So, I was watching the New Girl recently and Jess was doing her breakup thing, crying and watching dirty dancing on repeat, and I realized that I never had a break up binge! Not that they are necessarily a healthy thing, but I never watched romantic movies and ate ice cream and cried, haha. I'm not really into watching sappy movies these days but decided that I would eat vegan junk food in the name of a blog post! A vegan ice cream staple is Coconut Bliss. The sweetest part about it is that it is vegan and organic! Also, gluten, sugar and soy free. Oh, and it's super tasty! I got the chocolate hazelnut fudge and it is delightful. Super decadent and creamy with swirls of fudge and pieces of hazelnut. Definitely a real treat. You can eat it while imagining your future spouse will be as sweet and ethical.
While I was walking the aisle looking for more snacks I came across vegan gluten free cookies I had never seen before! Lucys Cookies. I had two options, chocolate or maple. I am a sucker for maple anything so I grabbed those ones and they are pretty tasty! But they were even better when I made them into ice cream sandwiches!
I also grabbed a few treats that are not advertised as vegan but just so happen to be and are delicious! Lays classic are my favourite chips, you just can't mess up something as simple crispy light potato chips. They are fried in sunflower oil so they are vegan! One of my favourites is also twizzlers. I really enjoy real licorice but twizzlers are just so tasty. A movie theatre staple for sure. I love it when things are accidentally vegan!
Uncomplicated and classic, just how I like my men!
Here are a few other snacks I like that are bad for you but good for animals: -Oreos -Skittles -Doritos Sweet Chili Heat -Sunchips (original) -Dandies Marshmallows There are lots more accidentally vegan foods listed here.
So there you go, you are now prepared for a vegan breakup binge, or just treat yourself to some tasty cruelty free snacks! Keep it spicy, Cinnamon xx
Today was a left over day so I figured I would share a couple of my regulars. I try to eat one massive salad a day. Usually I bring it for lunch to work cause it is easy to throw together. Since I like to donate blood, but my iron has been too low lately, I have been trying to increase my iron levels (naturally).
This is a pretty standard salad for me. A bed of baby arugula and spinach, cherry tomatoes, grated carrots, red pepper, and half a can of unsalted/rinsed chick peas plus avocado when I have it. I do a couple of different dressings but to increase my iron absorption lately I have been using 1 whole lemon, a bit of EVOO, 2 cloves garlic, and a bit of sea salt. I do also really like a nice balsamic vinaigrette.
My new favourite pre workout snack is CHOCOLATE COFFEE BANANA SMOOTHIE! Seriously, it is a great pre workout snack.... and it tastes like a mocha frosty. Can it get any better? Now, I am certainly not a nutritionist or personal trainer but there is a lot of research regarding ingesting coffee before a workout and the benefits. Such as...
Key insights on coffee and making exercise feel easier
• Drink coffee one hour before morning or lunchtime exercise. If you want to exercise in the afternoon or evening, enjoy a coffee with your lunch to avoid the effect of the lunchtime dip
• For competitive sports, consuming coffee improves attention to detail, observance of your surroundings, and reduces symptoms of fatigue through caffeine's effect on the central nervous system3
• Hydration is important for endurance exercise performance. Coffee, when consumed in moderation (four to five cups of coffee or 400mg of caffeine per day), provides similar hydrating qualities to water and does not cause dehydration
This article outlines the benefits and the potential risks of caffeine. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2649714/Coffee-improves-workout-THIRD-experts-say-youll-reduce-nutrient-intake-raises-blood-pressure-totally-up.html#ixzz3EIT8UAIX Bananas are also great pre-workout snacks because they provide you with some key nutrients such as manganese and potassium. They are also a healthy form of carbs which are good for pre-workout. See here. I just freeze 2 bananas in a mason jar and when I come home I toss in 2 tsp of instant coffee and top it off with chocolate almond milk and blend! You could use plain almond milk or water if you wanted. But it's pretty tasty this way... Keep it spicy! Cinnamon xx insta @cinnamonheartvegan twitter @cinnamonheartv
Alright, this one is actually about food. I had an eggplant sitting out and getting a bit spotty, so I of course went to pinterest to find a new recipe. I came across this vegan spicy eggplant pasta recipe. I modified it because I only had one eggplant, and I also only had whole wheat pasta, and fresh on the vine tomatoes. Below is the modified recipe.
