Leave Days aka. fruit mania.

I was able to return to my homeland this weekend. Honestly, everytime I go somewhere other than Toronto I come back with a renewed sense of pride for my little cultural melting pot of a city.

I'm excited to mention that this was the weekend of mangos. dragonfruit, and pineapple slices! Obviously cafs don't provide those fruits. You usually see orange slices, grapefruits, bananas, watermelon slices, and honey dew or cantaloupe. That's still a good variety but doesn't include my all time faves. Persimmons, Mangos, Papaya, and lychee.

I took a walk to chinatown with a friend, and we stocked up on their sweet deals, 5 mangoes for $5 anyone? Tell me what's so great about your city, and where can you find those great hidden deals. Also, Props to anyone who can tell me where the mango quote is from (underneath the picture)!

"we are going to make your mosquito bites look like, JUICY JUICY MANGOS"

90% humidity, and wool tunics. LOVE IT.

B-orange slices, banana, oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon and brown sugar sprinkled
L-salad with black bean tofu something, tabouleh, honey dew slices
D-salad with black bean tofu something, a spoon of cuban rice, honey dew slices
S-walnuts, cranberries, one vegan snickerdoodle (very cute soft cookies from the Enjoy Life)

No bread so far, i feel great, almost lighter, in terms of digestion.

Cafeteria Chronicles:

Reporting for duty, sirs!

A summer job far away from home may pose some eating difficulties in terms of finding beautiful food, both raw and vegan as well as improvising on various recipes. HOWEVER. I have the solution. The entire reason of this blog, the very BIRTH of it is due to the characteristics of this job. I live on a university campus, in the military, and have to endure months of eating cafeteria food.

Last summer I found myself in a rather enjoyable, yet slightly gluttonous state, treating myself to copious (slight exaggeration) amounts of vegan junk food. After returning to the civilian world I realized what havoc I had wreaked on my body and decided to change some things.

AND HERE I AM, another summer, back on campus, eating cafeteria food. Because I won't be able to do my usual blog thing, I'm going to change it up and show y'all that eating healthy is so doable in a caf setting. I will be listing my food choices from the caf, sans vibrant pictures :(

B-honey dew slices, orange slices

L-salad with mushrooms in some funny Italian dressing, tofu stirfry, cucumber, banana, honey dew slices

D-salad with mushrooms, white rice with tiny veg, cucumber, tofu stirfry, honey dew slices

S-banana (for later)

My choices are definitely limited, but for the next three months keep reading to see how I avoid the temptations of the daily potato wedge french fry counter and 24-hour convenience store stocked with vegan junk. Also, I'd totally appreciate your comments filled with what gorgeous food you had, something preferably not fried, deep-fried, or sauteed, or sizzled, or grilled, etc.

berry fest.

blackberries, strawberries, bowl, fork, summer.

WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR.

Fruit after dinner. (feeds a family of like. a thousand)

strawberries, blackberries, grapes, watermelon, papaya

REJUV. AGWA.

Summer paradise in liquid form. Drank this after a run, along with a big mango sliced on the side. Don't forget to exercise and keep hydrated!!

-water

-lemon juiced

-mint leaves

-ice cubes

-sliced cucumbers: you can keep adding water to it, and hey, why not eat a cucumber slice while you're at it!

sipping it now, can't breathe, it's SO refreshing.

avocado.

just LOOK at this beauty.

made guacamole tonight, AH-mazing.

What'd you have for dinner?

NR: Vegan Ice Cream Delight

I HAD to HAD to do a post on this. I don't know if it was because the weather was exceptionally sunny today or if searching for a good vegan ice cream spot was hard downtown. Either way this place deserves recognition. My friends and I went back to our favourite spot from two years ago only to find that it had been sealed up and bolted down, no shoppe in sight! It was SO sad. We continued walking along Queen St. (West) past Bathurst, nearing Dufferin, and stumbled upon a clean and cute looking ice cream parlour.

They sold two vegan flavours (surprisingly, AND luckily), apparently favourites of non-vegan and vegan ice cream lovers alike: Mango Coconut, and Chocolate.

Okay, how do I put this into words, since TASTE-TESTS don't exist virtually. These flavours were out of this world. They had a coconut milk base, and a true fruity and dark chocolate-y flavour.

1 scoop $3.25 cup $3. 95 cone

2 scoops $5.25 cup $5.95 cone

1/2 litre $10.95 tax free

We split the half litre three ways, Stuart, the lovely cashier and sample distributor kindly jam-packed the container for us. It was truly a DELIGHT!

the old ice cream place..10 Palmerston Ave.

