Spinach Artichoke Dip

Preheat oven to 350.

Puree 1 pkg frozen spinach and one pack of artichoke hearts until smooth.

In a medium saucepan melt 1/4 Earth Balance or other vegan margarine. Whisk in 1/4 flour a little at a time to avoid it clumping up on you. Once this has thickened remove from heat and add puree. Add 2 cups of almond milk to the saucepan mixture. Sprinkle in 1/2 cup of nutrtional yeast, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 chopped tomato and two cloves of garlic diced. Transfer to ramekins or casserole dish. Top with vegan cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Serve hot with pita or tortilla chips!

Yummy!

Holiday Rice Pudding

Holiday Rice Pudding

What makes it festive and yummy is the taste and scent of cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg!

So here we go!
In a medium saucepan, combine 1.5 cups of almond milk (vanilla flavour is best), 3 cups of cooked basmati rice, 1/2 cup of sugar or 1/4 cup of agave nectar and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a simmer uncovered until rice is creamy. You will need stir frequently so it does not burn. This will take about 15-20 minutes.
Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cardamom, 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg and a sprinkle of shredded coconut. Continue to stir until the pudding has thickened.
Turn off the heat and stir in the following 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon pure coconut extract.
Now is a great time to spoon the pudding into your serving bowls and sprinkle with crushed pistachios (unsalted of course).
If you prefer to eat your rice pudding cold then cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Enjoy!



Vegan Handbags

 Susan Nichole has just become my favorite vegan hand bag designer!


            In fact in the past month I have acquired 2 purses, one briefcase and a wallet from her growing collection.

That's not to say I don't love my Matt& Nat bags, of course I do! There is just something about Susan Nichole's designs that I can't get enough of. Maybe it has to do with the designer being female and really knowing what we love in a bag as women, extra compartments and pockets for all our little things. Maybe it's the fun colours like "candy apple red" "eggplant" or "pumpkin" that keep me coming back. I do know the quality and style is worth every penny for these very beautiful fashion forward bags!
That's why I'm excited to tell you that The Garden of Vegan now carries the Susan Nichole line! Her vision for her designs is inline with what we believe in, vegan stylish options. As her website says:

"Susan Nichole was founded to provide women with beautiful, functional handbags designed to be elegant, stylish and fun-loving – much like the women who carry them. Consistent with our animal and earth friendly ideals, all Susan Nichole handbags are made from 100% recyclable, vegan materials and contain absolutely no animal products. Such a direction gives women the option to carry beautiful designer handbags that are trendy and fashionable, yet maintain their animal and earth friendly principals."

Check out these great bags at www.thegardenofvegan.ca today for great November specials.

Cavewoman Bars

It was a cold blustery day outside while inside I sipped tea and bit into my first Baklava Cavewoman bar. The smell of the spices and the pieces of pistachio from this bar made it feel like the holiday season. This bar is amazing! ...and it has so few ingredients! Dates, walnuts, pistachios, almonds and sweet spices!
This bar is 100 natural, gluten free, has no sugar added and vegan!
Win-win!
...Oh but I forgot to mention all the other yummy flavours!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake! Easily my favourite with real pieces of pineapple of course.
PB & J (Strawberries, blueberries and of course organic peanut butter - my kids love this one!)
Banana Nut Bread (the Lemon in this one makes it taste even better than you can imagine!)
Blueberry Pancake (this one even has cashews and maple flavour!)

These bars are chewy full of flavour and taste just like what they say.

keep them in your purse like I do because they are great on the way to the gym, for pregnant moms when the munchies hit and just when you want a quick filling great tasting snack!

I'm excited to say that The Garden of Vegan is the first and only place in Canada that you can get these amazing bars! So order yours today. The Garden of Vegan ships world-wide and is constantly updating their vegan treats.
www.TheGardenofVegan.ca

A Review of SunWarriors Raw Vegan Protein Powder



It really seems to be the topic of the month, but I just had to share this new find with you.
Now being in the fitness industry and a vegan I've tried many a protein powder and when it's one I really like I share that with you.
Well I just tried Sun Warrior's Chocolate protein powder and I must say it's pretty darn good!
It's vegan of course, it's made from 85% protein, it's gluten free and non-GMO. The all natural ingredients include whole brown rice protein, cocoa, pectin, xanathan gum and stevia. pretty simple. One serving gives you 25 grams of protein, not to mention 33% iron and 10%  calcium of  your daily values. This only increases if you mix it with something like almond milk as I did. I love that it doesn't contain soy and is raw.