1 Medium Eggplant 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil, divided 1 small/medium onion 2 cloves of garlic 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes 1 tsp dry oregano 1 tsp crushed red pepper (or more to make it spicy) 1/2 tsp of dry basil 1/2+ tsp salt 1/2 pound of the pasta of your choice
Slice eggplant crosswise into 1 inch slices, salt them on both sides and let them sit for 30 mins (I actually only did 10 mins) Chop up onions, garlic, and tomatoes while the eggplants are busy getting salty and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Use 1 T of the olive oil and coat the eggplant slices, salt and pepper them thoroughly and pop in the oven to roast for about 20-30 minutes. While the eggplant is roasting, heat the other T of olive oil in a medium sauce pan and cook onions and garlic until soft/slightly golden, add oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, and salt, and tomatoes. Gently simmer. Bring pot of water to a boil and cook pasta of choice until el dente. When the eggplant is nice and cooked take it out of the oven, and chop it into aprox. 1 inch cubes (I peeled it because the skin was spotty) and throw them in with the tomatoes and onions. Simmer together until pasta is done, or longer if you want. Drain pasta and combine with the sauce. Serve, top with more pepper flakes and eat.
I will note, I think that if I made this again I would add more chili, maybe... just more spice in general. Since I've eaten so much Indian food all my food needs to be super flavourful and spicy all the time haha. I also think that it would be really tasty over quinoa instead. I am about to start a new instagram and post my food pics there, so please go give me a follow @cinnamonheartvegan. You can also find me on twitter @cinnamonheartv. I also wanted to note, I have zero cooking training and all my pictures are taken with my Samsung S3. So yeah, it's a novice blog :P Keep it spicy, Cinnamon xx
I really struggled with what to name this chili. I named it Black and White Chili because I used 1 can black beans and 1 can white kidney beans. But I also considered calling it Rainbow Chili. Because I used a green and a yellow pepper, and there's the corn and the tomatoes so it's really quite a rainbow. So call it what ever feels good to you!
I also made some corn bread with it. I didn't let the corn bread cook long enough because I was hungry, so I think next time I would poor it into muffin tins so it cooks faster and I don't destroy it by trying to cut it up. It is quite a dense corn bread, not of the fluffy variety. But I thought they were both quite delicious!
Black and White Chili
1 Medium Onion
2 Bell Peppers
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Jalapeno
1 28 oz can of Tomatoes
1 can Black Beans
1 can White Beans
1 cup Corn
½ can Tomato Paste
2 tsp Brown Sugar
1 T Red Chili Powder
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 bay leaf
3+ cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste
1.Chop ONION, PEPPERS, and GARLIC.
2. You can use either oil or water to soften up the chopped ONIONS, GARLIC, and JALAPENO.
3. Once those are softened or a lightly browned add in all the SPICES.
4. Add in BEANS, CORN, TOMATO PASTE, PEPPERS, SUGAR and WATER.
5. Cook until peppers and tomatoes are fully cooked, or longer if you can to help the flavours mingle. Add as much water as you want for more soupy, or less for a drier chili.
Since becoming vegan I have had a few non vegan "treat days". Say what you will, some people will say that I'm not a vegan then. Whatever. I believe everyone should be able to eat whatever the F*$# you want. For the most part I am vegan. My boyfriend and I would go for the odd treat to dairy queen, he loves ice cream. But since I've been vegan for a little while I find that I don't even like the taste of milk or ice cream any more. So, I am on a mission to make delicious vegan treats so I never have to (or even want to) go out for a treat. It's way cheaper, and healthier. This is a SUPER simple popsicle recipe that could easily be modified to change the fruit or add different flavourings. This is all things that I would put in my breakfast smoothie so I consider it healthy! Vanilla Orange Pineapple Popsicles. 2 cups frozen pineapple 1/2 cup vanilla vegan yogurt 1/2 cup orange juice That's it! Throw it all in the blender. Spoon it into your popsicle makers Freeze. Bam! Eat them. Next time I would probably add a medjool date or two to sweeten it up a bit. You could also just add a bit of sugar or agave.
