If Alberta can do it...

If Alberta just voted in an NDP Premier, I’m pretty sure I can finish this smoothie cleanse. Like Alberta, I’ve been neglecting some pretty important concerns over the past year (thankfully, though, not 44 years). This week, one thing was clear: we both needed a change. And now that Rachel Notley is in full swing, I better follow through with my end of the bargain and finish this fourteen day cleanse.

Six days ago I ventured out to try my first (healthy) cleanse. I had attempted the Master Cleanse in the past, and ended up feeling as though I was holding my breath for ten days, only to finally make it to the finish line, exhale, and take in with my first post-cleanse breath about ten days worth of food at once. By the time I completed my cleanse, I felt undernourished, weak, and fragile. I felt like I needed to cleanse my cleanse.

This time, I had a bit more wisdom, a tad more insight, and the clarity to set some intentions from the start. I endeavoured to move into the cleanse with time on my hands, so I could really soak in the retreat-like state I was aiming for, and have been promised time and time again by every health-nut foodie I know and love.

Everything had wrapped up with school and work, I had moved into a new house, and I had six weeks ahead of me before my next contract begun. It was perfect timing to begin. A few years ago, on a trip through Cambodia, I ended up serendipitously at a yoga retreat, which involved a one-day fast, and day of silence, each Saturday. After extending my time at the retreat several times (whoops), I became well acquainted with these Saturdays, eventually looking forward to the lightness and clarity I felt without food. I knew this couldn’t be extended into anything long term, and wanted to avoid compromising my health and metabolism. A smoothie cleanse was the perfect fit: sustainable, as it still offers an abundance of micronutrients, is not deprivation-based, and yet is still deeply cleansing in nature.

The idea is to drink as much fruit and veggie smoothies as you’d like, with the vegetables greatly outweighing the fruits after the first few days. Water, as always, is key. And the idea is to give your body a break, while providing it with sufficient nutrients to run, flush out what’s leftover from past food choices (yikes), and to replenish what the modern food industry causes to be an extremely overworked and undernourished system.

Day one was rough. I had unpacking to do. And to make matters worse, I realized my first mistake almost immediately: I hadn’t weaned myself off of coffee. This, of course, was a most excruciating introduction to the cleanse. My temples throbbed, my mind raced with reasons to rescind my commitment, and my belly spoke to me in its native gargly tongue. Day two was met with more unpacking demands, but a complete and utter willingness to accept the reality that I was going to spend the majority of the day watching detox/cleansing/clean eating documentaries, which of course, helped tremendously, and of course, is indicative the amount of time necessary to do this cleanse as painlessly as possible.

Day three was a little brighter. As the documentary Hungry for Change (highly recommended if you’re thinking of tackling a cleanse, though it’s a tad cheesey at times, it’s hard to find a food doc that isn’t –what’s with that?) explains, there is a turning point for what your brain does with hunger signals. Plan A consists of depriving the body of energy in order to communicate to the conscious mind that food must be found. When Plan A yields no results, Plan B is put into action, whereby hunger signals wear off, and the body is given more energy, in hopes of inspiring the conscious mind to use the energy to find sustenance. A smoothie cleanse is different than a fast, of course, in that the body still receives fibre, and likely more nutrients than it is used to. My experience since day three has only confirmed that everything we’ve learned about food on an institutional level is a sham. While I had a few low moments energy-wise, I mostly felt clear-headed, light, energetic, and calm. I could feel that my body was appreciating the break for my digestive system, and the space to catch up and process anything old.

Day four and five were marvellous. I never anticipated saying this, but I felt as though I could stay on this cleanse forever. What was especially interesting about these days was the lack of headache I never even knew I could look forward to. It started on the morning of day four, when I woke up to a feeling of absence –not a usual occurrence first thing in the morning. There was a sensation, a dull pain, missing from sides of my head, all the way into my jaw and upper neck. I was acutely aware of there being a neutral sensation there, likely because I had been so used to a minor headache over this past year, where my diet suffered tremendously due to my living environment and my finishing up my degree.

It’s day six today, and despite the gorgeous weather outside, none of my shorts fit well enough to wear. I want to make clear that this was not, by any stretch (pun intended), the intention of my cleanse. If you’ve followed my blog a bit of a ways back, you’ll know that I have worked hard to strengthen my relationship, my attunement, and my appreciation and love for my body, and that while it is naturally changing shape as a result of my paying more attention to it, cleanses are obviously not a sustainable (or intelligent) approach to giving your body anything but space to breathe and heal.

What is most peculiar about this experience so far, nearly halfway through, is that I haven’t been craving food –not even at all. And I wonder how much of that is due to the more spiritual nature of my intentions on this cleanse. After a year of living in a residence that left me feeling depleted and disconnected, from my food and my usual sense of well being, as well as being in my final year of my Masters, which involved being thrown head first into counselling work, I needed a reboot. I needed a designated period of time to reconnect with myself, to see myself honestly and empty, unfilled by the external world, so often connected to the body by food, convenience and boredom. I needed a recharge of my connection batteries, and in order to do that, I had to first let them drain to zero.

So tomorrow is day seven out of fourteen. In my head, and in the heads’ of those that care about my wellbeing, circulates the mantras of food we learn as children, and re-learn as adults with differing motives: deprivation is bad, cleanses are hokey and cause more damage than good, a balanced diet is attainable with processed foods…

And yet and yet… six days on a smoothie cleanse has taught me that giving the body a break is essential; Seeing yourself without the quick fixes of food throughout the day is an opening for great emotional healing and reprogramming; and that emptiness and simplicity is scarier and sometimes more rewarding than fullness and limitless options, which explains a lot about the way our culture defines success.

While I absolutely would not do this indefinitely, it’s making me think a lot about the impact of food on our overall well-being, and how skewed our food education is until we have the courage, incentive, or are faced with an emergency, to take matters into our own hands. Over the years my interest in food politics and justice has led me to truly believe that we are kept apathetic, numb, and over-consuming largely by the food industry –and sometimes it takes veering from that world, taking a leap outside of the fishbowl and preying you can breathe out there, to understand just how liberating it is, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, to renew your trust in the fact that your body heals itself, from the inside out, when left to do just that.