The taste was thick and chocolatey. It wasn't chalky or grainy and it didn't have a funny after taste. It was actually quite silky and mixes well in smoothies or is great on it's own. I don't know if this is in part to the bottle I mixed it in (which I will talk about in just a second) or because of the way this protein powder is formulated (which also happens to be 100% organic), but it didn't have lumps and was quite enjoyable.

Now back to the bottle, I got Sun Warriors Blender Bottle which I recommend for the gym rat. This is no ordinary bottle! It's a large 28 oz bottle that comes with a patented blender ball that you drop inside. It's really like a round whisk that helps blend your shake until it's smooth with no lumps. As Sun Warrior says you "Simply drop the BlenderBall wire whisk into the bottle along with your ingredients, screw on the lid, press down the flip top and shake! The ball moves easily throughout the bottle as you shake, mixing the thickest ingredients with ease .." It has an easy grip design a stay open flip top, yet comes with a secure screw on lid with a wide opening for your ingredients. It will fit in your drink holder if you are consuming it on the way to the gym or on the way home. It's easy to clean and dishwasher safe. It also makes a great water bottle.
This will now go into the top 3 as one of my favourite protein powders for the vegan market (Vega and my own custom blend being the other top 2).

You can order Sun Warrior products right here on our blogspot website, including their shaker bottle with the BlenderBall.

What Does The Bible Say About Being Vegan?

Wow! If that title didn't scare you off let me say you're doing great and please stick with this and give it a read.
Believe it or not this is a question that I get a lot. Normally I don't respond to it publicly because religion/God is such a touchy subject for most people. However, I've been getting this a lot so here goes.
Do I think God would want us to be vegan is the question. My answer is I can't speak for God. I can however tell you what I've read about how God views animals and animal consumption and most of you if not all of you (yes, both meat eaters and vegans) will be upset with what I'm about to share, but remember this is just my humble opinion.
So let's go back to the beginning. Even before The Garden of Eden.
God created earth, plant life, animals, then humans. In that order. That alone says a lot but let's move on. Animals were probably on earth for hundreds if not thousands of years before Adam and Eve. So as some of earths first inhabitants I think they deserve some respect.
When Adam was created he was surrounded by peaceful animals who had no fear of him, and why would they have fear? Adam wasn't killing them or eating them.
Now as I see it Adam had a pretty sweet life. He lived in paradise, had God as a best friend and as a result was assigned a pretty cool job - naming the animals. God arranged it for the animals to approach Adam. Adam would study them and name them. Everyone was living in peace.
The Bible does says that Adam would have dominion over the animals and that the animals would be in subjection to him. Now before you say well there you have it! God said the animals were to be in subjection to man that means we can eat them, wear them and do what we want with them. Note this. We as humans are in subjection to God as well and how does he treat us? Just something to ponder.
So having the animals in subjection to him meant Adam was accountable to God for how he treated them.
Then as you might know from Sunday school things went terribly wrong. Adam and Eve ate fruit from a forbidden tree and were kicked out of paradise to the harsh conditions outside the Garden of Eden.
So then no longer living in perfect conditions Adam and Eve and their offspring started to kill animals for clothing to keep warm and dressed.
Things continued to get worse on earth and God got rather ticked off and said he was going to cause a flood killing all animals and humans not in the ark that Noah would build. If God didn't care about animals he wouldn't have arranged for them to be saved. Instead he arranged for the animals to go to Noah so that he could preserve them along with Noah and his family.
Now keep in mind Noah and his family and the animals were in the ark for over a year. Many people think because it rained for 40 days and 40 nights that was all the time that was spent in the ark. Wrong. Over a year because the flood waters were that high! It was a global deluge and it too a long time for the waters to recede.
Prior to the flood as far as we know animals were not eaten. It was because of no produce being available outside of the ark because everything was under water for a year that God said he would allow humans to eat meat. To protect the animals God at this time also put fear and terror of humans into animals, since God was now giving them up to humans.  Right after saying that Noah and his family had permission to eat animals God then says something interesting. That they were not to eat the blood of the animals and that he - God would ask back the soul/life from the human eating a living creature. Now you can interpret this how you'd like. For me I think God is saying to Noah you can eat animals for necessary food but needless slaughter was wrong. I come to this conclusion because a little later Nimrod (yah can you believe being called a Nimrod comes from the Bible?!) was a huge hunter and God disapproved strongly of what he was doing.
Wow, I feel like a preacher here, but let me go on a little further to show why I think God is against animal exploitation. Later in the Bible God instituted a law that protected animals. This was called the Mosaic Law and talked about proper care of animals both domestic, wild and stray. In fact it even said that crossbreeding was wrong and forbidden!
So there you have my thoughts on animals and God from just one book of the Bible (Genesis) maybe another day I can go on with other examples and stories, but for now my fingers are tired. I'm sure this much alone will fire up another heated discussion on eating animals and the Bible. Maybe the best suggestion is for you to crack open your own Bible do some reading and see what it says for yourself.
Until next time. 
Vegan Peace & Love

