pretty inside pretty outside

Super Protein Salad

2009-07-29T11:16:00.001-07:00

this recipe for salad is an adaptation of about 3 or 4 different recipes for similar types of dishes with my own little twist. i love how the quinoa sticks to the cabbage leaves with the peanut sauce sneaking in an extra punch of protein! To make this a main dish, I've added baked tofu, but you can switch it up with tempeh if you like, or go without! All measurements are approximate, you can add or take away to your taste.

Super Protein Salad

(serves about 4, or 2 really hungry people)

1 small head of cabbage (red or green), shredded

1 large handful spinach

1 carrot, grated

1/4 cup quinoa (dry)

5 tbsp natural peanut butter

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari

tbsp sesame seeds

cilantro (optional)

salt to taste

To prepare quinoa, bring 1/4 cup of dried grains to a boil with equal parts water. Reduce to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the grains become clear. Remove from heat and let cool.

For the peanut dressing, mix peanut butter, rice vinegar, maple syrup, soy sauce with about a 1/4 cup of water. Adjust ingredients to suit personal preference and add salt to taste.

Shred cabbage, and toss with spinach, cilantro (optional), and grated carrot. Spoon peanut dressing and quinoa on top and mix well, coating all the veggies. Add tofu or tempeh if desired, sprinkle with sesame seeds.

And there you have it! A delicious, natural, asian-inspired salad that fills you up with protein and healthy fats.

Slow meal = Life

2009-05-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Borrowed from the brilliant Tim Ferriss' blog....

Slow meals = life.

From Daniel Gilbert of Harvard to Martin Seligman of Princeton, the “happiness” (self-reported well-being) researchers seem to agree on one thing: meal time with friends and loved ones is a direct predictor of happiness.

Have at least one 2-3-hour dinner and/or drinks per week — yes, 2-3 hours — with those who make you smile and feel good. I find the afterglow effect to be greatest and longest with groups of 5 or more. Two times that are conducive to this: Thursday dinners or after-dinner drinks and Sunday brunches.

Could there be any better news? Doubtful.... especially when eating with friends and family is one of my favorite things to do!

K and I have always been foodie-friends. When we go out to eat, rarely does a meal go by with us choosing the "sharesy" option. What is this exactly?...well...we choose 2 or 3 things that we both want to eat and share them. There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that I have a serious case of food jealousy. The second, and more important reason, is that indulgence is always better with a friend. It makes eating out (or in) feel like a major event every time. Some of my favorite hang out time has been at the table.

This weekend I spent some good quality meal time with friends around Toronto!

One Breakfast/Brunch @ Get Real Cafe

This is an amazing little restaurant on Ossington, is for the veggies, the vegans and the healthwise....which should be everyone! The brunch menu ranges from international inspired omelettes to fruit and nut french-style toast to classic yet deluxe hot foods like sweet potato quesadillas.

Two Lunch @ Fresh

No review necessary...we all know how amazing Fresh is. The best part was that it was warm enough to dine out on the patio, so we enjoyed our meals watching pedestrians enjoy King Street on a Sunday afternoon. I ordered my favorite...the Thai burger...sans bun...and it was the pick-me-up that my post-Saturday night brain and body needed. Oh and of course our meals were of course not complete without an appetizer of sweet potato fries.

Three Dinner @ K's hot little Pad..picnic style

Chefs: A and K. Dishes served: salad rolls, a fruity and nutty spring salad and baked tortillas with salsa. Outcome: Happy faces all around!

Food + Friends = Love = Life.... Cheers!

Lovely Leafy Greens

2009-04-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

I've got it bad. I know the feeling.
I think about them every day, from the minute I wake up, until I go to bed.
It's an infatuation. An obsession.

But I mean....who could not fall for something so utterly perfect.
Oh hello...leafy greens...won't you make love to my mouth?