All my pictures are from my phone. They are not of professional quality, nor composition. But they work for me.
This soup is a modified version of the recipe here.
The recipe on that site is for a nice basic carrot soup but I wanted one that had more spices and depth. So I made it in a bit more of an Indian style, with more spices and cooked more the way Indian food is cooked. Making a sort of tarka to start, where you add the onion, garlic, ginger and spices to hot oil, and then adding the veg and liquid. This soup is dairy free and gluten free if you don't eat it with any tasty tasty bread.
I love anything with coconut. Except piña coladas. Tangent: one time, when my family was in hawaii we were thirsty and went into a little shop and I had no idea what a piña colada was but coconut and pineapple sounded delicious so I got a virgin piña colada. (I was like 8). One sip and I knew it was disgusting. But I felt too bad to tell my parents that I didn't like it. So, my brilliant self thought that I would just "accidentally" drop it. It made such a mess. I felt so bad. And then! The shop people offered to make me a new one and I was like no no no no please no. So we said sorry and left. Whoops.
To me, the coconut in this soup is what really makes it. This soup is warm, creamy and spicy. A great soup for a chilly day. I don't pretend to be a chef or particularly knowledgeable but I've been cooking for my self since I was 17, experimenting with vegetarian and now vegan recipes. I used to be really scared to stray away from recipes, but now (thanks to my boyfriend telling me to stop trusting google so much haha) I have the confidence to change recipes and adapt them to either my dietary requirements, or to my taste. Every ingredient in this recipe I would say, add more, or less, if you want! Totally dependent on your taste. This isn't too hot spice wise but you could totally add more chili, or none if you aren't a fan of heat.
This time round I actually made it specifically to freeze, which I haven't done before with this soup so I hope it freezes ok. This soup is great for lunches. I can put it in a mason jar and eat it without a spoon. Cause obviously if I'm vegan I HAVE to put as many things as possible in mason jars. It's at thing.
Indian Inspired Carrot Ginger Coconut Soup
2 T Olive Oil
2 pounds of Carrots (about 8 medium/large)
1 medium Onion
4 cloves of Garlic
2 inches of Ginger (2
tsp ground)
1 Bay Leaf
2 Veggie Broth Cubes + 5 cups water (or just 5 cups of broth of your choice)
1 can Coconut Milk
4 tsp Curry Powder
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Red Chili Powder
1 tsp Garam Masala 1. Add olive oil to sauce pan and heat up. Add
ONION, GARLIC, and GINGER. Saute until soft/lightly browned. 2. Add CURRY POWDER, CUMIN, RED CHILI, and GARAM
MASALA and mix. Add water if necessary. 3. Add chopped CARROTS and BAYLEAF and mix, then
add water and bouillon cubes. If your me, proceed to drop at least a handful of the carrots on the floor and employ the 5 second rule. 4.Bring to a boil, then lower to medium/low and
simmer until carrots are soft. 5.When they are soft turn off heat and allow to
cool for about 5 minutes. If your me just leave it until you remember that you shouldn't be playing dragon worldon your phone and should probably blend the soup now! 6. After it has cooled down a bit, take out the bay
leaf, pour soup into blender. If it doesn't all fit, do in multiple batches. If you own an immersion blender use that instead. 7.Pour blended soup back into sauce pan, re-warm
and add coconut milk. Taste and add salt if necessary. 8. Garnish with pepper and enjoy. It's super delicious with a piece of crusty bread or with a freshly made naan bread. Yum!
What was I listening to while I made this? Glad you asked.
A vegan ice cream staple is Coconut Bliss. The sweetest part about it is that it is vegan and organic! Also, gluten, sugar and soy free. Oh, and it's super tasty! I got the chocolate hazelnut fudge and it is delightful. Super decadent and creamy with swirls of fudge and pieces of hazelnut. Definitely a real treat. You can eat it while imagining your future spouse will be as sweet and ethical.
