Organic Girly

When Nutella, donuts and muffins meet, it’s easy to feed your cravings and forget it’s even vegan.  

Denser than a donut, but still light, sugary and perfectly sweet, these quick and easy treats will give your cravings a real farewell. For now, at least.

Jump over to my Vegan This column on Ecosalon for the recipe, and enjoy!

{Photo compliments of Organic Girly}

Vegan cupcakes based on Sex and the City’s famous Vanilla Vanilla Cupcake recipe.

From New York City to Dubai, we’re living in a sugar coated world of cupcake mania. Many reports (like this one from the UK Telegraph) put the addiction blame on the famed Magnolia Bakery.

What started 16 years ago as the tiniest of local cupcake spots on Bleeker Street in New York City’s West Village, has now become an over-heated sensation. Sex in City, followed by Saturday Night Live’s “Lazy Sunday” and The Devil Wears Prada, have all been accused of instigating and spreading the cupcakes-gone-wild craze. Flash through old episodes ofSex in the City and you’re sure to find the one where Carrie and Miranda munch on frosted treats outside the original Magnolia Bakery – back in the day before lines circled around the block.

“I have a crush,” Carrie confesses to Miranda, lips lined with pink buttercream frosting. Was it a cupcake crush? Tourists who happily fork over $48 and more than three hours of their time to take the official Sex in the City Hotspots Tour in New York City-  including a stop at this very spot – can answer best. Walk inside the flagship Bloomingdale’s, or simply follow the trend from New York to Chicago, LA to Dubai or the 120 new locations in the works, and you’ll see that a bad case of the Magnolia cupcake crush is taking the world by sweet-toothed storm.

My memories of Magnolia Bakery go back to those one-location wonder days, post Sex in the City. As a transplanted New Yorker, I recall once dedicating an afternoon standing in the Magnolia line – for what felt like hours – simply to snag a cupcake for a friend’s birthday. Five years later, I tasted a tiny crumble of the infamous Vanilla Vanilla Magnolia Cupcake.

Fast forward to today where I’ve masterminded a vegan, gluten-free edition – starting with the original Vanilla Vanilla Cupcake recipe, compliments of Magnolia Bakery and the Food Network. While this is no baking adventure for the weary, the results are well worth it.

For my complete article & recipe, please jump over to ecosalon… 

{Photos compliments of me, Organic Girly.}

Enjoy!

The Tagalong cookie gets a whole new nutritional label.

I was recently in the midst of a true food challenge. I’m talking about the kind that covers kitchens in batter. If I were going to share the inner perils and pleasures of veganizing and gluten-freeing a cookie, I thought, why not start with the ultimate? The snack that touts the highest of all cookie claims: “To help girls do great things” – from, you guessed it, the Girl Scouts.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2008, more than one-third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese. And, this number is only increasing. Just read a Girl Scout Cookie’s nutrition facts, and the irony is, it’s chock full of heart-clogging ingredients, like partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, a trans fat. The kind that lead to less healthy children who are at early onset risk of chronic diseases like diabetes.

While the Girl Scouts have touted their cookies as being trans fat free – something they can get away with if a single serving has less than .5 grams of this artery stifling substance – the Chicago Tribune revealed that Girl Scout Tagalongs, Samoas and Thin Mints still contain trans fats. In the case of Tagalongs, eat one sleeve (five cookies) and you’ll most likely be taking in more than one gram of trans fat – a number directly linked to increased levels of harmful cholesterol (LDL) and a rise in risk for heart disease, stroke and type II diabetes. The even greater irony is that the Girl Scouts themselves have published a research review on childhood obesity titled “Weighing in: Helping Girls be Healthy Today, Healthy Tomorrow”.

The idea to transform this classic cookie into a vegan and gluten-free delight, but also to make it healthier was a task I was willing to accept.

To make this occasion less daunting, I started with an already vegan version of the Girl Scout Tagalongs, compliments of vegan bloggers and inspirers Annie and Dan Shannon and VegNews.