LEAFY GREEN VEGETABLES ARE SO GOOD!!!
They are low in calories, low in fat...HIGH in protein/cal, dietary fibre, iron and calcium.
Let us not forgot the superpower phytochemicals: vitamin C, carotanoids, lutein and folic acid.

Here are some of my favorites .....plus a recipe!

Bok Choy

What it is: The only green thing in The Mandarin buffet.

Why it is wonderful:
It tastes like an exotic celery.
It's stalk stays crunchy after it's been stir-fried.
It is loaded with Vitamin A and C and Calcium.

Collard Greens

What it is: Disguised lettuce, it is actually from the same species as cabbage and broccoli.

Why it is wonderful:
Like the whole family of of cruciferous vegetables, medical researchers believe that it helps to prevent cancer.
It is a dieters dream -- low cal, low fat, low sodium.
You can use them to make salad rolls replacing low nutrient/highly processed rice paper.

Kale

What it is: The darkest green of the all.

Why it is wonderful:
Provides more nutritional value for fewer calories then almost any other food around.
Contains a lot of the elusive vitamin K.
It has so many too many benefits for me to highlight only a couple)
(just check it out at http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38)

Baby Spinach

What it is: The spinach that you actually like.

Why is is wonderful:
It's sweet tasting little leaves make any salad more interesting.
Raw, steamed, or cooked....delicious.
It is so rich in antioxidants....which help us fight carcinogens.

Arugula

What it is: The leafy green that looks like a dandelion leaf. (but isn't)

What it is wonderful:
Its natural peppered taste gives any salad, sandwich or burger a kick.
It is totally the gormet leafy green...ancient romans used to consider it an aphrodisiac.
A, C and calcium = beautiful skin, beautiful nails, beautiful hair.

Salad Rolls

Collard Greens (middle stem removed)
Arugala
Baby Spinach
Avocado (cut into slices)

Dressing
Tahini (2 parts)
Lemon Juice (2 parts)
Water (1 part)
Braggs (1 Part)

1. Mix dressing with whisk
2. Mix Arugala and spinach in bowl, then cover with dressing.
3. Take one half collard leaf, place avocado slice and hanful of salad at one end.
4. Roll leaf around avocado and salad, roll up tightly.
5. Secure with tooth pick.
6. Yum!

Check out Meghan Telpner's video on how to make kale chips
(these are actually the best things ever)

As for bok choy.... go to The Mandarin.
(just kidding...please don't eat there)

Ethiopian Dining

2009-04-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after a wonderfully lazy Sunday, K and I went out for dinner with my sister and her boyfriend Markos.

We went to a little hole in the wall restaurant at the corner of Toronto's Bloor and Ossington called Nazareth to experience our first and much anticipated Ethiopian meal.

My sister had always raved to me about Ethiopian food and I have recently started notice a bit a of buzz beginning to surround it...and now I know why.

We started our meal with a glass of spicy hot tea. The black tea, which I found it similar to Indian Chai, was rich in flavors of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. It was served pure, without the addition of milk or sugar. It was delicious.

With 3 out of 4 veg-heads at the table, we of course order the Vegetarian Plate. Ethiopian food is characterized by its spicy vegetable (and meat) dishes made into thick stews served on top of a large sourdough-type bread called injera. Injera is made of a teff four, which comes from a grass that is native to northern Ethiopia, and has quite the attractive nutritional profile being high in dietary fibre and iron while also providing protein and calcium. Our meal was without utensils, using pieces of injera to scoop up the various vegetable dishes before us.

I'm not exactly sure what everything was that we had, but I recognized many of the main components of the dishes. There was a brown lentil dish, a red lentil dish, a kale dish, a cabbage dish and an iceberg salad with tomatoes, onion, and jalapeno with a light, Italian-tasting dressing. Everything was good and everything sent my tastes buds into a wonderful frenzy. The food had a kick, spiced with a popular Ethiopian spice called berbere which is a blend of red chili, garlic, salt and more. Everything was hot and fresh and most important full of minerals, vitamins and proteins.

