Alicia Silverstone's Blog, page 182

easy mushroom pizza!

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Vegan Pandamonium is an adorable vegan blog by University of San Francisco student Sammi. I've featured a few of her yummy looking recipes here before!

Her mushroom pizza looks easy and good and I'm flattered that it's based on my Thin Mushroom "Pizzas" recipe from The Kind Diet! Check it out:
 
Ingredients

1 pkg mushrooms sliced Sammi used 2 portabella caps
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 T olive oil
1 T soy sauce
1 tortilla
Tofutti's herb & chive cream cheese
fresh basil

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350.
Pop the tortilla in the oven on a baking sheet and bake until crispy.
In a sauté pan over medium heat add the oil and garlic.
Next add the mushrooms.
Once they get a nice sear add the soy sauce.
Sauté another 3-4 minutes.
Spread the cream cheese onto the crisp tortilla and then top with the garlicky mushrooms.
Chop up some fresh basil to garnish on top. Cut into slices and feel free to pig out!

Looks delish! This take on my mushroom pizza isn't superhero but it's great for vegans and flirts. I definitely want to try it!

bershams transition to a veg diet

I wanted to share a couple of amateur interview videos that I made for you. Here is the first one! I'm not proud of my production level but I was in a rush and didn't want to miss the opportunity to interview these groovy dudes!

On a side note: back in 2000 or around that time I was in Jamaica with my dear friend Laura for a raw food convention. It was a great trip complete with braided hair naked swimming in the ocean and lots of yummy food and adventure! After the convention we traveled around. In Kingston we stayed with Bob Marley's mother who is a friend of Laura's. It was amazing!

One thing I remember were these huts/restaurants that served just a few dishes of the day – it was like their McDonald's but vegan! It was very relaxed with great music. Can you imagine? A hut with yummy vegan dishes and that's it - just a few dishes a day nothing really to choose from just a plate of deliciousness! I was so impressed by this. There are so many rastafarians there and they believe in veggie life so that's why the veg restaurants were there. Anywho they were great! They didn't say "vegan" out front or anything - they were just huts with great food and benches - simple and wonderful!

Bersham is a neat veg guy whom I wanted to introduce to you Kind Lifers! He's a great role model for guys out there who probably wouldn't assume he is veg!

Have you had any amazing vegan meals while traveling? And what do you think of cute Bersham?

easy ways to conserve water!

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Everywhere the issue of water conservation is becoming more important. For example the average Los Angeles resident uses 155 gallons of water per day which adds up to 215 billion gallons of water used annually in Los Angeles alone. This is not sustainable!

The national average daily water use is 80-100 gallons most of which comes from flushing the toilet and showering. These numbers tell us loud and clear that we can all do more to conserve one of our most vital resources!

Because LA is a desert city that gets all of its water from other regions the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is extra conscious of promoting conservation. LADWP offers these water conservation tips that can be applied anywhere:

Install a water saving showerhead – LA residents can get one for free by calling 1-800-U-ASK-DWP
Take shorter showers
Turn off the water while brushing your teeth or shaving
Check faucets and pipes for leaks
Use your dishwasher for full loads only
Use your clothes washing machine for full loads only
Don't leave tap water running
Consider native and drought-tolerant plants and grasses
Do not allow the hose to run as you wash your car
Water your lawn deeply and less frequently
Water early in the morning or late in the evening
Change lawn and plant watering schedule seasonally
Use a broom instead of a hose

These habits are just the bare minimum we can do to conserve water! Do you have any other tips for minimizing water use?

lea michele on horse drawn carriages...

A while ago the lovely Lea Michele wrote a blog for us about her feelings about horse drawn carriages.  I recently came across this video that she did for PETA about the same issue and wanted to share.

Lea I love you!  Thank you for making this very wonderful and heartfelt video.  I hope the whole world sees it!

all about umeboshi plums

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Since umeboshi plums are one of the pricier superhero foods I wanted to share some useful tips with you about how to eat them and make them last awhile. The most important thing to know is that they are medicinal – so a little goes a long way!

How Do You Eat Them?
 
First of all one package of umeboshi plums should last for a long time. The cool thing about them is that you never use the whole plum at one time. You only want to use it for medicinal purposes so about a quarter or a half of a plum at a time is fine. You can add it to tea as in my Hangover Tea or sprinkle a diced up piece of plum on hot cereal – or you can just eat it by itself. You can also suck on the pit when you're not feeling well and forgive the salty-sour taste. Just remember that it's healing you!

Are There Any Substitutions?

Some people have asked if you can replace the umeboshi plum with ume vinegar and tamari – the answer unfortunately is no. Ume vinegar is for cooking purposes only. It's not medicinal; it's salty and concentrated and yummy but not medicinal. If you're trying to get the medicinal benefit you have to use the plum. Tamari is also for cooking purposes only. That said there's nothing wrong with using tamari and ume vinegar for flavor. You can use tamari to replace shoyu too. But it's not medicinal it's just for taste!
 
What about ume paste? That doesn't count either! It's good but it's not the same as the plum. It's not bad for you in any shape or form - ume paste would be better than nothing. It's just too concentrated so you get too much salt and it's not medicinal. Of all things ume the only thing that will give you the real medicinal value is the actual plum.

How Often Do You Buy Them?
 
