vegan products I purchased:

Vegan Restaurant: Loving Hut Toronto

When in Rome! (or Toronto!)

I spent the long weekend (family day in Ontario) in Toronto and I knew right away I wanted to hunt down some amazing vegan restaurants. After a search on Happy Cow, I had a looooong list of places to visit. Ok, I went a little bit overboard. I know I can't even get to a dozen places in one day, let alone eat a dozen meals. My trip was then planned around the area I wanted to visit most (shopping!). Unfortunately, I only had time for one outing so the Loving Hut in Toronto was my restaurant of choice. Now, I'm not a restaurant critic by any means, so I'm just sharing my experience and my opinions with you. Enjoy!

What a lovely place! The staff is friendly and the decor is adorable, much like a popular cozy hangout kind of vibe. I was impressed with the large menu, since I'm used to being restricted to 1-2 options. Here's the best part: I ordered 2 meals, equalling 4 plates, to myself! I probably sounded crazy but I asked the waitress to bring me some take out containers so I could take half of each meal home. And extra ketchup, of course!

Chocolate-Glazed Mini Donuts (vegan)

This year, my sister bought me this donut maker from Babycakes for Christmas. I was SO excited to try it! Since we decided to do a cleanse for the month of January, it remained unopened for the month, sadly collecting dust. On the first weekend of Febuary, I took that baby out and got right into it! I tried the donut recipe from Chloe Coscarelli's cookbook, Chloe's Kitchen (my Christmas present to myself) but I replaced the nutmeg with cinnamon. When I was mixing the dry and wet ingredients together, I found the batter to be a little bit thick. After adding about 1/4 cup of extra soymilk, the batter was much better but still quite thick. Even with that, I found the donuts turned out a little dense, so I will try adding 1/2 cup soymilk to the liquids next time. Overall, the donut-making was great; super easy and quick. The donut-iron (is that what I'm supposed to call it?) took about 5 minutes per batch, and using the ziplock-bag method for piping the dough made the whole process so much easier!

January cleanse: extension week recap

The last little stretch is done! WOW! What an accomplishement for me. Feeling incredibly proud, inspired, and happy! Here's how it went:

Monday night I did some awesome yoga at my local Goodlife Fitness. I felt so great afterwards, it was a really good class! My sister had brought along two of her friends, who were very hesitant to trying yoga. Obviously, they came out of the class loving it! It was so nice to see this positive influence and the happy chatting afterwards (insert warm fuzzy feelings here). And then my sister and I went home and munched on guacamole and roasted red pepper hummus with Gluten-Free crackers, yum! It's actually really embarassing how much hummus we go through... Good thing we buy it at Costco!

So apparently I'm a runner now.... WHAT? I've never been a runner, a jogger, or even a big walker. Cardio has never been my thing. During this cleanse, I found that I have SO much more energy, and I need to do something more than bicep curls and squats to get it out. Since getting bad whiplash this summer, my back and shoulder area have been tense so I didn't want to work out too hard. Cardio it is. I've been doing pretty good, slowly working my way up to longer periods (watching longer Ted Talks videos!). My biggest issue before was the sluggishness (probably just unconscious laziness) and my lack of endurance. Now it's not an issue at all!

January cleanse: week 3 recap

Oh my! Week 3 of my Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse is already done! It has officially been 21 days today that I have been following the cleanse. I have to say it went by really fast! Overall, I'm feeling pretty great physically and emotionally, even with some leftover cold symptoms and a bit of emotional drama in my life. This has become my goal, something to be proud of, something to achieve and to explore. I'm so thankful to have found this!

This week was a little different, staying home with a cold for most of it. I watched alot of movies and tv since I had no internet at home. But, that also means I had time to make a few yummy dishes! I made a great mexican-style rice pilaf consisting of; brown rice, diced tomatoes, corn, black beans, assorted beans, onions, mushrooms, chili powder and other spices. I had served this on a plate topped with sautéed collard greens and garlic, yum! Now my weekend consists of catching up on homework and studying because of missing so much class. Horray....

January cleanse: week 2 recap

Hi everyone! Sorry about the delay for my post, I haven't had a WiFi connection at home for a few days. I have also caught a darn cold so I haven't been outside of my place either, since it's probably not a good idea to go outside in -35 degree weather. Yup, I said -35 degrees, Celcius. Anyway, here's a recap of my week 2 on the Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse.

