Trapezing :D

It's my first ever time on the trapeze, but I'm doing well! It's soooo much fun!! Lots of strength required, though.  (the back of my thighs were super sore after..)

the "Gazelle", one hand off

"Gazelle", no hands. This is actually pretty scary at first because you feel like you're gonna do a face plant when you let go, but if you pull your thighs in really hard, you'll stay up! :D

Happy trapezing!

Fresh!

I had lunch at Fresh today after my 2 hour long fitness assessment to reward myself :D. By the way, thanks to yoga, I can now do 20 triceps push ups on my toes, feet up on an incline! thank you, sun salutations!

Once again,  I'm super satisfied with my order at Fresh. This time I chose "Sam Houston burrito" :)

Stuff in it: Slow cooked soy ground and sweet potato taco filling, sauteed pepper and onion, salsa, avocado chipotle sauce, lettuce, and alfalfa sprouts. It comes with a tiny side kale slaw.


The taste was superb! Filling was also very generous, as always.

jam packed with filling

Chilli sauce from Fresh :)

Yum!! The next time you're downtown, don't forget to visit them!

Lemongrass cookie!

I baked Lemongrass cookies today! They smelled and tasted great!! A change from the common chocolate chip cookie :D Recipe below.

Ingredients that you'll need (vanilla missing here xP)

 Ready to go into the oven (sprinkled with lemongrass)

 baking! :D see these babies spreading?

 Almost done! Can't wait to eat 'em!!!

By this point my saliva is already dripping.

 Still have to let it cool before eating

mmmm...soo good!

Lemongrass cookie!

1 1/4 cups flour (I used spelt plus a gluten free mix)

1/2 cup sugar (I use coconut sugar)

1/2 cup Earth balance

2 heaping tablespoons pureed silken tofu (or soy mayonnaise)

2 teaspoons each lemongrass and ginger powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

1. Cream sugar and Earth Balance.  
2. Add in pureed tofu and vanilla, mix well. 
3. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add to sugar and Earth balance mixture.
4. Stir gently until a dough is formed. -Don't over mix! or you will get hockey pucks :(
5. Drop by tablespoon fulls on baking sheet lined with parchment and bake for 15min or til golden in preheated 325 degree oven. The larger your cookie, the longer it will take, but make sure you check regularly or the bottom will burn!
6. Let cool on tray for about 5-10 min, then transfer to cooling rack. 
7. Enjoy with a cup of tea :D

West meets Mex

Because the egg-less egg salad that I had at the TVA volunteer party on Friday was so good, I decided to remake it (I also wanted to use up the freshly made tofu that my mom got from a Korean supermarket called Galleria. Let me just tell you this, NO other tofu, not even Sproutofu, can compare to this. The taste is just A-mazing.)

They make their soy milk and tofu on site. You can actually see them make it!

 I just put in whatever I think should be in an egg salad because I'm too lazy to google it. It tastes super similar! I brought it to school for lunch, and I paired it with pineapple salsa with some corn threw in. Usually when people have tofu scramble and salsa, the tofu is generally seasoned with Mexican spices, but this is the imitation of the typical mayo-laden western egg salad. Believe me, this combo tastes superb as well!

On a bed of spring mix and sugar snap peas

My 1st attempt Egg-less egg salad recipe

~ means approximately, because I like to eyeball ingredients

1 square/block of tofu, crumbled --preferably medium, firm might be too grainy

~1/3 cup vegan mayonnaise --you can use Vegenaise or make your own, which is much healthier-(recipe below)

~1 tbsp mustard

~2 tbsp nutritional yeast

~1 tsp each garlic and onion powder

~1-2 dashes of:

• curry powder
• cumin powder
• turmeric powder
• dried dill weed
• cayenne--if you like it hot, like yoga
• Black pepper
• Salt/ume plum vinegar/braggs

Mix everything into the crumbled tofu. Even your cat can do this.

Play around with how much spice you put in to suit your own taste bud. For fun, I also threw in some pitted chopped olives.

