Beet Potato Salad

Another wonderful Russian dish I’ve grown to love, brought to you by Annie!

Beet Potato Salad

“This salad is a Russian tradition at dinners, parties, picnics, in the summer or winter. Russians actually call this dish, “The Vinaigrette”. Having spent most of my time growing up in Canada, I call it the healthier version of a potato salad, Russian style! The combination of root vegetables with peas and pickles give this salad a deliciously unique taste by combining sweetness from the peas and carrots and tanginess from the pickles which is all balanced out by the potatoes and beets. This dish has vibrant colours and is full of nutrition. It is also a great way to incorporate more beets into your diet. Enjoy!”

beet potato

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Vegan Spicy Crispy ‘Tuna’ Sushi

Mmmm…. sushi. Is there really anything better? My closest friends know of and share my sushi addiction; it’s our usual go-to for a social lunch or dinner. I loved it before I was vegan, and I still love it now (of course, I stick to the vegan options on the menu).

I decided last week that I was going to try to make my own sushi at home. I did a lot of research on what I needed to buy, watched a few videos on rolling technique, and became fairly confident that I could at least attempt it.

One of my favourite sushi rolls that I loved in my pre-vegan days was the spicy crispy tuna roll. I wanted to recreate that taste and texture but in a vegan way. I searched the net and my favourite foodie blogs but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. I came up with the idea for my own recipe fairly quickly. Earlier in the year, I made this ‘tuna’ pasta salad for a potluck and everyone, vegan and non-vegan alike, raved about how closely it tasted like the real deal. Brilliant, those chickpeas are! I decided to use them again for my version of a tuna roll. They turned out perfectly! While I haven’t mastered the art of rolling sushi yet (my presentation was pretty sore on the eyes – you’ll see the pic below), they tasted exactly like the real version I remembered.

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Black Bean Soup with Sweet Potatoes + A Giveaway!

It’s time – we are so excited to be teaming up with vegan cookbook author Dreena Burton for our first incredible giveaway!

Dreena Burton is a world-renowned author of four vegan cookbooks – Let Them Eat Vegan!, The Everyday Vegan, Vive le Vegan!, and eat, drink & be vegan. She has written for VegNews and alive magazines, True/Slant, and has been featured in other publications including First magazine. She has won several blog awards, and recently, her “Frosted B-raw-nies” recipe won the Everyday Health Gluten-Free Recipe Contest.

We had the opportunity to review her latest plant-based cookbook, Plant-Powered 15. All the recipes are whole-food, vegan recipes without any added oils. Included are recipes such as Almond Zen Granola, Green Goddess Dressing, “SweetBalls”, Umami Sun-Dried Tomato and Almond Burgers, and Peanut Butter Munchy Squares.

The first recipe I made from Plant-Powered 15 was the Black Bean Soup with Sweet Potatoes. Talk about a new staple meal! This soup was easy to make, full of protein (thank you, black beans!), and had just the perfect mixture of spice, flavour, and texture. Even better, the leftovers tasted just as amazing the next day!

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Restaurant Review – Rawlicious

Earlier this month, my partner and I were in Toronto to see Muse in concert (side note: SO good!). I really wanted to try out the newly-opened Grasslands restaurant, but they weren’t open on the night we were there. We decided instead to eat at Rawlicious, a raw vegan restaurant, at their Yorkville location.

Rawlicious Yorkville


Rawlicious describes its mission as “to help people feel good about what you eat.” According to their website, “by eating foods in their natural state, not heated above 118F, with all of the innate vitamins, minerals & enzymes, you are becoming a more beautiful you with every meal. We also know that taste cannot be sacrificed and it doesn’t have to be! Each of our menu items is unbelievably delicious & of course nutritious.” Having never eaten at a purely raw vegan restaurant before, I was curious to see what menu items were available and if… Continue Reading →

Stuffed Peppers!

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Some of you may have seen the pie graph we posted to facebook a couple months ago regarding what people think vegans eat. The selection was not very appealing. However, the corresponding graph with the photo showed how much diversity actually exists in a vegan diet. The possibilities are endless! So when I’m preparing a vegan meal for someone for the first time, this is my go-to. It’s a lot of prep work and ingredients, but the reward in the end is well worth it. I prepared this for my mother last week, and she quite was apprehensive at first, asking many questions about what was in it, will she like it etc. By the time she was finished, she was asking to take some to work the next day for lunch! Halfway through the meal she even mentioned maybe going vegetarian sometime soon! Continue Reading →