La Belle Vie Holistic Living

Nothing says TGIF like a giveaway! To help you celebrate this Friday, I'm giving away a $50 gift certificate to CSN Stores! With over 200 online stores to choose from, you can find everything and anything from dinnerware to awesome wall decals - I'm a sucker for a good wall decal - to portable planetarium projectors. Here are some things from their stores that I particularly fell in love with (all under $50!!): Starting at top left: WallCandy Arts Deerly Beloved Removable Wall Decals, ferm LIVING Mr. Robot Pillow, Banana Boys Set of Three Bottle Stoppers by Stefano Giovannoni for Alessi , ferm LIVING Small Stem Bowl, Alessi Mediterraneo Kitchen Jar Collection, notneutral City on a Plate Set, OWI Robots Solar Peppy Orangutan Kit, Zevro Wall-Mount Magnetic Spice Rack 12 Piece Set, Hadaki 15.4' Eva Laptop Case. So many amazing things! I want them all! ...But especially that coral jar set...ooo or the city on the plates - even just Berlin will do! Or the stem

I've moved! Please visit me at my new home at labellevienutrition.blogspot.com for more recipes and healthy tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks! xoxoxo I love kale. It's one of my favourite foods, my preferred leafy green and the last name of one of my best friends. Kale, also known as borecole, is a a member of cabbage family ( Brassica oleracea Acephala Group ), along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and brussel sprouts. Easy to grow and full of nutrients, kale was a choice vegetable for England's Dig for Victory campaign during World Way II. The history of this magnificent leafy green dates back at least 2000 years, when Sabellian kale, the ancestor to the kale we know today, was cultivated by the Greeks and the Romans in the fourth century BC. It was the most widely eaten green vegetable in Europe until the end of the Middle Ages, when cabbage eclipsed it in popularity. In fact, in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 13th centuries it found i

My guest-blog post for The Daily Dietribe's Gluten-Free Fall Specials is now up! When I think fall, I think warm, oven-fresh baked goods. In celebration, I whipped up some gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, oil-free, incredibly flavour-full blueberry explosion muffins. Wanting to make a muffin that was light and fluffy with a natural sweetness and lots of flavour, I swapped out the oil for applesauce and the sugar for bananas and added in one of my fave tastes of fall: cinnamon. The Daily Dietribe is a great gluten-free, sometimes vegan blog. Iris, the gluten-free genius behind the blog, shares her journey through gluten-freedom along with the tasty recipes she creates and encounters along the way. Basically that's a long way of saying "yum". She also has tons of fun blogging events, like the Adopt-a-Blogger event I somewhat recently participated in. Here are some poser artsy muffin glamour shots for a little sneak preview (taste?) of the deliciousness this reci

This weekend is the weekend of the 26th Annual Vegetarian Food Fair here in Toronto. Wow, that means that there's actually been one almost every year of my life!! That's crazy when you think about it that way! It's held down at Harbourfront Centre and is free, free, free! It's put on by the Toronto Vegetarian Association , which also produces the free Vegetarian Directory. There are tons of vendors all selling their delicious wares at wonderful prices. And non-food vendors too but you all know how my mind works...There is live entertainment, and if you're at all involved even in a minor way in the Toronto veg*n scene, you'll see tons of people that you know! In fact, I even bumped into my neighbour from first and second year university, how's that for craziness!! Anyway, it was my first time going (!!!) and it's an important event as for me it always marks the end of summer. I went with my friend Kristyna, who I'm happy to say had the same prior

Camping in Northern Ontario I know, I know...I've been a bad blogger. I kept starting to write a post, but then would get distracted by the fleeting summer. Sigh, summer...what happened summer? You let me down! Why have you been so cold?? I don't claim to be a weather expert, or even to know anything about weather patterns, in any way, but I blame Earl. Around the time that the hurricane started coming toward the Maritimes, it became super cold, very windy, and the flash torrential downpours started here in Toronto. Darn you, Earl, darn you!! I kept hoping (I think we all did) that the warmth would come back...but the serious signs of the end of summer have since happened: the CNE and the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair. Sure signs of fall. I've also been a bad blogger because I've just been bad when it comes to food. I have not been a very healthy girl at all. Or an inspired girl, when it comes to food. BUT I'm back and there are a lot of exciting things c