 As promised, The Mayonnaise recipe:

• -1 block silken tofu
• -1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• -1 tablespoon agave nectar
• -1 tablespoon lemon juice
• -1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• -1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
• -1/2 teaspoon salt

Blend everything except the olive oil in your food processor until very smooth. With the blender running, pour in olive oil from the top until completely mixed in. Voila!

Lululemon @ Value Village

If you don't know what Lululemon is, its a brand that sells great quality (and very expensive) athletic wear and accessories that originates from Vancouver. Virtually everyone I know wears Lululemon shorts, pants, and sweaters, carries around a Lululemon tote, etc, etc. I've always dreamed of having a sweater or something from Lululemon (they look very comfy!), but my pocket would be empty after a shopping trip to their store!

So, on my way to cirque training... ...
For the first time ever, I wnet into Value Village, a donation-based store, and found--- A LULULEMON sweater in very good condition! And it was only $7.99!! When I grabbed the sweater, another girl saw it and told her mom "Look! She found a Lululemon sweater!"

You can probably imagine how ecstatic I felt. Its that super satisfying feeling that you get whenever you find a bargain. On top of the sweater I also found an Athletic works technical long sleeve top for $6.99. I bought it because it has a back pocket for cards and such for when I go for a run, and it looks brand new!

Lululemon sweater!

Athletic works tech shirt

the back pocket for card/money/bus tickets in case you get lost on your run

I walked out of the store looking like this:

xD

Its also nice to know that when you buy from Value Village, the money is donated to charities :)

Originally I wanted to have dinner at Fresh, a mostly vegan restaurant with super fantastically delicious food, but because their food is soo good, I decided to save it for special ocassions :D

So here's what I had for dinner- Indian/Mexican style kelp noodle 

I threw in leftovers from the fridge-- kelp noodles, pineapple salsa, avocado, tomatoes, baby kale, curry sauce, curried tempeh, mushrooms. A very delicious combination!

Camros Organics, Hair in my kale chips, lots of "How on Earth can you do more push ups than the guys", and TVA party!! :)

A few days ago between classes, I went to Camros Organics Eatery near Yonge/Bloor for lunch because I had a dealfind coupon that's worth $20 (I bought it for $10).

I was a little disappointed that they're not vegan, so I couldn't buy any of the baked stuff... :( but other than that here's what I ordered:

A plate with 3 items, around $11

Marinated kale salad (which I happily devoured before I remembered to take a picture of my meal), black bean salad (minty! yum.), and Mung bean stew. The food was good! and I liked how everything is plastic free, even the take out fork (its wood!).

Finish! :) 

I join the Clean plate club at every meal, because I HATE wasting stuff. I always tell people who don't finish their food that there's hungry people in other parts of the world wishing they can have something to eat

For dessert I bought a cute little raw cardomom cookie, since everything else that's not raw has dairy/eggs in them. 

Texture is a little too chunkie but the taste was great! ($2.19)

Originally I wanted to order a smoothie, an entree, and a dessert, but it turned out that the smoothies on the menu are "Coming soon"(aww shucks!), so in the end I bought a pack of Chipotle ranch kale chips for $7. Normally I would never spend that much on a bag of kale chips, but since I had to use up the coupon, that's the best selection that I had. 

Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely LOVE kale chips(whoever invented it, THANK YOU! :D), its just way to expensive...

I have to agree with the customer reviews, the food in general taste good and home-y, and the service was great! So I decided to leave my own :) I've been to certain vegan restaurants and despite the delicious food, service was so bad so I never went back. Sometimes they have bad service AND bad food. I don't want to name names.(unless you really want to know what place it is then you can leave a comment and I'll tell you)

So, yesterday, I finally decided to eat the kale chips that I bought from Camros. To my surprise there was a huge piece with a strand of hair in it!! Gaaahhhhh!!!

I was sooo lucky I didn't bite into it! I broke the piece in half because I wanted to put it on my salad, and boy, am I glad I did!! But wait! Don't blame it on Camros! The package was from Live Organic food bar!
Lesson learned: Never judge a book by its cover. LIVE may seem all holy and clean on the outside, but who knows how they prepare their food! As gross as it may seem, I still ate the kale chips (because they were delicious), I just pulled out the hair xP

My super delicious salad! yummy! I should have taken a picture before I mixed them up heheh..

