Alicia Silverstone's Blog, page 197

rustic bread and eggplant lasagna

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This hearty recipe comes from Vegan Yum Yum a great blog by amateur vegan chef Lolo. She says this recipe was inspired by watching "The Sopranos"!  Check it out:

Ingredients

3 Tbs Olive Oil
4-6 Cloves Garlic minced optional
2 28 oz Cans Organic Tomatoes blended
2 tsp Salt
4 tsp Dried Italian Herbs
Olive Oil for drizzling
2-3 Medium Eggplants peeled
8-10 Large Slices of Sourdough Bread
1 Cup Breadcrumbs or 2 more pieces of bread for toasting and food processing
1-2 Large Ripe Tomatoes fresh for garnish
Basil for garnish

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Steps

In a very large skillet with high sides or a sauce pan heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
Sweat the garlic for 1-2 minutes then add tomatoes salt and herbs. Cook for 30 minutes bubbling stirring occasionally. Invert a mesh strainer over the top of the pan to prevent splatter if desired.
Preheat oven to 400º F.
Meanwhile prep two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Peel the eggplants by slicing off the top and bottom and using the cut edge to start your vegetable peeler.
Holding the eggplant vertically cut the eggplants into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange in one layer on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle with salt and drizzle liberally with olive oil.
Bake eggplant for 30-40 minutes at 400º turning once until very very soft and browned in some places.
Spray both sides of each slice of bread with spray oil and "grill" in a hot skillet until browned on both sides. You can also simply toast the bread but I think you get more flavor with grilling.
In a large baking dish a lasagna dish spread 1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce. Line the bottom of the dish with bread filling as many of the gaps as possible without overlapping.
Place half of the eggplant on top of the bread followed by another 1 to 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce.
Add a second layer of bread.
Add the second half of the eggplant and all of the remaining sauce. Make sure that the bread is completely covered by sauce.
Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top.
Place fresh tomato slices on the top of the lasagna sprinkled with salt and pepper.
Bake for 40 minutes at 400º F. Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before cutting.
Top with basil leaves and drizzle sweet and thick balsamic vinegar or balsamic syrup on the plate if desired.

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You can check out more recipes like this one at vegan yum yum. Thanks Lolo!

introducing a recipe gallery on the kind life!!!

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I am very excited to announce that we are adding a new and very useful feature to the website today – a Recipe Gallery!  What this means is that there will now be one place on the site where we can all compile our favorite kind recipes – if you're ever wondering what to make for breakfast an entree a snack or dessert you will now be able to find loads of delicious healthy and very kind recipes that other Kind Lifers have created.

I'm really excited about this feature – since we launched the site last October I can't believe it's been a year!! I've really wanted there to be one place on the site where all of our delicious recipes live so that it's easy for all of you to come to the site when you're in need of a yummy and nourishing meal and find exactly what you're looking for. I'm excited to see all of the recipes that you guys submit and I'll be posting my own recipes in there too.

Here is how you get your recipes into the gallery:

Go to your profile page and you'll see a new section called "Recipes" right underneath where your friends are listed and right above your photo albums.
Click where it says "Add a new recipe" and it will take you to a new page where you can write your recipe!  
You can add a photo of the recipe from your flickr account which is recommended – this way you can show people how yummy your dish looks when it's all done! or a YouTube video of yourself making the recipe...if you're going to be posting a photo of your dish you will need to have a flickr account set up and have it connected to your profile on The Kind Life you can connect to third party services like flickr by going to your profile clicking "Edit my profile" on the right and selecting "External Accounts" in the right hand column.
You can write a little description of your recipe – when and where you learned to make this recipe what occasion you like to make this dish for or any other fun facts that you can think of.
Then you enter in the prep time cook time and how many servings you'll have.
Add a tag to your recipe - recipes in the gallery will be filtered by breakfast entree snack and finally dessert. If you want your recipe to come up in searches for one of the above categories you have to tag it. Just type the category of your dish breakfast entree snack or dessert and click "Add." After that you start entering ingredients.
After every ingredient that you enter click the "Add" button to the right which will add that ingredient to the recipe – and then go ahead and enter the next ingredient.
Then do the same for the steps.  

Once you're all done with your recipe click 'Submit' and your completed recipe will appear on your profile page! Once your recipe is on your profile page there will be a list of options in pink to the right of the recipe – the first option in the list is 'Submit this recipe'. If you want your recipe to be featured in the gallery in addition to your profile click on 'Submit this recipe'.

Your recipe will then be sent to me and my website team and we will add them into the gallery. When you choose to feature your recipe in the gallery the whole Kind Life community will be able to see it!

If you just want to browse the Recipe Gallery you can do that too. When you go to The Kind Life homepage you'll see a new tab at the top of the website that says "Recipes". Click on that tab and you'll be taken to the gallery. Recipes will be sorted by breakfast snacks entrees and dessert. When you're looking around the Recipe Gallery you can also let everyone know which recipes you love by "liking" it. If you try out a recipe that's really great you can comment on the recipe in addition to "liking" it.