So there you have it: my smoothie-induced beliefs and experiences laid bare for you, my friends. And if you’re feeling curious, inspired, or simply thirsty…

A Smoothie for Peace of Mind and Belly:

2 ribs celery
½ cucumber
1 banana
3 leaves of kale
Handful of spinach
½ cup frozen strawberries and/or blueberries
2 cups coconut water
6-8 ice cubes

& blend!

Completely Unfestive Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

The November 1st-to-some-time-mid-January-if-it's-a-good-year period has always been a tumultuous one for me. While the holiday season does bring about The Grinch (though really, only the first half ever got played in my household), and Elf Yourself (my favourite online tool), it also brings about the inner child in me, to whom December 25th was just a day when everyone else woke up ready to unwrap presents, and the only establishments left open were movie theatres and Chinese restaurants. Not a bad evening, I must say, but just shy of enough to compensate for all I felt I was missing out on. As I grew older, I started to appreciate the warmth of the Holidays, chosen families, an excuse to bake with reckless abandon and hand-deliver the results to those I love and care for, and of course, the coziness of being inside, preferably with a bottle of wine, when the snow hits the ground -and simply doesn't stop.

So it is with that clear sign of growth that I bring you what may *appear* to be a christmas-themed baked good, with hints of green poking out from toasted pistachios, and rosy red cranberries, but surely is only celebratory of all else that red and green represents. I'll let you know when I think of what that could be.

Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti

1/4 C oil
1/4 C white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 eggs worth of egg replacer
1 3/4 C. flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c dried cranberries
1 c de-shelled pistachio nuts, chopped (or smashed)

1. Preheat oven to 300 F, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
2. In bowl, mix together oil, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract. Then add egg replacement, mix well
3. In a larger bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. Slowly add oil mix
4. Add in cranberries and pistachios and mix by hand
5. With wet hands, divide the dough into two halves, and form two logs on cookie sheet
6. Bake for 35 minutes, or until lightly browned, let cool for 10 minutes
7. Reduce oven heat to 275, and cut logs on a diagonal, laying pieces on sides.
8. Bake another 10-20 minutes, or until dry. Let cool!

Chocolate Rosemary Cookies

This delicious recipe may sound a little strange, and it is. Blending together an herb you may have reserved exclusively for Italian dishes, it may surprise you how delicious it can be in a post dinner (or breakfast, or lunch) treat.

Enjoy!

1/2 cup oil of your choice (even olive would probably work well in this)
2 tbsp chopped rosemary (fresh or dried, dunn' matter)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 non-dairy milk of your choice (almond, soy, coconut...)
1 tbsp. ground flaxseed
1 & 1/3 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 C, line two cookie sheets with wax paper
2. In a large bowl, mix together oil with rosemary, add in sugars, and beat until smooth
3. Add milk and flax seed, beat again.
4. Add salt, baking soda, and about half the flour at a time, beat yet again.
5. Add chocolate chips and stir until evenly mixed
6. Scoop 2 tbsp-ish at a time on to cookie sheet and flatten with a fork
7. Bake both sheets at once for 10-15 minutes, checking the bottoms after 10 to see if they're lightly browned. Let cool for 5 minutes and transfer to cooling racks.

Hot Maple Brussels Sprouts

As someone who self-defines as empathetic, relies on this quality for much of my work, and claims to enjoy the prospect of sharing this trait with others, there is one despicable quality I simply cannot tolerate: Adults with children’s palates. I know that may sound harsh. Perhaps you’re tempted to unsubscribe, either from my blog, or our friendship, but at the very least you should hear me out.

When I was but a cub, I didn’t take to ketchup (or katsup, if you’re illiterate) the way many children did. Still, I find it a somewhat icky direction to encourage a homefry towards, and yet most folks I know from childhood would have described it as a staple to their childhood selves’ diet. Look at them today, and they’re racing home from their various “real life” commitments to read food porn like the rest of us foodies. Palates develop. Tastes grow. They become an extension of our own willingness to open ourselves to an endless experience of what we put in and around our mouths. When we move past the sugar and tomato-ish preferences, and into the varying, expansive, and unrelenting possibilities of sautéed earthy root vegetables, of time-sensitive marinades, of pairings that, even just for a moment, confuse your senses in a way that shapes your face into a state of genuine unknowing… This is where we find the possibility in food! This is where the (food) magic happens.

So, if this rings true to you, perhaps gnaw on your blankie to muffle the screams that may follow with this next recipe… And then give it a try and watch as your taste buds play catch-up (not to be confused with katsup).

Hot Maple Brussels Sprouts!

Grocery list:

1 lb (450g) Brussels sprouts (about 20): trimmed, halved lengthwise
2tbsp olive oil
Coarse kosher salt
2 tsp maple syrup
¼ tsp cayenne pepper (or a pinch more if you need a punch/sinus clearing…)

1. Spread Brussels sprouts on rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and salt.
2. Roast at 200C for 10 minutes, stir, and roast another 10 minutes until lightly browned, tranfer to serving bowl
3. Stir together maple syrup and cayenne, pour over Brussels sprouts, toss well.

Makes 4 side servings, or 1 Brussellsy Feast. Enjoy!

Vegan Dumplings!

Anything that takes an entire evening to make is bound to taste better than a quick fix meal. There's something about having to really work for your food that brings out the foodie in all of us... and with that in mind, I bring you vegan dumplings!

It was still late afternoon when we decided to venture into the culinary abyss better known as homemade dumplings. The challenge of finding vegan dumpling wrappers (pre-made dough that folds easily into dumpling-like shapes) was a good one, and from what I've read online it's probably easier to just make them yourself. In terms of filling, you can really switch it up here. As long as you aren't using anything too watery, and as long as it fits in the dumpling wrapper, it's probably fair game. What I've listed below is what we used in ours, and I can definitely attest to its deliciousness.


