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

Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival !

Last weekend was the annual Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival, and as always, I volunteered at the event, this year as a cooking demo food prep assistant. I met so many vegan cookbook authors and chefs! 

It used to be called "Vegetarian Food Fair", but now its officially a "Food Festival"!

Free yoga demonstrations, live music, talks, and more!

Some famous vegan chefs, cookbook authors and bloggers who came--

Lisa Pitman and Nicole Axworthy of the famous vegan food blogs 

veganculinarycrusade.com and adashofcompassion.com

Terry Hope Romero, author of  Viva Vegan and co-author of Veganomicon, Vegan cupcakes Take Over the World, and Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar cookbooks

Doug Mcnish, owner of Raw Aura restaurant 

Jae Steele, author of Ripe from Around Here cookbook

and so much more... ...

Oh yeah! Vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke was here too!!

 I was about to go to his talk, but fortunately I dared myself to take part in the "Vegan Iron Chef" contest hosted by Doug Mcnish during his cooking demo. Amazingly my team and I won the challenge and we got SO many freebies!

The contest started off with a trivia game, and if we get the question right, we get the item. I was lucky! My team happened to be a smarty-pants-about-nutrition-and-food team, so we got some pretty good ingredients (hemp seeds, nutritional yeast, sweet potatoes, tofu, kale, extra virgin coconut oil, tahini)
The other team got brown rice, peaches, and avocadoes. Hmm.

I went into "cooking competition mode" (I've been spending too much time watching Food network lol) and started planning what we were gonna make.
I was in charge of the tofu (yay!).

I decided to make nutritional yeast and hemp seed crusted tofu (although I've never made or tried it before.) Not only have I been watching Food Network, I've been spending wayy too much time reading recipe books hehehe...
Here's what I randomly threw into the batter (includes some other items available to us from the pantry)

• nutritional yeast
• hemp seeds
• sesame seeds
• ground cashews
• paprika, black pepper, salt, oregano
• veg broth (to make it become batter-y)

I pan fried it in coconut oil and surprisingly it turned out very well! Even Doug said it tasted good. 

(Watch out, world! Vegan chef in the making!)

Leftovers that I took home. They tasted very similar to KFC chicken :D

Jason Charette, my teammate, was in charge of the kale. He made a "kale-tahini" sauce. It tasted wrong at first (too much raw kale taste)! So I saved the day by suggesting he add brown rice vinegar, agave nectar, and some cashew. People were actually asking for the recipe! (obviously we didn't have any). The only reason I knew what to add to the sauce to make it taste better is because I've made too many things that tasted disgusting, and since it kills me to see food goes in the garbage, I had to keep adding random stuff to make them edible xP

As for the sweet potatoes, we just roasted them in the oven with some spices and olive oil. (but it tasted great!)

The amazing prizes that we won--

$25 gift cert for Raw Aura restaurant

Rume reusable bag 

Nourish tea (brown rice sencha)

and a (designer?) glass straw 

My team on the right, Doug in the centre, the other team on the left

It was after this awesome experience that inspired me to start this blog. One day I might even have my own vegan cookbook! But in the mean time, I'll keep you posted on some crazy fun stuff that I do, food that I've tried, and recipes that I've created. Can't wait!!