I’m so excited to write a book review for my friend Nadia Petrova at Nature Insider! If you haven’t ever popped over to Nadia’s site before, I would urge you to go now! There are thousands of blogs out there and it isn’t possible to follow them all, but I highly recommend her site. It stands out from the crowd.  Her blog is not only gorgeous to look at, but she’s also put in a lot of love and time into each and every recipe and it truly shows. She’s a holistic nutritionist so you know you’re getting a wealth of healthful tips and information on her site, but she also has an eye for photography. Her photographs are beautifully styled, but also retain the raw beauty of the foods she blogs about.

I stumbled onto her site many months ago and now I’m a regular reader. Whenever I’m looking for some inspiration to eat healthy or inspiration for creating a beautiful and unique dish – I know I can get a few ideas from Nadia’s site. She recently wrote her own e-book (isn’t that amazing?) and I had a chance to read it cover to cover a few weeks ago. If you’re interested in incorporating raw and natural ingredients into your lifestyle – definitely check out her book ’DAILY RAW’.

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Hello my lovely readers! Today’s post is a guest post I wrote for Leanne from Healthful Pursuit. She’s a Canadian Holistic Nutritionist, yogi, athlete, recipe creator, and substitution nerd who loves remaking recipes for people with allergies and dietary restrictions. Her site has a WEALTH of great tips and recipes for people looking to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.

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I was so excited when Leanne approached me to write a guest post for her blog! I came across Leanne’s blog last year when I was looking for recipes for guilt-free desserts and I’ve been absolutely hooked since then. She is my go-to resource for healthful tips and recipes, but what I look forward to the most are her inspirational posts. She is one truly inspiring woman and I’m glad to have “met” her through blogging.

When Leanne asked me to write a guest post, I immediately started thinking about what I was going to make. I wanted to make something extra special for her and came up with a few ideas for dessert. But things didn’t work out in the kitchen as expected! Isn’t it a shame that a concept that sounds great in your head doesn’t seem to work out so well when you try it out in the kitchen? Ahh…the unpredictability of recipe testing! Anyways, since Leanne is going to India, what could be more apt than a dish inspired by Indian cuisine? So I came up with this simple and delicious tandoori salmon salad with baby spinach, cucumber and pickled onions. And to top it all off and to cut out some of the heat, I added a few dollops of a cilantro-yogurt sauce. Doesn’t that sound like a scrumptious spring salad?

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You’re either a fan of shrimp or you’re not…Growing up, I hardly ate shrimp because my mother didn’t like how it looked – tails and all. But now that I’ve been cooking for myself, I have a new found respect for this ingredient. It can turn something mundane into something special. I realized I haven’t blogged about a main dish in quite some time now, so for this week we have an Italian-inspired dish that has cayenne shrimp served with a tomato and yellow pepper sauce. All topped off with some crumbled goat cheese and parsley. On the side – a simple chickpea pan bread that can be cooked up in minutes!

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Happy Tuesday! Today, I’m going to talk about my favourite resources for tips on food photography as part 4 of the “Create Your Own Magazine” series.  When I first started the blog last year in late March, I had no clue what it took to take a good photograph of food. It wasn’t until August that I took a serious interest in improving my skills, especially for my magazine. I found many useful resources online, but it was hard to filter through all of it. So…I’ve compiled a list of sites and tips I found the most helpful in my journey. I hope this can help you too in your creative endeavours.

If you happened to miss the introductory post of this series, you can find it here. I have received a number of questions on how to create an online magazine and I’ll be addressing a few topics in a six-part series.

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Today’s Beauty Eats recipe is a layered quinoa pudding with strawberries, a pomegranate-cardamom reduction and a generous sprinkle of pistachios. How’s that for a healthy Valentine’s treat?

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I’ve had a bag of pistachios and a bottle of pomegranate juice sitting in my kitchen for quite some time, but it wasn’t until Connie (from Chronicles of a Beauty Nerd) gave me some inspiration that I came up with this pudding. It’s a scrumptious way to start your morning, especially if you’re like me and need a little sweetness to start your day. Or it can be a great accompaniment to a healthy dinner. You pick!

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Hi everyone! Today’s post is about our very first Beauty Eats Live Event, which happened last week.  Connie (from the Beauty Nerd) and I had our first event at Alma Natural Spa last Wednesday and it was not only a fun experience for us, but it was also very well received!

At the event, we introduced the concept of “Beauty Eats”, a few dietary guidelines to make your skin radiant and also a few pointers on how to make eating for your skin, hair and nails a lifestyle. To make things fun, we showed everyone how easy it is to whip up “skin-healthy recipes”. We demonstrated three quick recipes and also a DIY face mask. In case you missed the event, we put together a short video of event highlights. Hope to see you at the next event!