May 18th

Since I've been eating leftovers - glorious curry leftovers - I thought I would take this time to introduce you to some of my favourite vegan products that I'd never tried before I seriously started thinking about going vegan. Maybe you're familiar with some or all of them, maybe you've never heard of any of them, but if the next time you go to the store and need margarine and come out with Earth Balance Buttery Spread instead, then I've done my job! Earth Balance is a really easy and great substitution - you use it just like you would dairy butter. And it tastes amazing...so very yummy. My favourite is to eat it on toast or baguette with baked beans. I really recommend trying this one out at least once. You can find it in health food stores or the health food section of larger grocery stores. Even if you're not even remotely considering going vegan, it's so much kinder, so feel free to use it anyway. I guarantee you'll love it.

The next product I was introduced to is brown rice syrup. This is a natural sweetener, like maple syrup, but made from brown rice which is cooked down with some kind of enzyme that breaks the rice down and you're left with the sweetness. I've mentioned this before - it's good drizzled on ice cream and pancakes and oatmeal. It looks like caramel or honey and has the same consistency, but it has a much milder flavour. The flavour of it is hard to describe - some vegans call it caramel-y but I don't really think it is since it's so much less sweet. That being said, it has a much deeper flavour than white sugar and kind of keeps the sweet taste alive in your mouth soooo much longer. It took me awhile to get to really appreciate it, I guess because I was expecting something exactly like the artificial caramel spread you can buy in grocery stores. It's nothing like that though and I appreciate it so much more now that I'm less bombarded with sugary sweets. I haven't gone strictly vegan and taken out all sugars yet, but even no longer eating gummy worms and fuzzy peach candies has made my tongue appreciate gentle natural sweetness. If you ever see it in the store and need some honey or a different topping for your morning pancakes or summer sundae, please give it a try. It might take you awhile to like it or you might love it instantly, but it's so worth using as it's a much healthier option than sugar. Try it in tea - I hear it's yummy, though I only drink herbal teas that don't need sweetening. But on soy ice cream? mmm...

Finally for today I wanted to tell you all about my newfound love affair with kale. I think before this month I'd eaten kale maybe once or twice, but I'd never really thought about my leafy greens. Turns out they're soooo packed with nutrients and goodness and light (as in literal light, like sunlight...you're eating sunlight from all that photosynthesis! the darker the green colour, the better) that it's very important for vegans to try to eat leafy greens at least once a day, although I really think this should apply to everyone's diet. Everyone could stand to eat a little more sunshine. Sunniness aside, kale was the leafy green that called to me over collards or bok choy or spinach (spinach and me, we're not friends...I still haven't gotten over the rotten spinach salad I ate years ago...ugh). I love that you can cook it with sauces or plain; you can wilt it into soups or pastas; or you can turn it into a chip (check out my kale chips recipe from May 1st) and any way you cook it it tastes delicious. My favourite is still the garlicky sundried tomato kale saute, but if you put any type of kale in front of me (except for rotten - I've learned that lesson) you can be sure I'll gobble it up.

So these are my fave products for the day. Maybe try one or all of them out. I have lots more though, so don't worry if you haven't found the one that piques your interest. I'll be writing about some more of them soon!