Making Love in the Kitchen

Delicious, gluten-free and vegan muffins made with natural sweeteners. You won’t be able to resist them.

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What fun I had when Wilder Weir from Oh So Cosmo! (airing on Cosmo TV) came back to the kitchen for a visit. Remember the last time he was here? I flirted my heart out with him and it seemed he wanted to come back for more. On the menu were our kitchen fave veggie rice wraps with almond dipping sauce and our conversation quickly went off course. One moment we’re talking flaccid cucumber and the next we chatted ‘poo juice’ and how pooping makes us pretty. Watch my love sweet lovers. Watch, laugh and learn. I often have a tough time watching myself on TV- but this clip even had me giggling. The peeps at Cosmo did a superfantab job of this segment and now I will just wait by the phone to see if I get called for a magical third date with Wilder.

This time, we were talking detoxing.

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I feel like perhaps I am supposed to be embarrassed to tell you that I LOVE Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. I am not sure why. After a day of sunshine and rainbows in the kitchen, where 99.5% of the people who call, or write, or come play in the kitchen are delightful, there is something super fun about kicking back to a flood of F-bombs from old chef GR. What’s even more ridiculous about this affection I have for this show is that I don’t even have a TV. That means the man has to go hunting for an online version and we huddle together on the sofa to watch it on the micro computer screen. Yep. I’ve hit it big time for sure. Just wait ’till my episode of Cribs (yes, I used to watch that too). A wild Thursday night watching a crappy British TV show full of cloudy weather and F-bombs on a computer.

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Yep- so here I am in St. Lucia, leading my 4th annual Nourish Your Soul Retreat (which, by the way, you might want to get on the wait list for next year), and I still have a tail to share from Hawaii. The story includes tofu pot stickers, of all things. Is there anyone out there that doesn’t love a good dumpling? Nope. I didn’t think so. Why is it that things seem to taste better when wrapped in bundles of dough/rice paper/pasta? I am afraid I don’t have an answer for you. When we were in Hawaii- after a long day of adventuring, we split the drive back to our abode up by stopping for dinner at a raved out veg place. On the menu- tofu potstickers and for some reason, I was all over them. I NEVER eat fried food. I never crave it, never like it and definitely don’t usually want it mixed with tofu. The mere idea s totally barftown. For some reason though- maybe a day in the sun, maybe by mass consumption of odd fruits, maybe the holiday spirit, but I ordered them and they were amazing. And then I kept talking about them to the man… until I had no choice, once home, but to make them.

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There are many snacks out there that claim to be healthy, but in reality they’re not as virtuous as they seem. What’s a health-conscious snacker to do? Eat roasted chickpeas, of course! These delicious nibblies are crunchy, flavourful and full of beneficial nutrients.

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I have weird collections. It used to be shoes. Now it’s foraged mushrooms, and sea weed. Everywhere I go, I check out the local sea vegetables. People now send me gifts of seaweed from their own fair shores too (feel free!). Nothing, however, has stolen my heart quite like Irish or Sea Moss (twin brothers from different mothers). This unsuspecting superfood has been my top of the charts seller since I started carrying it. Not an easy thing to find but an absolute smoothie essential, if you ask me. Also a top, top, top food to eat to help with all your daily detox efforts. Cleans up the thyroid, sheds radiation, strips the gut of excess mucous buildup and other fine jazz. Makes the drinks so silky smooth, keeps all the goods you throw in there in solution, and heals the gut and thyroid like nothing else. You have been asking for it and at long, long last- I have put together my how-to video for Irish Moss. Now, save your Q’s ’cause I now have your A’s answered. All in this video…

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We’ve had loads of interns and extra special helpers pass through this here fair kitchen of ours over the last three years. What I have come to discover is that each and everyone is special in her own unique way (yes, they have all been women). They each have their own area of expertise and interest and all seem to develop a fixation on a certain thing. I feel sad to say that I passed along my secret crush on rice cakes to Jill. I hear her crunching all the time even though we all know they should be just a once in a while thing.

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Friends and lovers. It’s that sweet, sweet time again.
That time where my dad comes over to the kitchen, we paint cat whiskers on our face as we dress up as Halloween Cats.

In the past, you have seen us as Cat Burglars, Cool Cats, and Jungle Cats. This year we went for a Mexican Cat theme makes almost no sense at all but since my dad and I have this ability to take an idea and run with it- we ran and no one caught up with us to tell us it made no sense. In fact, even my dad and I didn’t notice that it made no sense until we actually started filming- wondering what cats had to do with Mexico and what Mexico or cats had to do with brownies or pumpkin. Love us simply for our stream of consciousness and creativity.

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You know those people who go on those re-donk-you-lus cleanses that essentially sound like they’re spending a week, crash course style living the way you’ve been living for the last five years, only to go back at the end of it and start eating like the slothy fatty McFatter standard North American processed diet full of wheat, cheese, booze and sugar?

Wait a second! You’re not one of them too are you?

Here’s the thing most people have to learn about detox. It’s not a diet. A detox should not be a crash anything. It’s not something you can do twice a year where for 1 week you drink epsom salts, consume only lemonade and enema your poopershnickle out the hooha. The best of the best way to detox is to make 80% of what most people would consider a cleanse, your everyday way of living. Make sense?

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It all started with my friend, Ashley. You could, in fact, call her my gluten-free muse! You see, Ashley follows a gluten-free and vegan lifestyle (which, as Meghan Telpner is fond of saying, has cured an incurable disease – Crohn’s). And when you are vegan and gluten-free, you can have some challenges around finding versions of your former favourite foods. One of these for Ashley, was bread. She could find breads she could eat at our amazing local health food stores, but they were often expensive. Or full of things like ‘potato starch’. And when you started out eating lovely unrefined whole grains, why would you want to switch over to white bread substitutes?

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I was offered a task. It’s one of those tasks that make me want to cartwheel over the kind of tasks that have become part of my job.

My long lost lover, fellow nutritionista, long distance pen pal, around the world adventurer, and momma friend Gabriela, the wordstress and recipe mistress behind the blog The Picky Foodie, emailed me asking if I would play in her cookie games.

Her desire was to for 10 of her food loving/ baking friends from around the fair globe to take her basic cookie recipe and make it our own.

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I love kale chips as much as the next nutritionista and (kale chip lover). Hence my desire to continue creating new and ever more awesome town kale chip recipes that cause me to eat entire heads of kale in single sittings followed by the need to drink about 9 litres of water. And let me tell you- eating a full head of kale in one sitting followed by that much water- well, let’s just say that things will be moving and grooving in the colon cleansing department.

So if you just met me this past weekend at the veg festival welcome, and you have some catching up to do.

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Everyone loves home baked cookies. And they really don’t take much time at all.

You mix the dry. Chop a little chocolate. Throw a couple blobs of cookie dough on a parchment lined cookie sheet. And just like that, fresh home baked cookies are served!

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A few weeks ago, we posed the question on Twitter asking what everyone’s fave comfort food was that they wish could be healthified. It sounded a lot like what I have created here for you.

Why do we all love mac and cheese? The answer is simple. We were raised on it. It was the go to convenience food of our childhood and likely landed itself as a staple in our cupboards when we first moved out on our own.

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Do I really even have to answer that? Really? Do I?

No. Because it’s obvious. The berries!

A standard breakfast, so commonly a go-to, is granola and yogurt (or your fave nut milk), and a splash of berries. Why not turn that equation upside down and inside out? Make the berries the main attraction!

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