Stuff in it: spring mix, red peppers, baby carrots, edamame hummus, saurkraut, dried kelp buds, chipotle ranch kale chips

phew~ enough with food (okay fine, nobody can ever get enough of food xD), let me tell you about my epic day today :) 
I went to Applied Exercise technique class this morning, not ready for an intense workout. They told us that we're going to be active, but I didn't expect to have a fitness competition at 8am on a Friday morning, after a lack of sleep due to work last night! Anyhow, I was surprised by my results! (Thank you, Shawn T, and your amazing Insanity crew, I couldn't have done so well without you guys)

First it was a Wall Sit challenge. When it was down to the last three (I was one of them), they made us hold a medicine ball on top of our heads and another one on our quads! Because it was the first exercise and nobody knew who was good yet, everybody was amazed at how long I held the wall sit (plus the balls) because I'm the tiniest in the class(not short, but skinny I guess, that's why everyone said I'm small)! Everyone was asking "How does she hold that? The balls are heavier than her! She's not even moving!" lol...

Next up, the one and only, Push Ups!

I beat all the guys! I was shocked because I was expecting that the boys will win this round! I challenged myself to do them on my toes before going onto my knees (it was an option for people who can't do them on their toes yet), and I did it! I was on my toes the whole entire time!!! yayyyyyeyyyyyy!!

The second last challenge was the 45 degree hold (all we had to do was hold ourselves in this position)

It sorta hurt my tailbone, but hey, whatever won't kill you will only make you stronger, no? 

The last challenge was the Prisoner's squat. I loved this the most! In order to get rid of more people, after a few minutes of regular squats , they made us do jump squats! But it was a lot of fun :D 

The funnest part of all was at the end when we were split into 2 groups for a round of tug-of-war.

I was lucky! My group won! :DDDDD

I'm SO prepared to be super sore tomorrow :) Call me crazy, but I kinda like the feeling of soreness (not pain, though!).I didn't go through all the pain for nothing! I got a GBC notebook and a calculator/calendar thing for winning :D

After class people were talking about how shocked they were because NOBODY expected that a girl like me would win the fitness competition, not to mention beat the huge, muscular guys. Some people came up to me and went "Aren't you the gymnast? No wonder you're so strong!", and some told me "Your legs are all muscles!". I was really tempted to tell them that I'm Powered by tofu! (aka I'm a vegan. But however much I love my tofu, I do not just eat tofu, or I would probably become one).  So instead of advocating the benefits of a vegan diet to a bunch of people who eat pepperoni pizzas and artificially flavoured whey protein everyday and will not care whatsoever about plant based diet, I just made a sign and put it on my locker door and my folder :)

It says:

VEGAN AND FIT!

made on reused paper

After that I was supposed to have Nutrition class, but my prof came in, gave us an assignment , and told us class is cancelled. How awesome is that??

So, (I notice that I use the word "so" a lot), in the evening I went to my aerial class, and this is the picture of the day! I love love love going there because I get to learn something new every time!

Another awesome thing that happened today was that I GOT TO RIDE ON THE NEW TTC ROCKET while I was going to the Toronto Vegetarian Association volunteer party! It was soo high tech!

Not separated between , so you can walk from the tip to the end of the train!

It shows which stop is next on the screen

Tells you which doors to exit :)

While at the TVA party...(lots and lots of yummy food!)

The pretty view of downtown Toronto from the party room

hor d'oeuvres
The "egg-less egg salad sandwich" tastes so similar to the real stuff its crazy. The round thing with a green tortilla outer layer has pulled pork(vegan), jackfruit and ginger in it

pretty!

tofu skewers with cashew dip

white bean and roasted tomato tartlets

desserts! you can never tell their vegan.

top view

Mojito tartlet! sooo good!!! (I don't drink)

Candied pistachio napoleons. Not bad.

Tiramisu mini cupcakes. Again, soooooo good!!

Gluten free Lintzer cookie. Buttery :)

I don't know what's with me and hair......WHY DO I ALWAYS FIND HAIR IN MY FOOD???


Award ceremony for volunteers who sold the most memberships

Me on the left, Barbi, the super sweet and amazing volunteer co-ordinator, on the right