Basic Vegan Protein Shake

Hey guys as promised here is the first in a long line up of videos for you.
The number one request you had sent me was for a basic protein shake.
I hope you enjoy.
...and continue to let me know what you'd like to see for recipes, health and fitness workouts.

Vegan Peace and Love!

Become The Change You Envision

This quote of mine has been my email signature for years!
"....become the change you envision"
What do I mean by this?
When applying it to the vegan/animal world for me it simply means "Go Vegan!"
If you are against animals being exploited go vegan.
If you are against animals being abused, used for entertainment, turned into clothing, etc. Go Vegan.
If you are against killing animals and envision a day when they are no longer used by humans for pleasure, then go vegan.
Protesting against industries, institutions and organizations does very little. Trying to change a mass of people is more difficult. Changing yourself, walking the talk, is where it starts, practicing what you preach. I posted the following stats on my Facebook page(http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=539430597#!/group.php?gid=304612241809):
The average U.S. resident eats over 200 pounds of meat per year, or more than 1/2 pound per day!

The average American eats 15 cows, 24 hogs, 900 chickens, 12 sheep and 1000 lbs of other assorted animals in their lifetime .Also if you eat 7 eggs in a week, you’ll consume 25 550 eggs in your lifetime.

If you are concerned about the way animals are treated and are frustrated by how little is being accomplished by animal rights groups then please see from the stats above, that you - YOU - as one person can make a huge difference by changing your diet from consuming animals to a vegan diet. You can save the lives of many animals that otherwise would be eaten by you.
You become the change you want to see by not exploiting animals. No one should be using animals at all. They are not for us to use.
If you go vegan you will feel better, you will be healthier, you will be saving lives!
Then once you do go vegan talk to at least one person a day about going vegan. Sure it won't change animal abuse overnight, but we can change things. One person at a time. Starting with you!
...become the change you envision.

Videos

I've had a big demand to start uploading videos.

I am working on this and hope to have it in place for you soon.

Happy Farm Animal Day to all! A great day to go vegan if you haven't already!

Ciao!

Protein

Protein

For those who follow me on Facebook you know this has been a big discussion lately between vegans and non-vegans alike.

Where do you get your protein? How much protein do you need? Do you need extra protein if you are working out?
As a fitness professional and veggie I hear these questions all the time. Often this even accompanies stories by people who were once vegetarian but were not able to maintain the lifestyle because they claim they weren't getting enough protein (and iron) and were tired all the time.
I can tell that when I became vegetarian I had more energy, when I became vegan I had even more strength and vitality! So trust me it's not the veggie lifestyle that makes you fatigued it's the way you eat and what you it. Just because you have eliminated meat does not mean that you are eating a healthy lifestyle.
So where do I get my protein from? Plant-based foods, nuts, lentils, beans, grains, and I use these and more to also create amazing protein shakes, bars and more for before and after my work-outs.
How much protein you need really varies by individual and activity level, and yes, you do need extra protein if you are working out.
If you were to read anything by vegan athletes and bodybuilders Brendan Brazier or Robert Cheeke you would quickly see that they both see the importance of fueling the body with protein, especially after a work out.
Your muscles need protein to repair and grow after a workout and as I've said before, the sooner after a workout the better. After all if your body can't get the protein from what you feed it after a work-out it will take it from the stores you have which often is the very muscle you are trying to build. This can cause you to become protein deficient and make it hard for you to gain muscle size and definition. This becomes a sort of self-cannibalism as the body eats it's own muscle and protein stores.
If you have a good pre-workout meal and a good post-workout meal or shake, not only will your recovery be better but so will your healing of the muscles you've worked.
I have perfected some pre & post workout meals and shakes for myself this year that I find I now no longer have muscle pain and soreness from workouts and have more fuel and energy to workout harder and longer.
I know this will continue to be a topic of conversation, and I will continue to try to enlighten you.

Vegan peace and love!

Sonia