DUMPLING FILLING:
-1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion
-2 tablespoons soy sauce
-1 tablespoons sesame oil
-1 cups finely shredded nappa cabbage
-1/2 cup shredded onion


DUMPLING SAUCE:
-4 tbsp soy sauce
-3 tbsp sesame oil
-pinch of white sugar
-pinch of chili flakes


1. Sautee filling ingredients, and mince until almost ground.
2. Keep dumpling wrappers under a wet cloth to prevent them from drying out. Take out only 10 at a time, and lay flat on clean countertop or cutting board.
3. Drop 1 tsp of mixture into centre of wrapper, wet edges of wrapper with a drop of water, and fold wrapper in half.
4. Make sure edges of wrapper are smoothly sealed, and pinch the edges until they are frilled. Flatten the bottom of the dumpling so that it can stand on its own.
5. Place filled and sealed dumplings into tupperware or a ziploc baggie until ready to cook. Repeat steps 2-4 until you've exhausted your collection of wrappers, or until you're simply too excited/hungry to not move to the next step.
6. Heat 1 tsp of cooking oil in a large nonstick pan (one which you have a fitted lid for!) at medium heat, and place as many dumplings as will fit (flat side down), and not touching.
7. Allow to fry for about 2-3 minutes, until the bottoms of the dumplings have browned.
8. When the bottoms of the dumplings are sufficiently golden, throw in a quarter cup of water, and place lid onto pan. Steam dumplings for 1 minute.
9. Remove the lid, and allow the remaining water to evaporate.
10. Throw together dumpling sauce, and nom nom nom! You have dumplings!

Though quite a bit of effort on the first round, round two and three proves much quicker and significantly less complicated. I recommend munching on cooked dumplings in between each round when you first start out --though, in all honesty, that's probably a given.

5-Step Banana Bread

Chocolate-Chip Banana Bread

Preheat over to 350 degrees


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 small bananas or 2 big)
3/4 cups sugar
1 egg's worth of egg replacement (I suggest Ener-G!)
1/4 cup vegetable oil or olive oil
1/2 bag chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Grease and flour loaf pan
2. Stir flour, salt, baking soda, and chocolate chips in large bowl
3. Combine bananas, sugar,egg and oil, stir together in separate bowl
4. Pour banana mixture into dry ingredients and fold until moistened
5. Bake for 50-55 mins, or until toothpick comes out clean!

Enjoy!

Fall forever? Please?

Right around this time of year, two years ago, I started this blog.

It was fall, and I felt warm inside. I wanted my own little corner of the internet. A place I could colour in and edit, use as I like.

And here I am two years unwiser, a much better cook/baker, yet just as sappy and sentimental with my pros.

Hm. Fall.

How is it that I write about it every year, without fail, and never feel content with the way I've described it? It always seems to be one step ahead of me, this sneaky season. And yet I take so much comfort in aimlessly trailing behind it, trying to keep myself as close as possible to it before it runs away and I'm suddenly knee-deep in snow and missing sunshine. Winter makes me feel like a plant craving water: all bent over and lifeless, looking forward to the spring as though I'm not really sure if it'll make it back this year. But this year is going to be a little different: I get to spend December camping out under a shady coconut grove, yoga-ing, quite literally, from sunrise to sunset, and coming back to this city as a certified yoga teacher in the new year.

As my dear friend Devin said,

"Seriously Marls, you're gonna transform into a lotus bud or something after all of this".

Wouldn't that be a surprise?

So what have I been up to? Fall. It's the beginning of November, what else could you possibly expect...

A little plaid...

A little hybrid squash which may or may not have required a butcher knife to cut open...

And some curiously large apples...

But if you know me, and I'm assuming you do, you'll know that I can't say it's truly fall until I've made a vegan pumpkin pie. Or two. These were for my floor potluck at work:

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

-1 8-inch or 9-inch unbaked pie crust (homemade or storebought)
-2 cups pureed pumpkin (or one 15-oz can)
-1 cup plain nondairy milk (soy is best, though coconut creates a creamier texture if you don't mind a little coconut flavour seeping through)
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 1/2 – 3 Tbsp cornstarch
-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ginger
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp ground cloves
-1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine pumpkin, non-dairy milk, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and spices in a large bowl, and mix very well.
3. Pour into unbaked pastry shell, and bake for about an hour. Don't worry -the pie will firm up as it cools. Let cool completely on a cooling rack and refrigerate under plastic wrap for several hours before serving.
4. Scarf down and digest fall with utmost happiness -preferably with someone who makes you feel warm and fuzzy (and appreciates your baking skills).

Happy Fall!

Nom nom nom

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Preheat oven to 350
Combine:

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
3/4 cup of vegan dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil or vegan margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk (Almond milk would work too!)

Bake for 12-15 minutes per dozen. The recipe makes about two dozen. The cookies will be pretty soft when you take them out, but they harden a little as they cool, and end up that perfect soft-on-the-inside-crunchy-on-the-outside consistency.

YUM.

Big Ideas and Bigger Texts

Oh HI!

Long time (me) no type.

This month has been cray-cray, and, to be honest, I've been thinking about how to start this blog post for... probably about a week now?

I guess I'll just start.

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED, OH MY GOD. WHAT?!

I'm back in school, my job training has finished, and this year's students are moved in and lovely.

My pen and paper started this year off on the right page (click me!), and I'm going to be doing some publicity for VegNews throughout the year (which, if you didn't know, is my favourite magazine/the great publication in the world. In. The. World).

I've been up and down and all around this past month, and am really just starting to find my footing and settle into any sense of routine. Of course, this means that my baking/cooking has been pretty minimal. In fact, it can pretty much be comprehensively described as follows:

No cooking. No baking. Just slicing, and skewering. And that was a couple weeks ago.

I do, however, have some very exciting news.

As you probably know, I've been vegetarian for the whole of this blogs existence (and many years prior to it's birth). I've dabbled in veganism (and raw veganism) a couple of times, but have always been perfectly content keeping dairy, eggs, and the occasional fish in my diet. But in the past year, I've started to feel a bit uneasy about this. You see, I've always liked to sum up my reasons for being a vegetarian into three categories: My health, environmental costs, and animal rights -I see these reasons as being pretty equal, though some tug at my heart strings/moral consciousness more than others... Regardless, as I continue to educate myself on these issues, which are obviously near and dear to my (and the planet's) heart, I'm finding it harder and harder to ignore the truth: I should be eating vegan.

My Health
In terms of my health, I have always not done well with dairy. I am super prone to sinus infections, and when I'm not drinking dairy, my sinuses become a (mostly) non-issue. My skin is better, my stomach is more at ease, and I generally just feel lighter and more energized. Milk + Me = a no-go.

Environmentally:
"An estimated 85 percent of all U.S agricultural land is used in the production of animal foods, which in turn is linked with deforestation, destruction of wildlife species, extinction of species, loss of soil productivity, mineral deletion and erosion, water pollution and depletion, overgrazing, and desertification." -Dr. Michael W. Fox, Agricide

(Can you tell I'm back in school?)