If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage that you do. I promise you won't be disappointed. Why not start at Nazareth, it has my stamp of approval.

As for me, the next time I dine Ethiopian style will be at home, cooked by Markos, who insists that his cooking would give any Ethiopian restaurant a serious run for their money.

Why go Raw?

2009-04-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

I went on a little dinner date with two of my besties last night to LIVE, a super cute and fantastic ‘organic food bar’ in Toronto. Live specializes in inventive raw food dishes, although they do offer cooked cuisine as well. Everything is organic, vegan, and they cater to gluten free and nut free diets as well.

I’ve been interested in the raw food lifestyle for a while. I’ve read a lot here and there about the other benefits of keeping food fresh and uncooked, but while we were feasting yesterday I realized that I couldn’t fully put into words/explain what was so attractive about this way of eating to me. And that’s silly! Why do something when you can’t explain why?

So although I won’t (yet, at least) commit myself to a wholly raw-food diet, I DO want to keep up what has been my recent phase of health/food related challenges and the next one on my list is “GO RAW” one day a week. And because any change in diet is faced with inevitable questions, here I attempt to answer:

why go raw???

The Science of Digestion.

Our friends in white lab coats have proven that when you heat food above 46.6 degrees Celsius (that’s 116 Fahrenheit) that the enzymes in food that help aid our digestion start to die. Why is that a bad thing? Well, our digestive organs have to work harder , maybe causing them to (eventually) not function as well as they could. As well, when everything is digested easily, everything flows through you smoothly, leaving you with a light feeling and the type of BM’s that have you bragging to your friends (or is that just what my friends are like?)

Reduce free-radicals (our worst enemy!)

When food is cooked, it also produces free radicals…wee little molecules that have been directly linked to cancer. (sidebar – this is why you should never heat up oil to the point where it is smoking...this is suuuper bad for you.)

Supports local agriculture.

For me, my move towards more raw foods goes hand in hand with my move towards purchasing local, organic, sustainable produce. Less distance from the farm to my plate means supporting my local farmer and economy, and fresher more delicious food!

More Energy

When your body doesn’t have to concentrate all its efforts on digestion, the energy you get from your delicious raw food can be used for something else! Cooked and processed foods take up so much energy to digest as your system does its best to figure out what the heck you have bombarded it with and how best to get rid of it.

You don’t have to be a vegan, a hippie, an extremist, a person with an eating disorder, or a rabbit to recognize the benefits of incorporating more raw foods into your diet. Try having one totally raw meal a week, or check out a raw food restaurant in your area. It doesn’t have to be all salads (even though they are a big and delicious part of the raw food diet.)

In an ideal world (or at least MY ideal world), we would all be eating foods that are local and organic. Because I live in a country that experiences drastic seasons, its going to be much harder to eat raw in the winter (raw turnip? Hmm) than the summer. Try eating 25% raw in the winter, 50% in the spring, and 75% in the summer.

If you’re still not sold on the nutritional benefits of a raw food diet, I’d urge you to check out this trailer for Raw for Thirty:

http://www.rawfor30days.com/trailer.html

Post-Cleanse Thoughts

2009-04-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Things I learned from Green Smoothie Cleansing.

1) Hunger is a state of mind.

Like A touched on in her post below, I was so surprised to find that for the most part, I actually wasn’t that hungry. By the end of day 1, I had pretty much had my fill of green smoothie. I did not look forward to meals at all. That being the case, it was only when I was truly HUNGRY that I would make and drink a green smoothie. Since the smoothies were filled with all the nutrition I needed to get by (by adding nuts, oils, seeds…superfoods!) I realized that the desire I had for food wasn’t because I was actually HUNGRY, but because I was bored and wanted something with taste and texture to chew on. And the food I was fantasizing about wasn’t chocolate, pastries, the usual suspects… I could not stop thinking about WHOLE VEGETABLES…celery, tomatoes, cucumbers, I just wanted to crunch on something! The smoothie recipes were huge and I literally couldn’t finish them all they made me so full.