I'm getting into more of a routine by going to the gym on scheduled times every week, and I'm doing great so far! Here's what HAS changed in my routine; music. Before, I would just focus on my workout because there is no background music at the university gym. But now, TedTalks videos have been my go-to gym "music" lately, I can't get enough of them! Pull them They are all about 20 minutes, so that's perfect for timing. I've been really impressed with the speeches of Kathy Freston (Leaning into your life), Jonathan Foley (The other inconvenient truth), Douglas Lisle (The pleasure trap), Brendan Brazier (Find your athletic edge) and Dr. Campbell (Resolving the health care crisis). Check them out! ....After you read the rest of my post! :)

Cleanse Day 7: fasting

Yesterday was day 7 of the Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse, and also my first fasting day. The book suggests that you fast once a week, to give your body a break from digesting solids. Drinking lots of water, tea and green juices are on the menu for the day. In theory, your body absorbs nutrients faster and gives you more energy to do other things instead of digesting food. Yesterday, my food diary consisted of lots of water, 3 teas and 3-4 glasses of green juice. I have to admit I was dreading it, but it was actually not bad. I kept busy and kept sipping, so there was no hunger in sight. It felt good to not have to worry about food, not wondering about ingredients or putting time into making food.

Over the past week, I noticed that I feel full. Weird... I thought I was just going crazy, but it feels like my stomach has shrinked. I have always been the kind of person who eats just because I feel like eating, whether I'm hungry or not. I eat when I know I'm supposed to have a meal (that's the virgo in me) and that's just how I do it. It seems like this cleanse has helped me become more in tune with my body and now I actually pay attention to what it's trying to tell me. It's not about the cravings or the time of day anymore, it's about how I feel and what my body needs. Loving it!

January cleanse: week 1 recap

Hello again! I'm a few days into my Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse and I'm feeling great! After a few fibs, I'm still quite proud of where I am so far. Now it's day 6 and tomorrow is my first fasting day, so here's a recap of the week:

I have always been a huge breakfast person, so It's actually a bit of a shock (but also a time-saver!) to not be eating solid foods in the morning. Lemon-cayenne water, tea and green juice has become my morning routine and so far I'm loving it. Just a bit of advice: be VERY careful shaking cayenne into your water, mine came out way too fast and it became a glass of spicy with a bit of water... The book suggests to make green juice yourself but I did buy a bottle of Bolthouse green juice for the days I didn't have time to do it. My Ninja blender was all I had to make juice, so I had to strain the pulp out of my "smoothie" with my metal mesh strainer, which is not fun at all. A juicer would come in VERY handy for this kind of lifestyle, but I have a million kitchen gadgets so I will put up with the pulp for now. My spinach-celery-apple-banana juice still turned out great, but I was left over with a big portion of pulp and I didn't want to waste it. Again, +Eco-Vegan Gal came to my rescue with her suggestion to make flax crackers with leftover pulp. I added ground flax seeds and sesame seeds to the pulp until it was firm enough to hold its shape, formed little cracker shapes and baked them! Horray for not wasting!

New year, new resolution!

Hello again! I'm back after a very busy holiday season, and of course after a hangover on January 1st I've made a few resolutions that I'l like to acheive this year. Living with my sister, we influence eachother in ways we don't even notice, including our diets and groceries we buy. She had been telling me about her "detox" plan (from her personal trainer) coming up in the new year, so I thought it would be great to try something like that myself. Since I start classes again on monday, I've decided January 7th would be my start date, as I phase out the forbidden foods out of my fridge (eating them!) and look up recipes until then.

One of my favourite vegan resources is +Eco-Vegan Gal. I love everything she does and I find her channel so inspiring. I had seen Whitney's videos  about her last year's January cleanse using the Crazy Sexy Diet book by Kris Carr and decided to give it a shot. I didn't have the book, so I did some research. After reading this review, I could understand the basic rules and decided to go out and buy the book. The book has a great daily checklist to keep you on track and is also great for documenting your journey during the cleanse. Kris includes some great recipes to get you started, including various green juice recipes to keep it exciting.