Environmentally, all of the reasons I stopped eating meat are equally applicable to dairy and eggs.

Animal Rights:

I became a vegetarian when I was a stubborn little nine year old. The PETA website quickly became my best friend/most trusted resource, and in no time, I was sneaking photos of factory farms on my family's fridge under our 'reminder' magnets. Since then, I've become a little more considerate, and strategic, with my beliefs, but have never stopped educating myself about these issues.

I recently saw a film that embodied so much of why I don't eat meat (and now dairy/eggs). It's called Earthlings, and the tagline is 'Make the connection'.

Make the connection.

I can't help but stop and think about that for a second, every single time I hear or read it.

So much of the facts about factory farming and the meat/eggs/dairy industries are overlooked -and I really don't think it's because people don't care. I might even go as far as to say that it's because they know that they WOULD care if they knew the facts. I choose to be informed, and am willing to change my actions in order to support my beliefs. It's an incredibly unapologetic film, but because of this, it is also extremely powerful. I highly reccommend it if you want to know more about these industries, what you can do, and what it all means.

BUT, just in case full-length films devoted entirely to gory (but very real and important) imagery and disturbing (but entirely truthful) facts isn't your cup of tea, I've decided to compile my own list of resources about vegetarianism/veganism. This is, of course, in no way comprehensive, but I'd like to continue to add to it. I'd also like to welcome YOU to suggest any literature/films/resources you loved (or hated!) to the list.

SO HERE WE GO:

Books:

Eating Animals: Jonathan Safran Foer (author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), after learning he was going to become a father, decided to make the most informed choices possible on his future child's behalf. This book is what he found after visiting factory farms in the middle of the night, and dissecting his own understanding of right and wrong.

The China Study: There's nothing like loads and loads of hard scientific data to back up your beliefs. The China Study presents the findings of a twenty-year-long study on the effects of animal protein on the human body. The author, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, spent many years researching how to improve access to animal protein. But after researching a study in the Philippines on malnourished children with liver cancer, Dr. Campbell began to see trends connecting disease and animal protein, and decided to do his own research to solve his curiosity and skepticism.

The Skinny Bitch Series: Disguised as a weight-loss tool, and completely hilarious, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouim discuss the reasons for choosing to eat vegan, and use their biting sarcasm and sassiness to make the tough truth even tougher.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Offers great insight into why the human body is not built to be carnivorous. We lack the short digestive tracts necessary to process meat quickly, as well as the claws and sharp teeth to tear meat apart with. Omnivores and herbivores (like humans) have much longer digestive tracts, causing meat to rot and remains stuck inside of us. We also have dull, flat teeth which the animal world shows us is intended for plant matter.

Films:

Food, Inc.: A painful look into the food industry, touches on pesticides, cloning, farm worker protection, diabetes, factory farming, and foodborne illness. Food, Inc. was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature (oooh).

May I Be Frank: Frank Ferrante's transformation from an obese, depressed, and addicted 54-year-old man, to a healthy, happy and ultimately self-aware human being, after jumping head first into raw veganism, the concept of gratitude, and learning the potential that exists for the human condition.

Forks over Knives: A shocking film that looks at a wide variety of degenerative diseases that can be avoided, or at least controlled, by switching to a plant-based diet.

The Cove: Won the Oscar for best documentary feature, about mercury poisoning, dolphins, and our oceans.

AND finally...

Click here to see my favourite youtube video on why humans aren't supposed to eat meat. It's less than five minutes long, and is narrarated by an animated, british pig. Enough said.

What films or literature helped YOU go veg? What made you NOT a veg? I'd love to hear about some more resources!

Camping out in my mind...

Guess what I did?

Do it! Guess!

Nope, sorry.

I set up a tent, and camped in the woods for a week! All by myself!

Y'all, I haven't camped since I was three apples high. I've become a city girl, through and through. It may have taken me a whole lotta pre-trip pep talks from my forest-savvy friends, and an hour and a half to actually set the thing up when I got there, but by golly, it was one beautiful tent pitching! And it kept me dry and calm through not one, but two giant Laurentian thunder storms. So take that, #citygirlproblems!

Why, might you ask, would a blog-writing, cab-taking, idealistic lass like myself venture off into the woods by herself for a week?

Good question.

I went to a yoga ashram! And it was a lot cheaper to camp out than to stay in their cabins.

No, I didn't drink the Kool-Aid. However, I did do four hours of yoga and four hours of meditation each day! The yoga made me sore but strong, and the meditation gave my crazy dreams. Obviously I loved it and cried when I had to leave (almost).

An Ashram, for those of you who wouldn't touch yoga with a ten foot pole, is a magical place.

It's a place where people go, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, to LIVE the yoga life. They live communally, all taking care of whatever needs to be done, with no worries about usual day-to-day struggles. It's a pretty spiritual place, but not in a religious way. More so in a... "I'm here to better myself, and work towards feeling as connected to who and what I am as possible".

Have I freaked you out yet?

If I have, you'll surely take this to be an adequate redeeming factor:

IT WAS ALL VEGAN!

There were a couple dairy options, but they were all extras -things you could add to your meal, but weren't already a part of it. It was a veghead's dream, not having to worry about the inevitable conversation...

"Um, excuse me, what kind of broth is this"
"Oh... Hmmm... I THINK it's veggie?"
"Okay. Well. Do you think you could find out for me?"
(waiter drudges into the back resentfully)

Then you feel guilty, and wonder if you should've just taken their word for it. Afterall, what you will eat if it isn't veggie.

Oh, It isn't veggie.

Ugh.

ANYWAYS. All of the herbs, and many of the veggies are grown and maintained on the ashram, and they threw together some really creative stuff while I was there, like:

-vegan mashed potatoes
-a coleslaw-type dish with slivered almonds, carrots, and beets
-a million variations of fresh herbal teas, like lemon and ginger, lime and beet (!!!), and raspberry-orange(which I happen to be sipping as I type this)

Every dish had interesting combinations of flavours, seeds I'd never heard of, and greens that had always sounded way too intense for me (dandelion root, anyone?). It was an enlightening week for my palette (and mind).

It also got me thinking a lot about health. If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you've probably stumbled upon the post about my (former) issues with body image and disordered eating. Naturally, when my mind begins to hover around topics of 'health', a million red flags pop up in my heart and I have to seriously evaluate the nature of these intentions. Is this just a disguise for trying to eat less? lose weight? distract myself? justify feeling shitty about something else? I really have to dig down and be honest. But this week brought something very new to the table. I found myself actually, genuinely thinking about HEALTH. About how good I felt on the ashram, and how I can bring some of that magic back to the real world.