2) Vegetables are delicious in solid form – aka just because the ingredients are individually delicious, does not a delicious smoothie make

Celery…good. Banana…good. Almond butter…GOOOOOOD. Mixed together in a smoothie? Bleeeuuughhh.

3) Its easy to sneak in healthy additions to any meal.
Since becoming acquainted with some of the superfoods (hemp oil, flax seeds, chia seeds…) I’ve realized that when a) I know what something looks like b) when I know why something is good for me c) when I have these things in my pantry…It’s super easy to add them into every meal! This morning, I had a pretty typical breakfast: 2 slices of sprouted grain bread, a mashed banana and almond butter on top…but this time I added some ground flax sprinkled on top which added texture and nutrition and the breakfast tied me over to lunch much more smoothly than it typically does.

I am seriously loving every bite of food I take today. I feel as if I’ve been fed through an IV my whole life and have just for the first time tasted how delicious a carrot can be.
All in all…a very successful Green Smoothie Cleanse! Thanks Meghan!

Smoothies = Yuck

2009-04-21T17:19:00.001-07:00

So here's the scoop!

K and I are just coming into our last couple hours of our green smoothy cleanse....and I must say....that I will never take solid food for granted again.

Today at my utterly brainless part-time job I found myself daydreaming NOT about the usual (that is, making out with boys) but instead about satisfying my gut and stuffing my face with anything I could chew. No ,I wasn't thinking about chips or cookies or pie...I couldn't even imagine anything so advanced, but rather an intact leaf of lettuce, a whole almond or simply just crunching a piece of celery. Bottom line: eating all food in liquid form SUCKS!

Ok. Ok. I'm being really negative. Actually the cleanse was going really good until today...and they say that the third day is the hardest. And other then the fact that I was a little more hangry the usual, it really didn't have any bad effects on my life.

And here are the good effects!

I swear my skin is looking a little more radiant then normal.
I had really deep sleeps.
I lost 4 whole pounds.
I realized that I control the food I eat, not the other way around.

I've always been a real 3 meal + bed time snack eater...but doing this cleanse made me really listen to my body and I was able to determine whether or not I was really hungry. You see, when the only think you can eat tastes like liquid salad, you make damn sure you are actually hungry before you make any moves towards the kitchen.

And so... there it is.

Smoothy cleanse - Check! (..and I honestly think I'll see it on my list again)

Dry Brushing

2009-04-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

In prep for tomorrow (that is: day 1 of smoothy detox) I decided to take advice from my cyber nutritionist Meghan Telpner and started exploring some other methods of cleansing that are suppose to make me more beautiful!

After quickly rejecting the idea of using an enema, aka a home colon cleansing, aka putting a litre of water literally up my butthole....I decided to go for option number 2: start dry-brushing.

I had only heard of this strange technique recently from a friend who had just tried it out...and found some interesting results. And so, this morning I headed out to The Body Shop where I bought a dry brush of my very own...for a mere/expensive $12 (i can't tell anymore) and was eager to get home and see this crafty tool work its magic!

What it is: Dry brushing is an exfoliation of the skins using a soft brush to gently brush the skin. It works to remove dead skin cells, improve the circulation of blood and lymph and to enhance detoxification through the skin.

Did you know? The skin is the largest most important eliminative organ in the body and is responsible for one quarter of the body’s detoxification each day? (and in some circles it is elusively know as the third kidney).

Look at all of its benefits!
1. Removes cellulite
2. Cleanses the lymphatic system
3. Removes dead skin layers
4. Strengthens the immune system
5. Stimulates the hormone and oil-producing glands
6. Tightens the skin preventing premature aging
7. Tones the muscles
8. Stimulates circulation
9. Improves the function of the nervous system
10. Helps digestion

** and it will also give you the smoothest skin in town! yes that's right.

How to do it:

It is pretty simple.
Start with the areas farthest away from you heart and work your way in.
Brush in circular motion on the tops and soles of your feet and the brush upwards working your way up you legs. Do the same for you hands and arms.
Then do your stomach and back, always brushing towards your heart. That means, on your neck brush down.
Go easy on your chest using circular motions.
Make sure you shower right after to wash away all the nasty stuff you have just uprooted.

