Gluten Free Vegan French Toast

You know when you just can’t get a certain food off your mind? My breakfasts normally look like the same rotation of green smoothies, chocolate-green smoothies, and breakfast bowls. But then there are times that I crave meals like French toast, and I sit in my room pondering how to make this my reality.

And then I get in the kitchen and just fucking do it.

So here’s my take on vegan French toast. Enjoy.

Ingredients

¾ cup almond milk (or any non-dairy beverage)

2 tbsp brown rice flour or vanilla Sunwarrior protein powder

2 tbsp ground flax (or chia)

2 tbsp orange juice

1.5 tsp Xyla xylitol (or sucanat, coconut sugar)

Hearty dash of cinnamon

1 tbsp coconut oil

5 slices gluten-free bread (I used Food For Life brown rice slices)

Toppings: coconut butter, powdered stevia, cinnamon, maple syrup

Directions

1. Mix together all ingredients (except bread and oil) and let sit for 5ish minutes (to allow the flax to gelatinize and thicken the mixture).
2. Heat pan on medium level, add oil.
3. Soak each slice in cinnamon mixture and cook each side until golden brown.
4. Top with extra cinnamon, powdered stevia, coconut butter and maple.  Serve with a side of oranges and John Mayer.

Sweet Potato Workout Cake

I think sweet potato has got to be one of my all-time favourite slow burning carbohydrates. Not only because it’s delicious and can be used in both sweet and savoury recipes, it also has a minimal impact on your blood sugar levels (depending on how you prepare it, that is. A baked sweet potato has a higher glycemic index than a boiled or steamed sweet potato). What better way to spend a rainy long weekend than playing in the kitchen? This single-serve cake is a perfect pre-workout or afternoon snack, breakfast, or dessert. It provides hours of fuel and loads of deliciousness!

Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and steamed

1/4 cup brown rice or quinoa flour (or even protein powder could work)

1 tbsp coconut oil, plus extra for greasing

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp baking soda

Pinch sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a ramekin or small dish with coconut oil.
2. Steam sweet potatoes and mash by hand or toss ‘em in the food processor.
3. Add flour and mix or process with the sweet potato. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix.
4. Scoop mixture into your ramekin and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and enjoy. Bonus: stick a square of dark chocolate into the middle of the cake when you pull it out and let it melt. Yummm. 

Infuse Some Love into Your Mornings

I just have a short post for tonight! I wanted to share how happy little things make me, a realization I’ve been reminded of recently. The last couple of weeks I’ve been using a heart-shaped ice cube tray to freeze leftover Americano and other liquid goodies. Each time I pop out a little cube, I feel a little burst of rainbows explode inside of me. It’s magical! It also reminds me that summer is coming, because that’s one of the biggest associations I have with iced espresso. Anyways, I love remembering how happy I get from such small changes in my everyday routine. It’s inspired me take some cool pictures and write up new recipes. Here’s my latest:

Sweetheart Espresso Floats

1 cup of almond milk

5-6 drops of English toffee stevia

8 ounces of frozen heart-shaped Americano

Mix milk and stevia together and drop in the heart cubes. Allow the cubes to melt a little bit and sip away. Optional: warm the milk and stevia first make melting a bit easier.

Homemade Mocha Iced Capps

I can smell spring in the air when I step outside. Nothing quite says summertime like a good ol’ iced cappuccino. I remember the milk-and-sugar-laden concoction from Tim Hortons well. The whipped cream on top with sweet sugary frozen caffeinated goodness underneath. The almost flavourless ice left at the bottom every time.

The bloating and the blood sugar crashes. Good times.

Needless to say when I woke up to a particularly balmy morning here in Vancouver, I immediately went to my freezer to pull out some frozen Americano cubes. Enter, vegan mocha iced capps.

Ingredients

8 ounces of frozen Americano

½ cup almond milk

1-2 teaspoons cacao or cocoa powder

8 drops English toffee stevia

½ tsp maca powder (optional)

Directions

Add all ingredients into the blender and slurp away! Sun, warmth, and tan not included.

No leaves in my salad please!

No leaves in my salad please!

You know those days when you look in your fridge and see so many great ingredients, but no clue what to do with them? I realized that all you have to do is toss them in a bowl together and drizzle them with dressing. Cool, eh? Lately I’ve been into super simple “chunky salads”. These salads are fully forkable, with no leaves in sight (I’ve preferred to drink my spinach and kale leaves these days).

Creamy Citrus Chunky Summer Salad

Serves one, multiply to your hearts content!

Ingredients

½ avocado

½ cucumber

½-1 orange

Small handful of parsley

¼ lemon

1 tbsp oil

pinch sea salt

¼ tsp dill

Directions

1. Chop up the ‘cado, cuc, orange and parsley into chunks.
2. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

Cool Black Bean Cucumber Chunk Salad

Serves one, multiply to your hearts content!