Just FYI, the schedule at the ashram is as follows,

5:30am- wake up
6:00-8:00- meditation
8:00-10:00- yoga
10:00-11:00- brunch
11:00-12:00pm- karma yoga
12:00-4:00- lectures/free time/swimming/hikes/etc
4:00-6:00- yoga
6:00-8:00- dinner/hanging out
8:00-10:00- meditation
10:00- a very well deserved bed time

In other words, no TV or movies, no cell phones, no facebook, no creeping, no micromanaging, no nothing. Just doing things that are good for you, relaxing, and (sometimes) talking about what all of that means to you. Sometimes we were just silent. And that was great. I met a couple really awesome people, played with a lot of adorable yogic babies, and really let my mind settle.

You've probably heard my favourite meditation analogy?

No?

Okay I'll tell you (but only cause you asked...)

The mind is like a murky glass of water. When you let it sit still for a moment, all of the crap settles to the bottom, and can begin to see clearly. By just learning how to silence your mind for a while, you begin to take control of your thoughts, and learn how to stop your thoughts from taking you over. It's really phenomenal if you get into it.

So that is what I learned: mental/spiritual health is just as important as your physical health. And you really can't have one without the other. If you never eat a calorie over 1200 per day, and work out religiously, but are constantly stressed out about it -what's the point?

Similarly, you can't think clearly and feel healthy if you have a ton of undigested crap sitting in your body, regardless of how many hours you spend meditating or working on your inner-self. It may sound simple, but it made me smile, and for the first time in a very long time, feel excited about a health goal: furthering my peace of mind.

I think this goal is almost as delicious as my lunch: a salad with craisons, pumpkin seeds and walnuts, quinoa, and stirfried tofu, spinach, onions, ginger, sesame oil, and mushrooms.
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Summer Secrets

I can't help but feel like the summer is winding down.

HOW SAD IS THAT.

Even though there's still a solid two and a half weeks before Floor Fellow Training begins, these next couple days really are my last to just RELAX and do nothing in this glorious city of ours. Come Monday, I'm off to an ashram, and then it's right back here for training.

So I've been lounging, writing, downing bottles of wine in the park (not by myself...), and biking around like there's no tomorrow. Or at least, like there's no summer tomorrow. 'Cause pretty soon there won't be.

Today I want to share with y'all what is most likely my favourite summer dish:

Here's the deal: chop up some mango, halve some cherry tomatoes, slice some avocado, and pick some mint from your garden to throw on top.

Then eat it, and experience what is, undoubtedly, pure bliss.

ENJOY!

It's a little toasty in here...

I am melting.

I may have already melted, the heat has made me too delirious to differentiate between tenses.

FUN STORY:

My dear friend, let's call him Buke, since his real name is Luke and I always try my very best to keep my friends anonymous on here, has had his sister and her boyfriend in town for the past couple days. Yesterday, he decided, would be the day we would all go to all-you-can-eat Sushi, which just happens to be all the way across town.

It was forty five degrees in Montreal yesterday.

I melted.

I died.

I fried in the sun like an egg (replacement).

And then, after the four of us, drenched in sweat and stuffed with sushi, decided to cab back to our hood (we had walked that journey once, and that was one too many times), I came across something truly disturbing upon entering my apartment.

I had four rotten bananas.

Sad.

So I did what any veggie-blogger would do... I made banana bread.

Yep, that's right, I turned on the oven in my little, air-conditioning-less apartment, when it was forty five degrees outside.

Slaving away over the batter, sweating profusely, I honestly couldn't believe I would ever look back and think it was worth it to put myself through such sticky, heated torture.

But, oh my God... it was.

Heat-Wave Banana Bread:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegan butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs worth of egg replacer
3-4 mashed overripe bananas

Mix the dry ingredients. Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a separate bowl, and squish in the bananas. Combine, and bake at 350 for an hour.

Yum, but seriously, this heat needs to break.

June Savings!

At the beginning of June, I put myself on a mission: to only spend $100.

My goals were twofold. First, I wanted to prove that it was possibly to eat cheaply (while also being a veggie!), and second, I wanted to see if I could.

Today, my like-minded and budget savvy vegheads, I bring you the results...

In June, I spent...

$116!

Yes, $16 over budget. Oops. But check this out...

Here's where that $116 went, dollar for dollar:

Food: 76: three grocery trips, only ever bought fresh fruits and vegetables, tofu/soy
Coffee: 16
Drinks: 24

So...

TIPS FOR SAVING MULA:

1. Always have a healthy supply of canned/dried beans, lentils, etc. They are so, so, so very cheap –and having them around in bulk makes it easy to turn any combination of grain and vegetable into a full meal.

2. Shop often, but in small quantities –as mentioned above, if you have a supply of protein/grain around, it’s easy to pick up fresh stuff every couple days. Shopping this way means A) nothing goes bad (such a waste of money!), B) you don’t get locked into food choices you made weeks ago, and C) you’re less likely to eat out, as it’s just as convenient to pick up fresh produce as it is to pick up a meal.

3. Keep track of what you spend your money on! This month has been enlightening for me. I spent a quarter of my original budget on alcohol (and I hardly even went out?), and 16% on coffee that I just as easily could have brewed at home.

While I think it’s –great- to be aware of your purchases, I think it’s equally important to know what, to you specifically, is worth wasting your money on. For example, coffee. To say I’m a coffee drinker is a horrid understatement. I am a coffee addict. A coffee enthusiast. A coffee… believer! Come out to breakfast with me, and you will see. I can drink cup after cup without the slightest feeling of a fuzzy brain, while my poor friends watch in awe and worry about my nervous system. To me, that’s a worthy cost. Eating out for dinner when I’m just being lazy/don’t want to bike home to make lunch/whatever… not so much. Think about what brings you joy, and don’t feel guilty about spending a little cash moneyz on that.

What a month.

I almost feel like I should go out and spend a fortune just to make up for all the saving I’ve been doing. But that would be a little counter-productive... right?

Um, Yum.

An original recipe, from my rumbly tumtum to yours...

