Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Banana Bread

Rebirth is an incredible thing. To look back at who you were just a few years ago and see a totally different person is not at all alarming. In fact it feels right, it feels satisfying, it feels healing.
I have come to learn something important in the last few months that I feel so grateful for knowing. And more equally grateful that I’ve started to take this lesson and promote it as much as I can in my future. And this lesson is to welcome, embrace and celebrate change.

To be able to heal because of a change in my life was a concept I never expected to make sense. To me staying in what felt comfortable, staying grounded in every aspect of my life that I knew, that I was familiar with, that I knew would never change – that felt right.
It wasn’t like holding onto anything such as looking back to the past and never letting go of that. It was more like keeping life in a standstill. Keeping life unaltered, safe. It was my way of making sure I was immune to everything, anything that would come my way. You know, the unknown. Little did I know, that unknown is what everyone knows as moving on.

So I continued to keep myself stifled, continued to repress change until finally it burst out of me. I was free, I was scared but I was free. Rebirth was all that I was waiting for and rebirth is what makes me look forward tomorrow, the day after that, next month, next year, next decade and its such and awesome thing!

Kale Salad with Roasted Beets, Dates and Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Ilove that feeling when something new and exciting happens in your life. I absolutely LIVE for that feeling. So in the past few months I have gotten to experience some new and exciting changes in my life – and it all has to do with food.

I think it is really important to take a moment sometimes to stop what you are doing, just step back and assess your life at that moment. It is good to ask questions like – do you feel good about yourself every day? are you being fulfilled? are you holding yourself back in anyway? are you depriving your body and mind with the proper nutrition and tools for long-lasting health and happiness?

As much as I had been improving my way of life little by little this past year, I was still disappointed when I realized that the answers to these questions were not the right answers at all. I knew that I had to do something, something even drastic in my life to ensure that the next time I try to answer these questions the right answers will come up!

So a big thing that I did was finally cut out sugar. I had been cutting out wheat/gluten and dairy for the past year now and I have definitely noticed the positive effects that has had on my body! No more stomach aches from drinking too much milk or eating all that yogurt. And, to my biggest surprise, no more unfortunate bowel movements now that the bread/pasta/gluten is gone! Sorry yes this just got personal but it’s important that we all talk about this stuff. I feel like by not talking about how my digestive system wasn’t working properly this whole time because I was too embarrassed to mention it, put me in a lot of misery these past few years (my whole life really) and I wish I would have remedied it sooner. But better now than later I guess!

Cutting out sugar really helped me with my mood and even more importantly my headaches! I realize that before it was almost NORMAL for me to carry around Advil in my purse and have it next to my bed at all times. I would pop one of them a few times a week because I would get headaches. Well folks it was because of all that SUGAR!

Date Walnut Blueberry Breakfast Muffins [DF + GF]

Ihave always love blueberry muffins, I mean who doesn’t? They were one of the first recipes I had the guts to make all on my own after my fast-food college days, and I remember how delicious they were!

I had bought Joy the Baker’s first cookbook, my first every cookbook I bought (thanks Joy!) and I made her blueberry muffins recipe so many times that the pages are glued together from so much butter, sugar and flour! Who would have thought that ruining a book means that you gave it the most love!

It was after a year or so that I started to understand the effects of eating all that butter, sugar and flour, especially sugar! I started baking blueberry muffins with more healthier sugar, if that is even a thing, like coconut palm sugar. But at end of the day it is still sugar! It is pretty hard to call anything that has sugar in it healthy, though we like to tell ourselves that sometimes it can be.

So then I started to experiment with dates! I had bought them recently to make these peanut butter snack bars and I was amazed at how sweet they were! They also add another layer of caramel-like flavor which makes them even more delicious. I was incredibly curious to see if I could ditch sugars all together and bake using dates instead.

I was so happy when I discovered how easy it was to replace sugar with dates in my baking recipes! I felt that the blueberry muffins even tasted better and they had much more flavor instead of just having a taste of processed sugar.

Vegan Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Matcha Cashew Filling

Let’s play a game: How many sandwich cookies can Linda stack on top of each other without them toppling over and falling to their doom?

 
Well surprisingly I was able to stack five on top of each other with very few complications. Well I would say they only fell over like 7 times, not sure if that is a total success, but it is in my book!

My inspiration for these lovely Vegan Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Matcha Cashew Filling came from the Moon Phase Molasses Cookies I made a couple of months ago. I really loved that cookie recipe from Faring Well that I slightly adapted for those moon phase cookies that I found myself making a batch whenever I felt like it cause they are so easy and so yummy and, wait for it, VEGAN.

 
One thing that definitely struck me when I looked at those moon phase cookies after I had posted them was why I didn’t make them into sandwich cookies! I think some lovely woman commented on my “in progress” photo I posted on Instagram asking what filling I had used and I was like oh dear, this lady knows better than I do! Wish I had come up with that before!

But as ALWAYS you can find another excuse to make cookies again. I mean there is never an inopportune time to make cookies. It is just against our nature as humans cause we are ALL about the sweet life. Am I right?

Raspberry Mango Almond Butter Smoothie Bowl

The day you realize you are actually capable of getting abs is a glorious day. The day you realize they can disappear cause you didn’t work out for a week cause you were too busy eating Girl Scout cookies? No so great, but at least I had my Thin Mints to console me.
I have to mention that when I say getting abs I don’t mean the visible kind that Karlie Kloss has. I mean just actually flexing your stomach and being able to FEEL muscle inside instead of a food baby is pretty empowering. My recent experience, however, of noticing my body and my strength change after not working out for more than a week and indulging in Girl Scout cookies (Thin Mints in my freezer = happy Linda) was definitely an eye opener for me.

It taught me exactly what it’s supposed to teach you, that your body changes and it can change very easily from one moment to the next and it is totally okay cause that’s what it DOES. It is definitely important to understand how your body works and that it is meant to adapt very easily. Just because you have to take a few weeks off and you might be less active than you were before, you can always get back into it and get those muscle back!

Cinnamon Blueberry Banana Pancakes [GF + DF]

Oh gosh aren’t photos of pancakes one of the sexiest things you ever see on the internet nowadays? Most of the celebrities I had crushes on in my adolescence have gotten older so I find myself staring at pictures of pancakes instead.

 
Yes I could stare at these Cinnamon Blueberry Banana Pancakes ALL DAY. Well you know I take that back, most of the male hunks I adore on the big screen are still pretty hot and have gotten even sexier as they have aged. But since I don’t have posters of them on my wall anymore, you know the ones that you rip out from teen magazines (What happened to Josh Hartnett?), I’ll still stare at these pancakes.

Seriously whenever I am on the internet, the images that always catch my eye are that of a tall and sexy stack of delicious looking pancakes. I was always asking myself, is this how people eat pancakes every morning?? Like all even, round and perfectly stacked (not to mention quite a lot of pancakes for one serving). Was there just a secret pancake making tip that I was aware of?

 
Well I realized that when making pancakes you have to treat it like its a main course or you somehow got chosen to make breakfast for the Queen of England or something. This was my secret pancake making tip and then all of a sudden my pancakes no longer look like something that had just gotten run over or, in worse cases, like scrambled eggs. 

I will never become perfect at making pancakes but I will now start to make the act of eating pancakes a little more special by stacking them up nice a pretty and adding lots of yummy fruits and toppings that will make me feel like I am eating pancakes fit for royalty.