Fabulous Vegan Recipes

Hiya! This is a quick post to let you know that my September Munch and Meditate event is live and early bird tickets are almost gone. I'm going to be teaching a yoga and meditation class followed by vegan appetizers and desserts prepared by me on September 22nd at 11:30AM at my studio. I will lead you in an hour yoga and meditation class followed by food and plant-based diet information. I can't wait to see you! The menu and more info is in the eventbrite link below. Use the promo code Earlybird to grab the last two discounted tickets! P.S. Pictured here is some of the food I will be serving 😄 Tickets

I once heard that those who don't meditate, need it the most. I can be one of those people. I do well with it for a few days and then I go off course. I enjoy it, it centers me, I love teaching it but I don't allow myself enough time to really reap the benefits of it.

This is a non food post in case you are only here for recipes, which is fine! But I want to write more about other things important to me and this post just poured out of me last week. I hope you stay and read it. Food is super important to us and it can bring people together and be a huge comfort but it doesn't fill us up like relationships do or love or self care or laughter. Last week I really really realized how lucky I am to have supportive family and friends and to not waste my time on people who don't see how much I shine. So, if you read any of this, know that: you are shining and people love you.

I've got an idea for a brand new recipe....deets below. I'm going to get the ingredients today. It is a veganized version of a dessert I saw on Facebook yesterday. I love veganizing and healthifying (word?) crappy food that is full of animal products. Stay with me!

A few days ago I started an Intro to Meditation group on Facebook and as I write this, on the eve of our August meditation challenge, I have 104 members in the group. I love this group, it only came together just days ago but the amount of positive vibes and support for each other is already evident. My goal is to give tips to help my group meditate at home and feel more upbeat and happy during the day. Our challenge begins tomorrow!

All day I was in the kitchen making food for my marathon fundraiser; a meditation and restorative yoga class followed by a vegan dinner. I didn't even know what the temperature outside was until 5pm when I left to head to my yoga studio for the class. I dropped stuff, made a few messes, but ultimately, it was a meditative experience in itself cooking these dishes. All I could think of was the beautiful people who were going to eat the food and meet each other and bliss out during my class. It was such a great class and I raised a good amount of money for my fundraiser .

Hello friends! I am launching my first Munch and Meditate Supper Club and I'm so excited! I wanted to start this event so that people can gather, meet people they don't know, have a nice, relaxing night out and eat vegan food. It will be in the comfort of my yoga studio in downtown Manhattan.  The menu will be different each month but we will always meditate together and have a welcome drink. It's a great night to meet new people, enjoy a nice meditation and nosh on new, plant-based food. The link below will have a list of all my supper clubs so check it out and I hope to see you there! Tickets

I love teaching meditation at my yoga studio . I pick a theme and focus my guided meditation around that theme. Sometimes my students are strangers, most times they are friends. It's so much fun to connect with people in a cool, intimate, relaxing setting where I can share my favorite essential oils and talk about life. After meditation with my three friends last week, we chilled on our yoga mats and talked quietly about various topics. We drank Happy Tree maple water and ate cookie dough bites. It was such a fabulous ending to a great day. I wrote this post to inspire you to make meditation a new habit. There are always habits we need to break; why not begin a new habit?! 

In June of 2014, I moved to NYC after working as a social worker in PA for 14 years. It was a scary, stressful move but one I look back on with gratitude and excitement. I wasn't happy in PA because I felt bored, my life was lacking excitement and mostly I felt like I was flailing. Getting older and flailing, such a difficult and frustrating combination. I felt helpless and very unhappy. I had a job with steady pay and benefits, friends and family, health and my own home but it just wasn't inspiring me. I thought about my blog while I was at work...and NYC. Eventually, the comfort and familiarity of my job and my cushy life was not enough for me to stay. When your dreams call, you really can't ignore them. In reality, yes, you can ignore them but at what cost to your happiness? I constantly debated whether my safe and comfortable life was enough for me to be the best person I could be. And it wasn't enough.

I recently wrote this blog post for my yoga studio's website. I co-own a yoga studio in downtown Manhattan and we specialize in helping the entrepreneurial yoga teacher flourish. We rent our space at affordable prices so that yoga teachers, health coaches, health and wellness professionals and creative folks have a clean, calm place to share their art. I feel so grateful for it. I love writing about wellness and I wanted to share this post on here too. You can learn all about my yoga studio HERE and there is also a link above.

It's supposed to be hot again in NYC starting today but that is not why I made this; I just wanted chocolate! And just because you have chocolate doesn't mean you can't have your greens. I love adding spinach to a creamy, chocolatey smoothie, it's never been easier to get in your greens. 

Yoga has pretty much been a lot of my life since I moved to the city. I started a yoga teacher training as soon as I moved and it's been nonstop asanas, meditation, reading, writing and bonding with my yoga class. What a wonderful group of students and teachers! Our teacher training is coming to a close this weekend so I am savoring this whole week. I'm in the midst of a huge book, I have another yoga class to take and write about and I have lots of homework to do including a test and a practical and a presentation! Whew!! It's a lot but it's been sooo worth it.

 Well, I'm officially living in New York City!  I've been dreaming about making this move for such a long time and it's finally a reality.  I left my job in PA and now I want to do life coaching, teach yoga and help people live happier, healthier lives.  I have a link to my health coach page on my vegan recipe website so check out www.fabulousveganrecipes.com for info on me, my health coaching business, this blog and other fun stuff. My kitchen in NYC is SMALL!!  It's taking me a little while to get used to the size and the new layout but I plan on finishing the recipes for my next cookbook in this very kitchen.  Today, it's dreary in the city but I'm sitting in front of the window typing and thinking, so ready and excited for my new life.  After this, I need to be reading my books for yoga class and doing some more schoolwork (I think I mentioned I'm in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition health coaching program). Last week's module for