Month: May 2012

My lovely friend Jen picked this little vegan spot for our lunch date and I just haaaaaad to post about it! One Lucky Duck is a cozy little restaurant/take out spot with a couple of tables on 17th street and Irving Place and it is a must stop if your in the hood and in the mood for a quick, delicious, nutrient packed vegan shake or juice concoction! I got myself a decadent cacao latte made with bananas, cashew milk, cacao and vanilla and it was ah-mazing! They also have real food, everything from salads to ice cream sundaes to satisfy your little vegan tummy! Also, be sure to check out their website oneluckyduck.com to view more about them and even order some vegan, raw goodies online! Yup, that’s right they sell mail order cookies, dangerous. Very dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

Last night I was saving the planet one meal at a time with out even realizing it! I stumbled upon this all vegetarian fast food-like establishment after kicking some butt at an audition around midtown west and decided I would test it out! It’s on 56th and 8th ave, right on the corner and is pretty casual and affordable. My whole meal was under 10 dollars, I got two sour cream black bean tacos, sweet potato chippers and a water. It was quite a good amount food for the price, not to mention yummy. Of course like the veggie-foodie dork I am, I took pictures and looked up their website, when to my surprise I stumbled upon a vision that extends far beyond just eating healthier vegetarian fare. Check out this insert from their vision statement that I found quite inspiring.

 

Otarian is based on our passion for, and dream of, a sustainable planet, and this vision is paramount to the concept and implementation of the Otarian philosophy. It is the tangible display of our hope in the intelligence of human kind to understand, accept and adapt to a more sustainable way.

One of the main contributors to global environmental degradation is the livestock industry. The effects of large-scale meat production are wide-spread and impact unsustainably on almost all aspects of the environment whilst creating other economic and social costs. Greenhouse gas emissions, inefficient utilisation of resources, deforestation, water pollution, land degradation, unfair trade, ill health and obesity are just some of these costs. The Otarian menu is completely meat-free, a delicious range of vegetarian options that eliminate the negative effects of livestock production whilst providing nourishment. Otarian serves dishes that travel the globe offering to all food that loves life and the planet. – otarian.com ‘our vision’ 

 

How cool is that?! A veggie fast food restaurant that is literally saving the planet one meal at a time?! I implore you to seek one of these babies out and have a meal, tell your friends to have a meal, etc. The world needs more people like the founders of Otarian, people who are looking at the bigger picture and providing fast and easy America with healthy options on the go and contributing to not only healthier people but a healthier planet!  Check out their website http://www.otarian.com/love-food/our-restaurants/new-york.html and start eating for your planet!

 

My sour cream black bean Otarian tacos here on the right >>

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

This post was entirely inspired by my boyfriend who pretty much eats pickles like some people eat potato chips. Till I met him, I was unaware anyone could go through so many jars of pickles in one sitting. It took a little while to get used to, as I am personally not a fan of pickles (or pickle breath, for that matter) but while thinking up ideas for healthy/low fat snacks to post on the site I realized that my boyfriend had a pretty ‘sweet and skinny’ addiction. I mean, in essence, he just loves jazzed up vegetables! Of course, my next logical step was to look up how to make these myself because everything is healthier and better for you when you know all the ingredients you’ve put into it. Well I stumbled upon this recipe in my search and made some pickled tomatoes for the boy. So give ’em a whirl, they’re pickle-lover tested and health freak girlfriend approved. 😉

 

REFRIGERATOR PICKLES!                         

 

10 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 cups white vinegar
6 teaspoons of kosher salt
Several sprigs of fresh dill
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon pink peppercorns

And then whatever veggies you’d like to pickle!

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, reduce the heat so that the water simmers and then add your garlic. Cook them for 5 minutes. Now add your vinegar and salt, raise the heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the salt dissolves. Remove from the heat.
In 2 clear one quart jars, place a few sprigs of dill. Divide all your seeds and peppercorns between the jars. Using tongs, remove the garlic from the brine and place 5 cloves in each jar. Now stuff as many of your vegetables as you can in your jar! You want them to be tightly squeezed in there!
Back at the stove, bring the brine to a boil. Pour it over the vegetables completely and let it cool before covering. Once it’s back to room temp you can stash it away in your refrigerator!

They taste good after only a few hours but even better after a few days! My boyfriends still saving some of his so that they keep pickling!

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

I found this yummy vegan buttercream icing recipe on CHOW.com and then did a little improvising for my last batch of mint cookies and cream cupcakes! It’s super easy and very easy to manipulate for whatever flavor you desire! For example, I broke up some Newman’s Own Hint ‘o Mint cookies and mixed it into the batter and then topped it off by chopping the cookies into quarters and sticking them on top.

THE RECIPE:

1/2 cup non hydrogenated shortening

1/2 cup non hydrogenated margarine

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1/4 cup of vanilla soy creamer

Now, just beat the shortening and margarine together till well combined, add the sugar and beat for another three minutes or so. Then just add your vanilla and soy creamer, mix for another 5-7 minutes till fluffy and you’re all set!

I like to dollop this kind of icing, taking advantage of its fluffiness  instead of piping it through a bag. (But that’s just my preference!) Also, I add unsweetened cocoa

powder (judging pretty much by taste) to get a chocolate buttercream and then top with vegan mini chocolate chips for my double chocolate cupcakes below.

           How can I not post a delicious Vegan Chocolate Chip cookie recipe in honor of such an important holiday?! In other news, is there a national cupcake day? And if not, can we make it February 24th (my birthday)? Ok, Thanks. On wards to the cookies..