VEGAN PEAR CARROT CAKE

2 cups whole wheat flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg worth of egg replacer (or just 1 egg)
2 tbsp. oil
1 c. pear sauce
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
3 tsp vanilla
½ c. grated carrot

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, and fold wet into dry to combine.

PEAR SAUCE:
-peel two-three pears in a large sauce pan, adding water as needed to boil down. You know it's ready when it's mushy, fragrant, and you can't help but eat a quarter of it, neglecting the rest of the recipe completely.

ICING:
¼ cup vegan cream cheese
¼ cup soy margerine/butter
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp flour
1 cup icing sugar

To(fu)ronto: Who Knew?!

My friends! I've just returned from a four day getaway (visit home) to TORONTO!

Silly me... expecting the average trip home: Mamabear's yummy cooking, dinner out with my Dad, coffee with my brother, lunch at the Jewish deli with my Grandma and Great Aunt (the same one they've been going to for thirty years. One day, just for fun, we calculated how much money they must have spent there after all these years. Let's just say they could probably buy a small car. Or two), and quick catchups with whichever friends happen to be in town.

This was not 'that' weekend.

This weekend, in fact, was beyond 'that' weekend. It was magical. Colourful. Fruitful, I might even say. And that, my friends, is because this weekend will go down in history as The Weekend I Realized Toronto is a Great Vegan City! It may have taken me all of my twenty-and-a-half years to figure out, but my God was I impressed.

So, through the epic skills of my iPhone, I bring you...

Toronto the Vegan

I arrived via train late Thursday night. Mamabear, knowing that I wouldn't have eaten beforehand (she's a Mamabear... Mamabears know all), cooked up the most delicious vegan meal for me! This is where it began. It was so pretty, I had to capture it forever, so that the next time I was eating really terrible vegan food, I could gaze longingly into my phone and remember my fond memories of my Mom's ever-so-accommodating kitchen:

Brown rice with, quite possibly, the most delicious tofu I've ever had, which came from the market (details below), greens entirely from my Mom's garden, with tomatoes and mixed nuts, and sliced avodcado with a spiced oil on top. De-lic-ious. Almost too delicious...

Then, as if that wasn't enough, my Mom had a little surprise waiting for me at home. A JUICER!

'For me' is a bit of a stretch, as it, well, wasn't for me. But I kinda pretended it was for my four days at home, and definitely put it to work...

I'm not sure what it is -in fact, it very well might all be in my head- but I swear I sleep so much better after drinking a green juice before bed!

Side note: Last Monday, after working for four hours at the yoga studio, I decided to take the 90 minute class. It happened to be a particularly great class for me, and afterwards, I rode my bike up to Crudessence for a green juice. I drank it, biked home, showered, and had the best sleep I've had in SO long. SO long. I woke up feeling delightful -so refreshed and happy and smiley! It was the first green juice I've had in a while, and coming out of a weekend full of them, I have to say, it's confirmed. I'm a believer.

Next up was the Evergreen Brickworks Farmer's Market! The one with the dreamy tofu. It was gorgeous! Fragrant, bright, and full of people (and their dogs) who love food as much as I do! I had no idea this gem existed, but it's right in the city, in Toronto's incredible ravines, linking together endless walking/cycling trails.

We started the trip off with a mini hike, and met this little guy:

...Ohmygod I love turtles...

What really blew me away, aside from the many young, bright eyed, baby slinging, golden retriever owning couples who usually frequent farmers markets, was the number of YOUNG(er) people there. There were a ton of folk my age, and that was super nice to see. It reminded me that a) markets are affordable, and b) this IS our generation's cause.

If only you could see me smiling right now.

Just as I thought this place couldn't get better, the crowd parted like the red sea, and a Godly light shone through the nonexistent clouds, leading me to this:

LPK's Culinary Groove (click here to see their site!)

D'aww.. aint they cute? What was even cuter, my friends, was their mostly vegan selection of goodies for sale. I wish I had a picture to show you, but sadly, the ginger cream cookie I devoured was, well, devoured far too quickly for film to pick up. But let me tell you, it was pretty perfect.

Then it was off to The Distillery District! Another adorable area unique to T.O. Famous for their (mostly meaty) sandwich shops and (definitely dairy-filled) ice-cream shops, I was sure that my vegan weekend had come to an end. But then we peeked at the menu at Cafe Uno (Click here for their website -it's cute!), and I was, yet again, proven wrong...

Apple-beet salad, and this explosive wheatberry medley... so simple, yet so delicious. Thanks Cafe Uno.

The next day, which happened to be this morning, we started the day off right at Fresh, my all-time favourite vegan restaurant in Toronto! I had the 'Brunch Special', which offered scrambled tofu with onions and spices, grilled whole wheat pita bread, baked beans, and home fries. It was pretty great, but nothing beats lunch or dinner at Fresh. More on that another time, I'm sure.

Just when I was sure it couldn't get any better -just when I thought I had tapped all of Toronto's vegan weekend specials, I decided to spend my last afternoon before heading back to Montreal in my very favourite Toronto hangout: Kensington Market on Pedestrian Sunday.

If you haven't been, go. Enough said:

It was a lovely, vegan weekend, and to end this post on a Toronto-appropriate note, take a gander at this little piece of graffiti I noticed just as we were leaving...

Hehehe... Only in Toronto.

Dream Job...

It's summer. I'm in Montreal. I have an awesome internship, and can take all the hot yoga I want for free. I feel like a very lucky girl these days.

BUT even more so -I feel lucky because a couple weeks ago, I sent an email to someone who has my dream job,and she wrote back!

Meet Jennifer Chen, VegNews editor:

Juuuust in case you don't know me, and you've never experienced the awful(ly wonderful) squeals that come out of me when I receive a new issue (or buy one early because I just can't wait) - you should know that VegNews is my faaaavourite magazine. And Jennifer Chen writes for, and edits it. Swoon.

So I sent her a couple of questions, which she graciously answered on her own blog, which you can see here.

And she even agreed to answer a couple questions for my blog!

So here you go! An adorable peak into the life of magazine writer and young adult author Jennifer Chen:

1. When was the moment you realized/decided you wanted to write for a living?

Gosh, since I was a kid. At 16, I wrote in my journal that I wanted to be a writer, fall in love, and travel to Europe. And I'm happy I've done all three. When it was time for college, I only applied to writing schools. I think for me it's the one thing that's made sense in my life, if that makes any sense.

2. Where do you usually get your writing done? Do you have any interesting or quirky rituals you’ve developed throughout your career?

