Recipe | Vegan lunch bowl

For the last couple of months, I've been experimenting with the way I eat. I noticed that I always felt like I had eaten too much after a meal, when in fact I was eating a very normal portion. That got me thinking that the problem might not be how much I eat, but what I eat.
I think it was about a year ago that I decided to switch over to non-dairy milk, because I'd heard that it might be better for people with acne, and it would also help with my cholesterol. That switch came back to me and I decided to try and reduce my meat consumption, which led to me completely cutting it out.
I have been a vegetarian for about a month now, and I can tell you my stomach is thanking me. I digest a lot better now, and I get hungry multiple times a day, which never use to happen before; it's like meat took forever to be digested (I know, TMI, but whatever), and I never felt hungry. I don't feel heavy or bloated after I eat now, and I get to experiment a lot with new foods.
That brings me to this: I am reducing my consumption of other animal products as well, to see how my body reacts to it, and so far it is loving it. I think that the closer I get to a fully vegan diet, the better my body is going to feel.
So, to kick things off, I wanted to share with you my favourite vegan experiment so far: the lunch bowl.

A lunch bowl is really just a fancy name to say "I cooked a bunch of veggies and arranged them in a bowl", but that doesn't mean it isn't completely awesome. To make this one, I used a sweet potato, half a zucchini, a carrot, some edamame beans, and couscous.

I put the sweet potato in a big bowl and mixed in maple syrup, olive oil, chili sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, smocked paprika, and turmeric. I then did the same with the zucchini and carrots, but left out the chili sauce. 

Once the sweet potato, the zucchini and the carrot are all seasoned-up, I put everything on a baking sheet and baked it for about 25 minutes, at 350°F. A couple of minutes before time's up, I boiled some water and put in the edamame beans for three minutes, and heated the couscous in the microwave because I had it left-over form another meal.

When everything was cooked, I just plated it in a bowl and added some sauce. I sometimes make my own by mixing humus, tahini, lemon juice and garlic powder, but today I used Aux Vivres' Dragon Sauce. 

Eating vegan may sound very daunting at first glance, but there is nothing hard about cooking vegetables, beans and grains, and drizzling a bit of sauce on top, especially when it ends up being so delicious! If you were considering giving veganism a try like I might, I hope this encourages you to do so.

Thank you for reading :) 

Recipe | Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine took me to a vegan restaurant in Montreal, called Aux Vivres, and I loved it. I know, "VEGAN" restaurant. If you had told me years ago that I would one day eat a vegan meal, I would probably have laughed. If you had told me I would enjoy it on top of it, I would have lost it. Like most people, I use to think that vegans ate nothing but bird food, resulting in a boring and insufficient diet.

That is the most wrong one could ever be. Vegan food is not only tasty, delicious and varied, it is healthy for both us, and the planet. Being sort of a foodie myself, I could never be happy on a boring diet, and veganism is everything but boring.
In honour of all that, I wanted to share with you a recipe (from Renees's Kitchen Adventures) for vegan peanut butter cookies, because vegans can have dessert too!

Ingredients: 
1 cup of natural peanut butter
1 cup of packed brown sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1/4 cup of almond milk
1 cup of oat flour (like Renee suggests, I processed 1 cup of oats to turn them into flour)
1 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt











Instructions:
In the bowl of a stand-alone mixer, put the peanut butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract and almond milk. Blend until smooth.
Put in the baking soda and salt, and blend again.
Slowly add in the oat flour, and blend until the mixture is smooth.

On a greased baking sheet (I used a reusable silicon liner, because parchemin paper is wasteful...), put spoonfuls of dough, and press them with a wet fork to make them flatter.

Bake for about 10 minutes at 350°F.

These cookies are honestly delicious. They're tender and sweet, and just gooey enough. They make for the perfect, guilt-free vegan treat. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading :)

Zero Waste | Recipes

Hello again! Here are two Zero Waste recipes that I have tried and tested. I really enjoy making and using those products, so I'm happy to share them with you.

The first recipe I tried when researching Zero Waste alternatives was homemade toothpaste.
To my surprise, it works so well! I've been using this recipe for over a month, and my teeth feel super clean and fresh. Also, I think they're actually whiter than they were before I started using DIY toothpaste. Here is how to make it:

Ingredients:
4 tsp of coconut oil
3 tsp of baking soda
20 drops of peppermint oil

What to do:
Mix the coconut oil and the baking soda together in a small mason jar (or any type of screw-top jar).
When the mix is uniform, add 15 to 20 drops of peppermint essential oil.
I keep it near the sink in the bathroom, and apply it to my bamboo toothbrush with a small spoon.