Delight Organic Chocolate Shop

805 Queen St W, Toronto, ON, Canada

416-760-9995 Tues-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri 9am-10pm, Sat 10am-10pm, Sun 11am-6pm

magic bullet wonders.

Made the smoothest smoothie today:

-few leaves short of a head of romaine lettuce

-1 banana ripened

-1 ataulfo mango (MY FAVE!)

-1.5 cups water

ehhh, Voila!

NR: Steel Cut Oats

Had steel cut oatmeal today for breakfast. FIRST OF ALL, the lengths I had to go to MAKE this bowl of "cereal" for myself were astonishing. Secondly, the texture and taste, I don't know if it's because I failed to wait long enough but it tasted like, hard wheat berries in a warm goup (Goup, not a word, but an adjective nonetheless describing the seen/tasted texture).

Anyway, unimpressed. I wanted to know, what do you eat when you want a hearty raw breakfast?

I googled 'steel cut oats', clicked images and this is what popped up, better than cereal. Oh, the innuendos flying through my mind..

GREEN POWAAHH: Salad Challenge

Calling all green grass eating, "rabbit-food" munching herbivores!

On Monday I decided to make sure I ate two big salads a day in order to implement a lifelong habit. Before monday, the idea of making a salad seemed ALL too tedious. Buy the romaine, wash the romaine, cut the romaine, and dress the romaine. Seriously now, too many steps in there. Unless my mom already had a salad on the table I'd resort to my simple 2:1 (fruit-green ratio) smoothies. Today was day 3, and I can't even explain the improvement in myself. The key to enjoying these salads starts in the right dressing. You need to experiment until you find the best combination of fruits/nuts/ seeds/oils. Naturally, raw vegans tend to stray away from heavy dressings, but I realized the mixture of sea salt, olive oil, and lemon was not attractive enough to have me eating two big bowls a day! Here's what I've been mixing in:

-dried cranberries (sulfite-free)

-strawberries or orange slices

-whole raw walnuts

-dried peppercorn

-sea salt

-olive oil

-any citrus juice: lemon/lime/orange

-whole kalamata olives

-fresh basil, and mint

-any other interesting veggies: cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms

Challenge: Eat 1-2 big salads as a meal or before a meal for one week, comment back on any noticeable improvements, or blog about them, and spread the word to non-veggie eaters!

Improvements: SKIN, hello! Energy and mental clarity. and UM, movement..ya get the drift.

This entire mix keeps me full for at least 4-5 hours. I use over half a head of romaine lettuce. I used spinach on monday, but I'd prefer to keep those leaves for my smoothies.

What's your favourite salad dressing/combination??

this has to be the cutest picture ever.

the papaya is my favourite haha, since it's officially summer, a trend with my friends is going to china town, buying a papaya, halving it and enjoying its deliciousness! I can't get enough of the fruit.

Kombucha Wonder Drink Review

Kombucha Wonder Drink; Essence of Mango

Ingredients: I dropped the bottle on the ground by accident, from what I remember there was oolong tea, pear extract juice/tea, black tea, mango extract, and I suspect some form of probiotics.

I bought it from Balwin Natural's-Organic Food Market, you can get it pretty much anywhere. It was $2.97+tax. I was actually very excited to taste it because I was hearing many things about it (positive and negative). Without smelling it, my first sip was nice. Cold, refreshing, hint of sweetness, however broken by the subtle yet contrasting vinegar-like flavour and aroma. I had to actually stop walking and take another sip, (my friend thought I was overreacting). In general it is a very pleasant taste, if it truly does have all the benefits listed, such as aiding digestion, cleansing, detoxifying, etc then it is a great drink. The bottle especially is very pure looking, fits perfectly in your hand, just be careful not to drop it like I did. Does anyone know anything about the health benefits or arguments against them? Also, If you have a favourite flavour, which one is it?

is this really a wonder drink?

kiwi spinach drink.

Random creation.

Not sweet.

I could have added a banana, but already had one for today.

It's more of a juice in between sweet and savoury.

sometimes fruits are better eaten alone.

MAY!

Goals: keep room clean at all times, workout daily (60 min), be nicer.

Who knew parsley could go into a drink. I need more drink ideas, have you ever used parsley in your drinks or juices?

-a ton of water. (1.5 cup)

-big handful of fresh parsley

-1 dying pear

-1 banana

parsl' of GOODNESS.