I order plums very rarely – I don't have them everyday. Rather I eat a small piece of plum a few times a week. You don't need to have them everyday unless you are eating really crazy bad things. For example you would never want to have the hangover tea consistently every single day for a year. You just want to use umeboshi plums medicinally in very small amounts. So next time you are looking at the umeboshi plums in the store and they seem really expensive remember how long they last! I order mine in bulk from Goldmine Natural Foods then keep them in the fridge.

Have you experimented with umeboshi plums yet?

baby deer uses cat door!

I found this video on Care2.com. I wonder what was happeneing there? Are the cat and deer friends? They must be right? In order for the person to film this they must have known that the deer does this sometimes..how sweet is that? I wonder what will happen when deer is too big to get through the door?

If anyone has a favorite animal video or cute video to share send me the link!

pams kind diet and book club!

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Kind Lifer Pam recently sent me her success story. She was so inspired by her new kind diet that she held a Kind Diet book club meeting and potluck! Check it out:
 
"With the help of an awesome wellness coach and your book I have been vegan roughly - LOL! since March. I have lost 50 lbs. in a year and a half; my female issues have completely resolved and I feel fabulous!!! I recently had my annual blood work done and my thyroid liver and everything else was much improved! My good cholesterol was high but the ratio was good. I have been borderline anemic for almost my entire lifetime iron supplements do bad things to me and my iron skyrocketed from 19 to 85! My type A blood does not assimilate iron from red meat but from leafy greens - I had no idea!

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Pam's Book Club

My friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and then quickly diagnosed cancer-free was wanting information about the macrobiotic diet she was hearing about. I told her about your book and lent it to her. She's a part of my book club so when I hosted I chose your book and had everyone bring a dish. The Cuban Sweet Potatoes were my absolute favorite and I adored the Braised Daikon and Cauliflour Steaks. I just have 10 more pounds to go - easy and yummy!"
 
Congratulations Pam! This is so great! Thank you for sharing. You are super cute and super pretty! This story put a huge smile on my face. Thank you for that!

If anyone else would like to share a success story send me a message or post your success story to the forum and "like" it – I may feature your story on The Kind Life homepage!

janahs cooking class at sur la table!

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Janah Adickman is a sweet passionate and wonderfully warm chef who I met through The Kind Life. If you live in LA you can meet her too! She will be teaching a vegetarian cooking class at Sur La Table near the Grove in LA. Lots of Kind Lifers showed up for her last class pictured above and they had a blast!
 
Here are the details about her upcoming cooking class:
 
Date: February 19 2011
Time: 11am-1pm
Cost: 130
Location:
 
Sur La Table
6333 W. 3rd St Ste P-10
Los Angeles CA 90036
 
If you're in LA I highly recommend attending Janah's class. If not you can check out her blog Delish Your Dish. Janah is a vegetarian but is trying to go vegan so let's all encourage her to do that!
 
For those of you outside of LA do you have any great classes to recommend in your town?

janahs cooking class at sur le table!

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Janah Adickman is a sweet passionate and wonderfully warm chef who I met through The Kind Life. If you live in LA you can meet her too! She will be teaching a vegetarian cooking class at Sur Le Table near the Grove in LA. Lots of Kind Lifers showed up for her last class pictured above and they had a blast!
 
Here are the details about her upcoming cooking class:
 
Date: February 19 2011
Time: 11am-1pm
Cost: 130
Location:
 
Sur Le Table
6333 W. 3rd St Ste P-10
Los Angeles CA 90036
 
If you're in LA I highly recommend attending Janah's class. If not you can check out her blog Delish Your Dish. Janah is a vegetarian but is trying to go vegan so let's all encourage her to do that!
 
For those of you outside of LA do you have any great classes to recommend in your town?

beware of plastic water bottles!

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A new study by the Environmental Working Group EWG reveals that of the ten most popular brands of bottled water all but one Nestle's Pure Life Purified Water fail to provide answers to the three most important questions you should ask before drinking water:

Where does water come from?
Is it purified? How?
Have tests found any contaminants?

Furthermore these bottled water companies are breaking the law. In 2007 California passed a law SB 220 requiring that water bottle labels list the source of the water and two ways for consumers to contact the company to obtain a quality report. EWG found that only 24 of water bottle companies are in compliance with this law. Companies hiding data about their bottled water include Aquafina Gerber Graduates Lil' Water Naya Bristol Farms Archer Farms Volvic Alhambra Trader Joe's Pure New Zealand Artesian Water Fiji and many more see full list here.
 
So where does EWG think bottled water actually comes from? Tap water.
 
Cities are required to provide all of this information about tap water to consumers and you can find answers to all of your questions about your local tap water here. By opting out of bottled water and drinking filtered tap water you will know exactly what you are drinking. On top of that you will be helping the environment instead of contributing to plastic waste much of which ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
 
Every blue moon if you're stranded without a reusable water bottle it's okay to buy bottled water. Ninety-nine percent of the time I have my little glass bottle with me pictured above that I refill at home everyday. The other one percent of the time I have to opt for water in a plastic bottle. I usually try to stubbornly refuse water if it's in plastic - even when I'm super thirsty. But I'm just saying sometimes you can't - so don't beat yourself up if you're in a situation where the only water available is bottled water. Just take your reusable bottle with you everyday and do the best you can. Don't give up if you mess up - just try again! You can read more about bottled water in my book page 134.
 
I'll be posting a series of blogs on water filtration soon so stay tuned. How do you stay hydrated at home and on the go?