The next recipe is skincare related. I have very sensitive skin, redness and dry patches, sometimes mixed in with painful under-the-skin breakouts. I used to splurge on skincare that promised to do miracles, and yet after a couple of months, the magic would stop and the breakouts came back stronger then before. So when I finished my last pot of very expensive Kiehl's cream, I decided to not buy anything else, and make my own natural and simple face cream. At first, I was a bit scared because it involved putting oil on my face, but then the thought of an organic, non-toxic products with very few ingredients in it sounded a lot better then a chemical-filled store-bought cream.

So I gave it a shot, and my skin is still thanking me. It works great! It's light, yet so moisturizing. The aloe vera is soothing and calming, the coconut oil is moisturizing and anti-microbial, and the evening primrose oil has amazing healing properties because it contains a fatty acid called GLA.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp of coconut oil
2 tbsp of aloe vera gel
1 tsp of evening primrose oil

What to do:
Put all the ingredients in a small blender (I used a Magic Bullet).
Mix until you obtain a smooth texture.
Pour into a container or jar.

Voilà! I hope you enjoyed and that you will try these awesome recipes.

:)

Zero Waste | To-go Omelette

This one is going to be short and sweet. Being a university design student, I very often have to have breakfast, lunch and dinner at school, given my very hectic schedule.
At the beginning of the current school year, one of my friends had the habit of coming to school with eggs in a Tupperware, and she would cook them in a micro-wave, resulting in an omelette. I thought this was pure genius and decided to give it a try. Needless to say, I loved it! It makes for a hot, nutrients filled and delicious breakfast on-the-go.
Here is how I make mine:

First, break two eggs in a wide-mouthed Mason jar.
Then, add some vegetables of your choice. As for me, I love zucchinis in my eggs.
I also like to add some type of meat, like bacon for example.
















Lastly, add salt and pepper as you like, close the lid, and shake it up!
Once your at school or at work, put the jar in the micro-wave WITHOUT the metal lid, and cook for about 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Bon appétit!

:)

Zero Waste | Habits

Hello Interwebers! In the spirit of Zero Waste, I am going to share with you some habits to pick up if you want to reduce your impact on the environment.
It's all well and good to buy package free deodorant and shampoo, but we have to be conscious about HOW we buy those things, too. Because, in the end, Zero Waste is a life style; it's all in the habits!

The first one is for coffee lovers. I don't know about you, but caffeine is a huge part of my morning. Wether I'm at home, at school, with friends, or by myself, I always like to sit back and sip on a nice hot cup of coffee. BUT! Having coffee on-the-go is where things get a little messy. If I were to get one coffee everyday from my local coffee shop, and get it in a single-use cup, it would lead to me producing 23 pounds of coffee-cup-trash at the end of a whole year. 23 pounds! That's just not acceptable in my eyes...  The easy solution to this is to carry a reusable coffee mug with you. I carry mine around pretty much everywhere because I never know when I'll want that ô-so-conforting boost of caffeine. I just ask the barista what ever caffeinated drink I want, and then ask them to please make it in my reusable mug. So far, I had no objections, and even got a friend to do the same!




Want to go shopping for some awesome DIY, waste-free items? Go for it! But remember to grab a reusable bag before you run out the door. Most grocery stores sell them, or you can do like I did and turn an old t-shirt into a bag! Just cut off the sleeves and collar, and sew up the bottom. Boom.







You're probably hungry by now, so let's have lunch. One of the easiest ways to reduce your waste when eating on-the-go is by packing a lunch. It also saves you tons of money, and is a lot more healthy. Now, let's take it one step further and make sure we don't leave anything behind. I'm currently trying to eliminate plastic from my life, because I feel as if it is not the most sustainable product to use. The solution I found to avoid plastic wrap, plastic Tupperwares and Ziplock bags? Mason jars! They're a bit heavier to carry, but I like to know that no plastic related toxins get into my food when I'm heating it up in the micro-wave. I also like to reuse metal tins to carry small snacks, like dried fruits or nuts.



This last habit takes place in our homes. A lot of what ends up in landfill is organic waste, or food scraps. One might think that organic waste in a landfill is not so bad, but it actually is. Organic waste produces loads of toxins when sitting in the ground for a long time. Those toxins then leak into the soil that grows our food, into the water we drink, and in the air we breathe. The most effective way to counter that is to learn to compost our organic waste. Most cities can provide information about this, as well as a list of what can and cannot be put in our compost bins. Composting is very easy to get into, and it eliminates a lot of waste, transforming it into soil fertilizer to help and grow new and healthy crops.