After many years when I didn't have an office, now my husband and I have an office apart from the rest of the house to get writing done. My hubby is a TV writer and comic book and graphic novel writer. So one of us is always working in the office. But before I had any of that space, just a desk in my bedroom wherever that was. The best place I ever got my writing done is an amazing women's writers residence called Hedgebrook (http://www.hedgebrook.org) where I got to spend two weeks in the woods writing in a little cabin and being fed amazing veggie meals. I encourage all women to apply there. As for interesting or quirky rituals -- probably just keeping a schedule and planning out my writing dates so I get my work done.

3. Any funny stories to share about working in an all-veg environment?

Gosh, it's been great to work somewhere where I can bring in a green juice or crazy big kale salad, and people don't look at me funny. I'd have to say we have several dogs in the office and nothing makes me laugh harder than hearing Khane, a small 10-pound Chihuahua snore like air is getting let out of a balloon while I'm trying to edit at my desk.

4. If you could only eat one vegan/vegetarian meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

That is way too hard! Okay. Right this very minute I would have to say Patxi's vegan deep-dish pizza in San Francisco. It makes life worth living.

5. Can you tell us about a project you’re currently working on?

Outside of my job, I just finished a book proposal for a photography book I'm co-authoring, which hopefully I'll hear back about soon. I'm writing a draft of the first book in a young adult series that I've been dying to work on. I loved Sweet Valley High and Babysitters' Club so it's been my dream to write my own YA series some day so that's what I'm doing right now.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

QUICK BUDGET UPDATE: I think I'm going to make it! In case you missed it a few posts ago, I'm seeing if I can work a $100 budget for the month of June. We're 2/3 through the month, and I'm 2/3 through the budget. All I can say is that it is TOTALLY doable! Deets to come at the end of the month, when (hopefully) I've made it through without any splurges (almond butter....)!

On a serious note...

While answering a couple questions that were sent my way in the last month or so, one popped up in my inbox today (from a close friend of mine) that blew my mind. Not because it was a particularly special question -but because I had SO much to say about it. A little while back, I posted a poll asking what you'd like to see more of: interviews, baking recipes, cooking recipes, or musings about my personal life. I was pretty surprised to find out that y'all wanted to hear about my personal life...So, two birds with one stone! It's long. It ain't pretty but it's honest. And if you couldn't care less -hold tight, yummy recipes are soon to come!

WHAT'S WITH ME AND WEIGHT AND FOOD? If you've ever been curious, or heard me mumble something about weight, body image, disordered eating, or the like, look no further for an explanation. You asked for it, so here you go.

I have a complicated relationship with food.

Don’t let me fool you… I love the stuff. But it hasn’t always been that way. In fact, it used to be quite the opposite. Up until about a year ago, my mind was a bit of a battlefield, waging a constant war against myself using numbers, tracking, measurements, and rules as weapons. Every move required multiple calculations. Was I allowed to eat this? What would I have to do, or not do, if I ate that? This was the constant circle my mind spun in. As a curvier girl, this battle was a vicious circle, to say the least. The heavier I was, the more imminent I felt my restrictions had to be, and the more obsessive I became. The more obsessive I became, the less able I was to see and think clearly about what it was I really wanted. It was a catch 22, a cycle of false revelations, fuelled by a constant search for more tools, more tricks, more things to hide and commit my energy to with a religious sort of devotion. I mistook these ambitions as attempts to be healthy, which, as promised to me by the media, shallow individuals, and popular weight loss culture, insisted I could only be if I lost weight. This idea of ‘optimal health’ has led me to just about everything other than just that. The synonymous use of the words ‘health’ and ‘thinness’ led me to every diet you can imagine, a cohort of gyms and exercise regimes, the master cleanse, raw foodism, weight loss camp and, ultimately, horrendously disordered eating. This is a past that, until this point, I have opted to only share with those who knew me well enough to have figured it out for themselves. But the more I talk about it, the more I realize that I’m not the only one with these experiences, and that these stories need to be shared so that even more people know they’re not alone.

In retrospect, I have spent a great deal of my life trying to become something else. I’ve justified any dissatisfaction with my life with the idea that I shouldn’t worry because it will get better ‘when I’m skinny’, and thrown away countless experiences with this promise. I’ve dedicated hours and hours of my life planning, tracking, counting, measuring, weighing, contemplating, evaluating, and avoiding food, only to soon find myself eating everything in sight to soothe the anxiety that my rigid routines had given me. I have stuck fingers down my throat, gone days on only salad and tea, and felt, quite simply, disgusting, for long stretches of my life. I became a firm believe that it only mattered that I seemed like a ‘together’ person on the outside, regardless of whatever incorrigible thoughts and ideas were marinating in my head at the time. But the truth was, no matter what good news or opportunities came my way, it always boiled down to my weight in my head. I can’t do this unless I lose 15 pounds by this date…no matter how much this person says they love me I know they secretly think they are settling/are only being nice out of sympathy…

Things started to really change for me about a year ago. After at least ten years of this insanity (I put myself on my first official ‘diet’ at nine years old, though I’m sure these thoughts came long before that) I began to understand just how deeply these destructive thoughts and behaviours had penetrated my life. Weight loss hadn’t happened. I had fought and screamed, cried and begged, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to do it healthily. I couldn’t lose weight, it seemed, without losing my mind along with it. I was miserable. I needed a break. I needed to exhale, and see what was left in my head when it wasn’t churning out a constant new stream of reasoning, justification, and self-defensive, self-convincing, self-hating, over-compensating obsessive thoughts about my weight.

I did everything I could to stop my brain in its tracks, and decided that this was it. Not the sort of ‘this was it’ that was followed by a new, stricter, more aggressive attack on my body. This was the sort of ‘it’ that required a complete submission to who I was in that moment, a willingness to spend a little time not wasting the person I was (whoever that was) by trying to be the person I thought I should be. I was sick of measuring my life in calories in and calories out. Since I had been mostly unsuccessful at actually losing weight, despite the extreme emotional investment I had put into the endeavour, I figured I could take a bit of time off of dieting without missing some grand opportunity to lose weight and finally become my true, perfect self. So I decided to see what would happen if I existed without the only purpose I had ever given myself: to lose weight.