Ingredients

½ cup black beans (Eden Organic canned and washed, or homemade)

1/3 cucumber

½ pear

1 tsp honey

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Pinch sea salt

Directions

1. Chop up cucumber and pear and toss in a bowl with black beans
2. Whisk together ingredients and pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

Cacao Lucuma Banana Vegan Ice Cream and WIAW

So as you’ve seen I’ve kind of been on a homemade vegan ice cream kick.  I don’t think I could’ve asked for better weather

Feet up, vegan ice cream in hand

to be craving it in!  I’ve sat on my back porch and enjoyed it after work twice this week!  Not a bad view either:

I decided to experiment with lucuma powder in my ice cream.  Lucuma is a super food native to South America and beats out chocolate and vanilla flavoured ice cream with its smooth, caramel-butterscotch taste.  Butterscotch ice cream? Yes please!  It turned out pretty pleasingly, but I definitely have some great ideas for the next time I play.  Here was today’s recipe:

1 frozen banana

7 drops of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cacao nibs

3/4 teaspoon Essential Living Foods lucuma powder

15 cashews

Blend in a food processor or blender and enjoy!

And here’s this weeks WIAW from your fave nutritionist:

Breakfast: Granola with goat yogurt, 1/2 banana, stevia powder (I swear I eat other things for breakfast too, Wednesdays just always seem to call for granola)

Snack: A slice of Manna sun seed bread with Artisana pecan-cashew butter

Lunch: Arugula salad with blueberries and walnuts and a slice of lentil loaf (like a meat loaf, sans-meat)

Snack: Apple, 3 raw walnut-almond cookies (from Everybody Is Vegan), lucuma-banana ice cream (yep, ice cream and cookies for a snack.  When treats are raw, vegan, homemade, and sugar free I actually feel good about indulging my sweet tooth – score one for whole foods!)

Dinner: Arugula salad with RawFoodz Purely Poppy dressing and some more lentil loaf.  Liiiitle bit obsessed with this combo right now

I’ve been doing some serious butt kicking with BodyRock.tv workouts this week.  I’ve ordered the dip station and the interval timer, and all I need is some Lululemon tights and cute bra tops (and maybe a few more months of morning BodyRock workouts) and I’ll be just like Zuzuna! Seriously check them out though, I have a girl crush on her too.  Even though I work in a gym, I love the convenience of waking up and kicking my own butt on the comfort of my bedroom floor.  Today is also National Running Day for the US – all my US readers, did you run today?? Strap on your shoes and at least go for a stroll!  I got a pair of Nike LunarEclipse+ back in November, and they’re already falling apart.  Sad, but I’m proud of myself for the months of hard work that went into their demise.  Comment below if you have a favourite pair of shoes you couldn’t give up, and please subscribe at the bottom!

“It only LOOKS like swamp sludge” Smoothie Recipe

So after a 550 Rep Fat Massacre workout courtesy of BodyRock.tv and quick 20ish minute run, I was craving something to cool me down.  What better than a super alkalizing, fresh raw smoothie? It came out looking like greyish-greenish-blueish grossness, but tasted unreal:

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup water

Large handful of frozen blueberries and blackberries

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon Vitamineral greens

1 scoop vanilla Sunwarrior

1/2 banana

1/2 tablespoon Nude Bee raw honey

1 tablespoon chia seeds

Blend and enjoy!  We just got new glasses in our kitchen, so I was very excited to use them for the first time.  It’s the little things that make your day great, isn’t it?

Sundried Tomato and Mushroom Quinoa Recipe

I did a bit of sorting through my fridge and found I had half a jar of sun dried tomatoes sitting there.  Normally, I don’t like tomatoes that much, but I seriously love them sun dried!  The flavour, texture and saltiness of them really appeals to me.  So here’s what I made for dinner last night:

1/2 jar of sun dried tomatoes, soaked in a bowl of warm water for 30 minutes to rehydrate (oil included)

3/4 cup quinoa, dry

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3 bunches of green onions, chopped

1 teaspoon basil

1/2 lemon, juiced

1 cup of white mushrooms, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1. Rinse quinoa in cool water.  Place rinsed quinoa in a pot over medium-low heat and let water evaporate.  Add in 1.5 cups of water (use the water from soaking the tomatoes), bring to a boil and let simmer for 15 minutes.
2. In a medium pan, combine chopped tomatoes, garlic and green onions with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.  Cook for about 5 minutes until the green onions are tender.  Mix in the basil and lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Mix in the mushrooms and cook for another 3-5 minutes (enough time to let the mushrooms “sweat” and shrink)
4. Add the mushroom-tomato mixture into the quinoa.  Serve garnished with almonds and add olive oil, salt or pepper to taste.  Makes enough to serve one, plus 1-2 servings of leftovers.

Yum!