I hope these tips got you in the Zero Waste spirit!
With little changes, we can achieve big results.

:)

Zero Waste | Swaping

Hello again! Following my last post about discovering Zero Waste, I wanted to share with the Interwebs some of the changes I've already made in my life to reduce my waste.
At first, reducing waste sounds like a huge impossible task, because we're so used to this throw-away life style. We just don't know what else to do, how else to live.

The first changes I made are in the bathroom. I realized how much products I had around the sink, in the shower, in the cabinets... Overwhelming is an understatement. The first step was to declutter. I went through all of my products (shampoos, conditioners, body washes, bubble baths, skin care products, even make up!) and decided wether I wanted to finish them myself, or give them to my mom, or my friends. Some of it, I just had to throw away because it had been under my sink for far too long and was no longer safe to use. That's when I realized the irony: by trying to reduce waste, I had to throw away stuff that I had because I consumed too much, too fast, in the past.

Once my stash of products was down to a more acceptable size, I gave my self a task. Running out. In the past, I rarely ran out of something, because I usually grew tired of a product, and moved on to something else before I had finished it. BAD MOVE. Don't do that, it's a trap! So, my mission was to finish the products I had decided to keep. In the meantime, I researched what I could do to replace those products with eco-friendly alternatives. That is what brings me to today's topic: swaping.

Here are some products I did replace:

1. Instead of bulkily packaged deodorant, I opted for a naked piece of LUSH deodorant. It is sold un-packaged, and I purchased a metal tin to put it in at home. This means I can use all of the product, and reuse the metal packaging endlessly.

2. I swapped my plastic bottle of chemical-filled shampoo by the New shampoo bar, also from LUSH. It smells of cinnamon, is made form natural ingredients, and it is sold package-free!

3. For my toothbrush, I got myself a super cool bamboo one from WooBamboo. The bristles are recyclable, and the handle is compostable. Also, it comes in a completely recycled and recyclable packaging.

4. Last, but certainly not least: toothpaste. At first, I tried baking soda, but it was a bit to harsh on its own and left my gums feeling a little raw. Then, I found this recipe, and made my very own toothpaste with coconut oil, baking soda and spearmint essential oil. Pretty cool, huh?

So there you have it. Some easy, and kind of awesome swaps you can make to help reduce waste!

:)

Zero Waste | The first dabble

Zero Waste. It sounds scary, doesn't it? That's what I thought at first, too.
A couple of months ago, I was binge-watching TedTalks on youtube, and I came across one titled "Why I live a Zero Waste life". Of course, the term Zero Waste intrigued me, so I clicked.

Lauren Singer (above), a young women living in New York, started talking about how much trash Americans produce everyday (each American produces about 4.5 pounds of trash everyday), and about how she wanted to leave the world a better place, on which she will have had as little negative impact as possible. As a result, all of her trash form the past 3 years fit in a small Mason jar. Impressive, huh?

I started researching a bit more into this Zero Waste phenomenon, and I was hooked. My eyes were opened. Why do I own so many things? Why is there so many things that we allow ourselves to throw away? Why do we allow ourselves to deteriorate the Earth in such ways?

"Away". This magical land where we believe our trash moves onto after we dispose of it. That's where the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" takes all its meaning. We believe, because our trash is regularly taken care of after we put in outside our homes, that it just goes away somewhere, and that it stops being our problem as soon as we can't see it anymore. But "away" does not exist! All of our trash ends up in landfills and STAYS there, pretty much forever. That causes a whole lot of environmental problems which I am not qualified to discuss deeply, but we all know about them. The planet is heating up, oceans are contaminated, toxins are leaked into the ground that grows our food, into the air that we breathe.

I quickly became aware of everything I was disposing of in my trash can, and I told myself that it had to stop. I couldn't bare to throw things away mindlessly anymore. That's when I first dabbled into the Zero Waste life style.

The first step, which I had previously decided to take, was to declutter et minimize my life. Now, I had started to do this prior to wanting to reduce my waste, but I still have a long way to go to be satisfied with myself. I went through everything: clothes, junk drawers, school and art supplies, sewing supplies, make up, skin care, EVERYTHING got downsized, and radically so.
I have to say, my head feels so much lighter thanks to this. To me, a cluttered environment is very daunting.

Whilst I am still in the process of downsizing, or decluttering, I also want to lessen my impact on the world by drastically reducing the amount of waste I produce. I will soon upload another post about some easy changes I made, and that you could make too, to reduce waste.

See you soon!

:)