My mind fought me so intensely I was almost impressed with my own deeply rooted, highly developed dieting mentality. At first, it was as though my mind was subconsciously still functioning in its usual disordered way. Even after my first day of not tracking what I ate in, well, years –I still went to bed that night only to find the number of calories I had eaten for dinner floating innocently in the back of my mind. I could have sworn I wasn’t counting! It quickly became clear just how serious this was. It’s hard to see out of the fishbowl when that’s the only world you’ve ever known. Regardless of not dieting, my weight stayed the same, and I slowly began to put two and two together about how and why I became so obsessed with weight loss and food monitoring. There are moments I think back to that still terrify me –moments when I felt so out of control, so beaten down by my own mind, I actually felt frightened for (and of) myself. I still have yet to really make sense of how it got to be so bad. But after about a year of letting myself just be, I finally began to see clearly. I started to distinguish between the things I enjoyed, and the things I had convinced myself to enjoy because they acted as a disguise for my real interest: weight loss. I had to fill in the blanks, and that meant, well, a whole lot of soul-searching.

The first time I visited home after reaching these revelations, I made the storage room in our basement my very first stop, where I found boxes upon boxes of my old journals. I spent the entire night ripping out every single page where I had recorded some new plan, or tracked what I had eaten, or cried over how weak I was and how much I hated myself for what I was doing. I ripped out all the pages, tore them up into little shreds, and –I kid you not- jumped up and down on top of them, separating the words from each other beneath my feet, and picturing the meaning I attributed to them sinking so far down into earth, getting stuck forever within the cracks below me. When I got back to Montreal, I tried to throw out my scale (something that had always seemed like some romantic, fantastical impossibility), but was stopped by my then-roommate, who wanted to know if she could have it. My first inclination, of course, was to scream “NO! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’D BE GETTING YOURSELF INTO!” and break it in two with my bare hands in order to save us both –but whether or not my ex-roommate had a healthy relationship with her weight/mind/body/self was not going to depend on a scale. I had learned that it was a much bigger issue than merely weight alone.

So where am I now? Well, I still have to correct my thoughts when they go astray. And some days are really, really tough when I don’t have my weight to blame for everything wrong in my life. But the way I feel about myself today is astronomically, beautifully, stupendously improved from the way I once felt about myself. There is no achievement that would be worth what I put myself through, and I wouldn’t wish that much self-hatred on anyone. Today I do yoga. I meditate. I am continually learning that ruminating about the past and planning compulsively into the future does terrible things to who you are in the moment you actually exist in. Where I used to want to change myself, now I just want to be kind to myself and allow myself to enjoy my life. This blog helps me to do that. It lets me look at food with love and creativity, as opposed to guilt and compulsion. And it allows me do so in a way that promotes the compassionate food choices I have always made, while also reminding me of the importance of seeing myself as yet another receiver of my own awareness and compassion.

Summer time, and the livin' is cheaply

It’s DONE! The Good, the Bad, and the Eggless it is! I love it! Thank you to everyone who voted, and a huge huge huge shout out and thank you to Nikki Shaffeeullah, punner-extraordinaire for her suggestion –and to everyone else who sent in ideas. THANK YOU! It really means a lot to me to have received so many wonderful options.

Now, back to business. Although it’s hard to imagine from within this debilitating pre-storm heat that has completely overtaken my deep and dreamy love for Montreal… I was freezing cold the other night, and decided to heat things up with a bit of spice.

If you didn’t already know, I am in a deeply committed relationship with quinoa. Quinoa, I am convinced, is the ultimate gluten free super-food. It’s super high in protein and super high in fiber... it's pretty much just super. Plus, it can easily replace rice, couscous, noodles, etc. It’s healthy and delicious, and if I'm a firm-believer in anything, it's that you should cook some and invite me over for dinner.

ANYWAYS, today I’d like to share with you an ORIGINAL quinoa recipe.

YUM!

It all started when I was hungry, as most things that end up on this blog do.

I decided to take a stroll to my favourite cheap (and horrendously sketchy) grocery store a few blocks away from my apartment. It was a beautifully sunny day, and as I was skipping gleefully down my street, I realized I had forgotten my wallet –and the only mula I had on me was a couple of measly (or so I thought…) nickels and dimes.

Simple, you would think. I was only at the bottom of my street, and could have easily backtracked my way up to my third-floor apartment to grab my wallet. But something told me not to. And that something, of course, was laziness –the sort of laziness your mind tries really, really hard to justify.

So I began to wonder… what could I buy from The World’s Cheapest and Most Sketchy Grocery Store for thirty-five cents?

I decided it was worth finding out. I walked into the grocery store with a giant reusable bag and thirty-five cents, and left with a giant reusable bag, zero cents, and…

3 slightly overripe peaches!

YUM!

So I went home, and threw the peaches (yes, the peaches) into the oven, and baked them for about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, I cooked a bit of quinoa (and you know how I feel about quinoa…), and sautéed some chickpeas, spinach, and tomatoes that were starting to see the end of their time in my fridge. I sliced the baked peaches, mixed everything together, and put a tiny bit of super spicy peanut sauce on top to bring out the nutty flavour or the quinoa (and to warm me up).

Voila!

I ended up with a quite delicious dinner, I must say… and only using thirty-five cents worth of new groceries!

So, obviously, I was a little proud of my innovativeness (cheapness), and have been thinking about it ever since.

How often do I buy a ton of new things at the market or grocery store even though I still have perfectly good food in the back of my pantry?

And similarly,

How much fun is it to use things you’ve had forever in new, creative ways?

In light of all this thinking, as well as my generally itty-bitty-sized budget, I’m giving myself a REAL challenge, based on curiosity and thriftiness, as opposed to laziness and apathy:

Yesterday I took $100 out of the bank, and I am going to see if I can only use this $100 to get me through until July 1st, for food, coffee, drinks, everything but rent (though wouldn’t it be awesome if I could throw rent in there too?), and all, of course, while cooking delicious veggie meals. No ramen noodles here.

I’m curious to see how this pans out… what, if anything, I’ll have to sacrifice, and what new discoveries come up.

But first, I want to know how YOU ‘eat cheap’ as a veggie?

Any tips or wise words for me?



*****On a side note, I wanted to add that I am LOVING (and I mean really, really loving) all of the questions you guys are emailing me! Please keep them coming, and expect a blog post with answers in the near future. If you have any questions at all for me, please feel free to email me at MarleeRubel@gmail.com, or leave them in a comment! Again, thanks for all of the enthusiasm, support, and inquiry!