vegan – Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION.

Planted Expo – Plant Based Eating

You can also call it mindful eating. Plant based eating has become very popular and even though I’m not really vegan, I prefer to incorporate more veggies and an overall healthful eating regime into my daily life. I have several completely vegan friends though. And let me say that it is more challenging to accommodate them. For instance I love cheese and I’ve had a hard time (until now) finding a cheese that isn’t really cheese as we know it, but tastes like it. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Made on **Planet Earth** – out of this world!

But as of only yesterday I’ve discovered a world of wonderful substitutes that are as tasty as they are non-dairy. It was a bit overwhelming to say the least with all the various vendors and not knowing which way to turn or what to eat first. That’s not to say that I’m going to give up on buying my regular weekly grab bag of French/Swiss/German/Canadian/Worldly cheese from Les Amis de Fromage anytime soon. It’s just that I’m willing to adapt and experiment with plant based types of foods which keep getting better and better as they merge into the mainstream food chain.

The foods we eat have a significant impact on the health of the planet.

**Peak Bakery** is like having a French Baker in your freezer. Your can order at peakbakery.ca

I just attended the second annual Planted Expo here in Vancouver which took place over the past weekend at the Convention Centre West downtown – the place for large events. This event was much larger than I expected. Infact, it’s the largest event of its kind in Canada.

And I tried to take a bath. **delush** is a magic stick to take away your aches and pains. https://www.delush.co/shop/skin-body/the-magic-stick/

The need to talk about the benefits of eating a plant-first diet is at its peak. British Columbia is the province with the highest share of vegetarians and vegans and we know meat and dairy alone account for 14.5 percent of global annual greenhouse gas production—so it’s no surprise that for a while now, Canadians have shown interest in cutting back on meat. Committing to eating less meat however is easier said than done. It’s time-consuming to figure out how to best create a well-balanced, nutritious meal.

A few examples below taken from vendors at the show and from the blog of plantedlife.com

Ready made meals for everyone (not only Vegans):

Marie Grapé is co-founder of Manna Sacred Meals. As a Filipino-Canadian woman, she grew up being used to a heavy animal-based diet. When she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, she decided to take a step back to consider how her food habits were affecting her health. “I felt compelled to defy traditional medicine and normalize my disorder so that everyone moving to a plant-based diet for health reasons can do so easily while enjoying the same breadth of variety in flavours and textures as everyone else.”

“The first challenge is that the change seems really daunting when the majority of us have been conditioned to have meat with each meal. A second challenge is a process by which people shift. Often people shift overnight and end up blaming the lack of nutrients on the plant-based lifestyle. This is why we launched Manna, we take the burden away and allow people to fall in love with the benefits and flavour of great plant-first meals!”

Sustainable Snacking:

The team at Kove (Silver Sponsor at Planted Expo) is developing the tastiest, most delicious foods made with Cascadia Seaweed, seaweed grown in the pristine waters of the Pacific Ocean in partnership with First Nations. By simply cultivating seaweed in the ocean, Cascadia and Kove are working to solve some of the biggest challenges humanity is facing today; climate change, economic instability and food security. Kove’s first product powered by Cascadia Seaweed is its furikake style signature seaweed seasoning SEA SPICE which is available in retail stores and online. We put the sea in seasoning, so you can put it on EVERYTHING you love to eat. Salty, crunchy, garlicky, sea-weedy, and absolutely yummy. Good for the Planet, Good for the Community, Good for You. The sustainable way to snack.

Guilt Free (and “Free”) Chocolate:

I bought the last bag of Drop Naked Salted Nut Caramel Chocolates.

Not only delicious but hand made with limited ingredients like dates, cocoa butter, Madagascar vanilla, hazelnuts and raw cane sugar. Made by Matan Volach. matan@dropnaked.com

At the time I didn’t realize that I’d be eating a satisfying lunch with dessert there. My friend Lynda accompanied me and she ate just as much.

Met this little charmer named **Boglin** (I’m talking about the dog who spent 4 years in a crate in China before being rescued by this very nice girl). His name comes from a movie called “The Boglins” – a powerful character.

Photos: d. king

https://www.plantedlife.com/

Food + Drink

Food in the Forest: pilgrimme

pilgrimme on Galiano Island is a foodie dining out discovery. It may be off the beaten path, but even so, it’s not easy to get a reservation. It has been voted in Canada’s 100 TOP Restaurants for good reason. I called a couple weeks in advance and was considered lucky to get a table for four during my recent stay on Galiano. And what a dining experience it turned out to be.

plgrimme, the restaurant. It’s worth the ferry ride over.

For years, Galiano remained a well-kept secret, its charms known mainly to the farmers and artisans who called it home. The cozy wood cabin previously existed as a much loved French restaurant for years before present owners Leanne Lalonde and Jesse McLeery put their name above the door. Leanne had previously worked for Rosewood’s King Pacific Lodge in the great bear rainforest where she first met Jesse.

Jesse made the inspiring journey to Denmark to spend the winter in the kitchen of Copenhagen’s acclaimed Noma, a two-Michelin-star restaurant . Returning west with new ideas and a reinforced vision, Jesse, with Leanne, opened pilgrimme working with the growers and artisans of Galiano Island. Everything is made fresh from scratch, locally sourced, farm-to-table, creatively plated and extremely tasty. Even the ceramics are made on the island. They have a nicely curated wine list too.

Some of the shared plates created especially for us

Here’s the thing that impressed me the most. The restaurant created an all vegan menu which was absolutely delicious because out of our group of four people, two and a half of us are vegan. I must admit that I had my reservations about that at first because I thought that vegan food would be less tasty but everything turned out to be surprisingly excellent. As good or better than anything I’ve had in a restaurant all year. And it made me change my mind-set. In a perfect world we would all be vegan and everything would be better off. Although I’m not quite ready to totally live up to that. I’m not perfect just yet.

Visit Pilgrimme

FUN

Simply Satisfying – Vegan Chocolate Chip / Coconut Cookies

These vegan friendly cookies are yummy enough for non-vegans too. They do not include the usual suspects (dairy such as butter, or eggs) nor refined sugar and all-purpose flour that are commonly used to make cookies.

They include:

1 cup instant oatmeal (or rolled oats)

½ cup coconut flour

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. fine seasalt

Sprinkling of ground Cinnamon (about ¼ – ½ tsp.)

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used organic dark cane)

1/3 cup canola oil

¼ cup almond milk (I used the unsweetened version)

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (or 1 ½ tsp. & ½ tsp. of almond extract)

½ cup vegan semisweet chocolate chips (like Sunspire – veganstore.com)

½ cup of unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)

Note: For my first batch I used a combo of Ghirardelli milk & semi-sweet chocolate chips that were on hand.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together oatmeal (or oats), pastry flour, coconut flour, baking soda, cinnamon & seasalt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together brown sugar, oil, almond milk, vanilla (or combo of vanilla & almond extract); pour mixture into the batter and stir until combined. Stir in chocolate chips and coconut flakes.

For each cookie, drop 1 Tbsp. (or 2 Tbsp. for bigger cookies) of dough 2 inches apart onto the baking sheets. Note: Some of the dough might fall apart as you try to drop it – just roll it in your hands a little to shape it before putting it back on the sheet. It will still bake okay.

Bake for about 15 minutes. Let them cool slightly before moving them to a plate or tray. ENJOY these delicious guilt free cookies.

You can try substituting peanut butter instead of the coconut flakes or even adding a bit of natural peanut butter to the mix. I haven’t tried this yet but it definitely sounds good.

Do you have a great vegan cookie recipe you’d like to share?