Your Vegan Mama’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this yummy recipe in a wonderful book called “Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero but feel free to play around with it because we all know I’m going to! 😉
1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2/3 cup canola oil

1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tbsp tapioca flour

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup chocolate chips

 

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and lightly greasing your two cookie sheets. Next, combine your sugars, oil, milk and tapioca flour in a mixing bowl. Mix very well (it should resemble caramel when it’s done) now add the vanilla. Finally, add in 1 cup of flour, the baking soda and salt – then mix in the rest of the flour. Fold in your chocolate chips, get in there with your hands because the dough will be a little too hard to mix at this point. Then voila! Roll your dough into little 2 inch balls and palm flatten on your cookie sheets. They should bake for around 8 minutes but use your good judgement.

I should probably say let them cool ten minutes before you eat them but I’m way too big of a fan of just baked, ooey gooey, stomach ache chocolate chip cookies so I’m not going to be a hypocrite here – eat ’em however you like! 🙂

 

Happy Chocolate Chip Cookie day!

 

 

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I don’t usually write terribly blog like personal articles without a recipe or something to review but today I was compelled to share my ‘yogic sanity’ with you. As you may have read, my new late night addiction has been candle light yoga and it has made all the difference! Now not only do I look forward to my evening sessions to unwind and center myself but I’ve also been craving yoga in the AM and doing a more intense yoga flow to start my days!
However, what I really wanted to share with you is the effects it’s had on my mental state. In my usually chaotic overbooked life, I often find myself easily stressed and overwhelmed but lately it feels as if someone has hit the slow motion button on my days. I am calmer, more centered and have a better perspective on life’s little mishaps. I find myself getting more done because I spend less time worrying about it. It’s been a wonderful revelation and I’m excited to keep up with it and see what other long term benefits will come. So that’s my advertisement for daily yoga, have you experienced related effects of daily exercise? Email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com, I’d love to hear your story!

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

        I don’t know if you remember a while back when I first posted about my time on the Dukan Diet but I mentioned how wonderful my skin started looking while I was on it. Unfortunately, it went back to it’s usual mess once I started incorporating carbs again. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I went to the doctor with a horrendous stomach flu and when he heard that I was a certain antibiotic for my skin he nearly blew a gasket! My doctor couldn’t believe that a dermatologist would put a healthy young lady like me on such a drug when it has so many sever intestinal side effects. Of course, he told me to stop it immediately and we would try other topical products to help fight my acne but I couldn’t help but google it and find out all the awful side effects, which I’m embarrassed to have not done in the first place! So what do these two things have to do with each other you might be asking..

Well, I’ve decided to take things in to my own hands (and mouth) and see if I can clear up my face by altering the kinds of foods I consume. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to follow the Dukan Diet religiously to see if it will once again work it’s skin clearing magic on me. Then, perhaps more importantly, when it’s initial “hardcore” phase is over and we start adding foods back in I’m going to be very careful about noticing how my skin reacts to certain foods. It seemed like a daunting task a few months ago but now when I put it in perspective to the damage an antibiotic could be doing to my digestive track, it seems like an obvious choice. So stay tuned! I’ll be posting what kind of crafty all protein meals I’ve cooked up as well as (possibly) post a before and after skin pic if we see some good results! fingers crossed!

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

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Get ready to fall inlove/become addicted to Crunch’s Candlelight Yoga DVD! I stumbled upon this beauty while searching netflix for new work out videos to try and stashed it away in my instant queue till the perfect night arrived for some bed time yoga. Now, maybe I’m a dork but I totally lit candles in my apartment when I was doing this DVD and I finished feeling so relaxed and stretched. I was in that perfectly sleepy happy state where you glide to bed on a cloud. Trust me, if you’ve had a rough day or are just wound up about a problem at work or with a boyfriend, this yoga will bring you back to zen faster than a pint of ben and jerry’s can (and you’ll never feel guilty afterwards).  So it’s safe to say I am now ADDICTED to doing this every night before slipping into bed with a book. Sometimes, we need to give our bodies what they need and in New York City I bet a lot of them are craving a little Candlelight yoga!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for watching! I love that Go Sweet and Skinny is your go-to website for healthy living tips, vegan and vegetarian recipes (from everything from appetizers to cupcakes!) and diet advice. I”m committed to helping you get skinny and live the sweet life! Please follow @gosweetnskinny on twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/gosweetandskinny) to keep yourself sweet and skinny 24/7. And as always, feel free to email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com and let me know what low fat, healthy recipes you want to see on the site, what diet books your trying and ask any diet questions your little heart desires! I’m here to help you!:)

I found this fantastic recipe for strawberry banana muffins on Peta.org! They have a ton of great vegan recipes that you can give your own spin to when you make ’em at home! Strawberry-Banana has got to be my favorite flavor combination so I could not resist these little babies!

 

Strawberry Banana Muffins

3/4 cup light brown sugar

Egg replacer equivalent of 2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup melted margarine

2 1/4 cups of flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 cup chopped strawberries

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin pan with liners. In a bowl, whisk together your brown sugar, egg substitute, vanilla, and bananas. Next, add your margarine. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Now gently, fold the berries into the flour mixture. Add your first bowl in, and stir until just combined. Fill the cups just a little more than half way and bake for about 20 minutes! Enjoy! These are a lovely breakfast treat with some tea or soy milk!