** Don't brush to heard at first. Make sure you get to know your skin and how much it can handle. Otherwise, you may end up with multiple scratches suggesting to others that you have been in a cat fight...with a cat. Lesson learned by experience.

So there you go! Brush away...and set those toxins free.

For more information and a much more detailed instructors on how to brush take a look at this website.

http://www.naturalhealthtechniques.com/HealingTechniques/Dry_Brushing_Technique.htm

Médecin Sans Frontier

2009-04-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Last night K and I got invited by our good friend Nicola to join her at the Bloor Street Cinema to see the final flick presented at Doc Soup called Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders by director Mark Hopkins.

Filmed in the war-zones of Liberia and Congo, Living in Emergency followed the field operations of volunteer doctors of Doctors without Borders/Médecins sans Frontiers (MSF). This film was raw and a very real depictions of the dilemmas that the staff of MSF face on on a day-to-basis and the toll that it takes on the personally and professionally.

While this wasn't the feel good film of year, it was definitely mentally and soulfully stimulating making my count my lucky stars of my life and my environment.

Of the many aspects of the film that I reflected, one image really stands out in my mind; MSF veteran Chiara Lepora always seemed to be dressed up. At one point in the documentary, you see her waltzing down a delapitating street looking, as K put it, like Audrey Hepburn, wearing a shift dress with a string of pearls doubled and cascading down her back. One would think that a doctor working in the war-zones of Africa would have little energy and motivation to be considerate of how she looked. However, I think that this was a powerful image, that showed just how happy she was with her job and her life. Happy people exude how they feel wholly: by the way they interact with others, by the things they do and how they present themselves to the world.

Beauty makes us feel good and the better we feel, the more beautiful we want to be. Beauty create self-confidence and self-confidence creates the roots that we need to be good and do good.

I'm not saying that you should always care about how you look or that being beautiful means automatic happiness, but rather that feeling beautiful always adds enjoyment to life.

So go ahead, put some effort in and figure out how you can make yourself feel more beautiful. Take your mind out of the war-zone, whether to you that means the daily grind of work, the drudgery of exams or a tough situation that you are going through, and spend some time primping the outside. I promise, it will do wonders for the inside.

Green Smoothie Cleanse

2009-04-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

First Post!
So both A and I are participating in this 3-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse, coached by the wonderful Meghan Telpner. Meghan is a holistic nutritionist based out of Toronto (Parkdale, to be specific.) We recently had the pleasure of attending one of her Healthy Meal Prep workshops which was super inspiring and further fuelled the whole food eating health kick that I’ve been on since my return from Thailand.

Meghan believes in the benefits of cleansing and the green smoothie cleanse will be my first foray into a serious “cleanse” programme. I know the whole idea of detoxing is super controversial but this type of cleanse is not so much about withdrawal and deprivation, but rather replacing foods that have negative taxes on the body with delicious, fresh, raw, and super veggies, nuts, seeds, and herbs and giving your bod a chance to concentrate on being awesome and nourished. Seriously, who needs a multivitamin when you have a farmers market?

In preparation for the cleanse, starting tomorrow (3 days pre-cleanse) I am going to completely eliminate caffeine. To be honest, this won’t be a huge problem for me because I only really drink the occasional latte as a ‘treat’ and don’t feel I am dependent whatsoever. Meghan has also recommended to eliminate meat, eggs, and dairy in preparation for the cleanse which also won’t be an issue as at the moment my diet is already about 95% vegan.

Over the next few days, I’ll be discussing my detoxification journey as I explore new and exotic leafy green vegetables, dry- brushing, infrared saunas, and herbal teas…