For the original recipe + my NEW gluten-free and allergy-friendly take on the Tagalong, please hop over to ecosalon.

(Photo compliments of Annie & Dan Shannon and VegNews.  Thank You!)

From trendy to simply tasty, I’ve rounded a few of my favorite, well, fashionable foods.  They pack nutritional punch and good-for-your-figure flavor so you can put the word “diet” to bed and simply call this a re-freshening lifestyle.

1: The Koolest Kind of Kombucha

If you’re a localvore, micro-brewer, artisanal, herbalist kombucha lover, you’ll fall head over heels at first sip (and if you’re anything like me—you’ll just just have to take one look at the charming bottle to fall in love) with Townshend’s Brew Dr. Kombucha.  Many call me kombucha obsessed (there’s nothing like some fermented effervescence to start your day), and I’ve never tried one that chocks up to the nuanced taste and invigorating essences of this one. 

Townshend’s Tea Shop in Portland, OR, which I gleefully visited on my last trip to the alt-Brooklyn brew scene.  

From bottle to brew, it’s simply the best.  The only catch—as of now, it’s only available in the Pacific Northwest, so if you’re not in the neighborhood, take a trip out west and load up your bags with this brown bottle magic.  Trust me, you’ll be kombucha buzzed with happiness.

2: Cheesy-with-a-kick Kale Chips

Pack in the iron, vitamins and simply delicious antioxidant goodness with these raw, crunchy bits of green wonder.  The ones I whip up and dehydrate at home are inspired by Blessings Alive kale chips.  I’ve blended their cheesy recipe with their spicy ranch concoction for a cheesy bite of habenaro spiced kale in every green crumble.  You won’t believe just how nutritious these are. 

3: Cupcakes with Compassion (and deliciousness)

In my sweet tooth world, desserts get a bad rap.  Go vegan and gluten-free with heart healthy ingredients like coconut oil and almond flour, and you’ll start to wonder if they can really taste like a true indulgence.  Naturally, the resounding answer is “Yes!”.  (Does the chocolate covering my face say anything?)  The ones I whipped up this weekend are a take on Babycakes NYCs’ Healthy Hostess Cupcakes. 

Word to the wise baker, the New York City-based bakery’s eponymous book features the same sweet delights as you’ll find in the bakery but with different ingredients and modifications, keeping their trade secrets under wrap.  All that explains why I’ve never gotten their frosting just right, so this time I whipped up another vegan buttercream frosting inspired by this recipe on one of my favorite blogs, The Daily Green.  These make it easy to enjoy every little guilt-free crumb.

{Photos compliments of—from Top to Bottom—LaJolieLune and Organic Girly  (bottom 3 pics) }

Scents in Time: the fine history and art behind the essences we wear.

Your first trip to the ocean. A dusty old book. Your mother’s silk scarf. An English rose garden. These are the fragrances you remember, have internalized and equate with a memory. Perfumes are nothing more than the scents that become a part of us, are at once an embodiment of these momentary memories.

Natural fragrances, those straight from nature like frankincense, orange blossom, jasmine and vanilla, reach deep into our core and storied biographies, conjuring to mind poignant memories that comfort us. Long before the Industrial Revolution such scents were all we knew.

“Up until the turn of the last century, perfumes, like Mille fragrances [worn by the ladies of Versailles], were blended in apothecaries for royalty from nothing but natural essences,” says renowned natural perfumer Mandy Aftel of Aftelier Perfumes.

“When synthetic chemicals were created in the 1880s, perfumes became a subconscious art,” says Aftel, referring to brands like Coty, Chanel (beginning with Chanel No° 5) and Guerlain. But, she says, their perfumes and all other synthetics lacked complexity, mystery and emotional depth.

“There is no romance in perfume without its close relationship to nature,” Aftel believes.

For the complete, scent-full piece, please visit my article on ecosalon.  Enjoy…

(Photo compliments of Hal1969—Thank you!)