Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Mele Kalikimaka!

   I love the holidays!  Especially spending time with my family, baking yummy treats, and eating tons of delicious food!  I'm really excited about the time off of work as well.  I wish I could say that I'd be relaxing, but what I really need to be doing is homework.  I've been neglecting it a bit, especially this week, which means I have lots to catch up on!

Aren't they cute!?

    But, I won't bore you with anymore homework talk.  And by the way, I do plan to spend a bit of time baking, hanging out with the family and of course, Boxing Day shopping.  If you're not Canadian, Google "Boxing Day" and you'll understand.  I also need to get over this cold that I finally caught.  Trust me, you're bound to catch one when you have tiny children sneezing on you all day and all of your friends and family seem to be sick as well!
   Anyway, I promised you some info about my raw food workshop that I attended and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to post!  Here goes:   

The location...

   The workshop was held at Marbles Restaurant where Renee (our host) is a Raw Food Chef.  It's a cozy restaurant with a charming atmosphere.  Renee was very enthusiastic and informative.

   She began by introducing herself and talking about why she went raw in the first place.  She initially went raw to try and clear up a skin disease when nothing else would help.  Well, she cleared it up and after 6 years on the raw food diet she's still loving it.

   We talked about what it means to eat raw foods (foods that are whole and unprocessed and still have there enzymes intact).  We covered some raw food basics like equipment: a blender and a knife is really all you need to get started.  You may also like to have a food processor, juicer and dehydrator down the line.  We also went through some pantry essentials, like raw nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, fresh produce, etc. 

Here's what we ate:

Pasta Marinara with sesame seed parm and microgreens

Chocolate truffles with cashew kream

   The food was of course super delicious and definitely great for people new to raw food.  No crazy ingredients to scare the newbies away!  I'm glad I went and would totally go to something like this again.

   Anyway, I also promised you some holiday baking!  Well, I'll definitely have more pictures and recipes soon, as we plan to do some baking tomorrow on Christmas Eve (fingers crossed that I'll be well enough to participate).  But, here's a pic of a couple of goodies that my mom made the other day (yes, they're vegan).

   She made way more than this and different kinds too, but they were gone by the time I thought to take a picture! Ha.  I'll try and do better tomorrow!

   Oh, and one last thing.  I've been trying to beat this cold for a while with lots of green juices and smoothies, and even though it finally caught up to me, I'm still going strong with them.  Here's what breakfast has been looking like lately:

Cucumber, lime, celery, romaine.

    If you haven't tried a green juice yet, you really should.  You won't believe how much energy you have after drinking it!

Have a wonderful holiday!  May it be filled with joy and laughter, family, friends, food and fun! (and maybe a green juice or two!) 

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Ves xx