I can't wait to see all of your recipes and try them out for myself!!

And of course if you have any technical issues or can't figure out how to get your recipe into the gallery please send a private message to Jason our site administrator or you can email supporteqal.com. Jason will help you out with any questions you have!

walk for farm animals!

You may know Bob Harper from NBC's "The Biggest Loser" - but he is also the 2010 spokesperson for Farm Sanctuary's Walk for Farm Animals! Bob Harper was raised on a cattle farm in Tennessee and recently became a vegan. On "The Biggest Loser" he helps overweight Americans to gradually embrace a plant-based diet and learn to love exercise. Check out this interview that Bob recently did with Joshua Katcher from Farm Sanctuary who also happens to be a kind lifer!!

Seventy-eight cities in the U.S. and Canada are participating in the Walk to help raise awareness about the treatment of farm animals and to raise funds for Farm Sanctuary's rescue efforts.

Check out Bob Harper's interview above then go here to find a walk near you - if you live in Los Angeles there is a walk happening this Saturday in Claremont!

All Natural Vegan Lip Balm Hurraw! - Sponsored Post

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Finding a favorite lip balm is hard. Discovering a favorite all natural certified vegan lip balm is nearly impossible!

But not anymore...Hurraw!

Hurraw! Balm started with a personal obsession to create a perfect balm that was vegan bees are awesome but we don't like putting their wax on our lips. It had to meet some tough criteria: super smooth not draggy not sticky not sweet not too glossy but a lil' glossy not too smelly never grainy and had to be long lasting on the lips. It also had to hold up to being in a back jeans pocket or hot car...or machine washing without melting into a gooey mess.

It took over two years to formulate Hurraw! Balm. It went through many winter ski runs and wipe outs and tons of summer hiking long airplane rides and even surfing! Finally Hurraw! was good enough to launch and offer to other balm lovin' individuals.

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Small batches are handcrafted daily in Whitefish Montana from premium raw organic and legit fair trade ingredients. Hurraw! balm ships super fresh with absolutely no artificial ingredients flavors or colors. They infuse their oils with raw seeds pods fruit zests barks and roots. This gives added flavor and great color they even use raw vanilla beans in the vanilla balm!

Hurraw! Balms come in a unique oval tube so they stay put in your pocket and the shape also makes it easy to find in the bottom of a cluttered purse :

Available for 3.79 each in 16 fun flavors like Licorice Rootbeer and Chai Spice. Check out the tinted Cinnamon balm if you like a little tingle and color or the tinted Black Cherry for a deeper sheer red tint. Grab a zesty pink Grapefruit balm this month of October as 100 of the proceeds from each sold goes to AICR's Nutritional Research Program. Studies are showing that eating a vegan diet can lower a woman's breast cancer risk by over 30. Hurraw!

ill be at expo east in boston!

I am honored to be keynote speaker at this year's Natural Products Expo East this week October 13-16 in Boston. Expo East is an annual trade show and educational event for producers and buyers of natural and organic products.

New Hope Natural Media runs the event with the goal of educating and informing consumers about healthier more sustainable product choices. On Friday morning I will be speaking and then doing a question & answer session and a book signing.

Expo East is open to the public and if youd like to attend you can register here.

This event sounds cool and Im excited to see all of the new natural products.

happy birthday to the kind life!

As of today it has been one year since The Kind Life was born! Can you even believe it? What a huge community we have built! We started out so cute and small and now we are taking over the world! Hahaanywho Im so grateful to all of you from all over the globe! We have Kind Lifers from all over America from Australia Europe Africa... Its amazing!

Each and every one of you inspires and challenges me on this amazing and beautiful journey were taking. Im excited to share so many ideas I cant even get them all outthere is soooo much more to come this year! More recipes more fashion and exciting issues for us to tackle together.

This site has been wonderful for me. I love sharing yummy finds with all of you it makes me so happy. I love food; I love the Earth; I love people and animals and I love doing the best I can to heal us all. Thank you for everything you each do to make the world a better place. Im so insanely proud of us!

Ive been working on plays and films the whole year so its been kinda nuts. Im sorry some things have been taking a while like the vegan pregnancy blogs! and I appreciate your patience. But I feel that I will have some free time coming now so that means more cooking and more writing. So you will get sick of me!

We are adding some exciting new features to the site in the coming weeks - a store as well as a recipe gallery! Theres tons of exciting stuff ahead!

If there are any specific issues you would like me to tackle this year or sooner please let me know. What do you want more of? What do you need? Let me know I love hearing your feedback!

Again thank you to all of you who come to this website I am so thankful for your input and Im looking forward to another year with all of you!

Free Cruelty-Free Brush From Alima Pure Sponsored Post

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Brush up on your makeup technique by adding this tool to your kit! It doesn't take a pro to create some of fall's stunning looks – heavy application of nude/gold shades and dramatic eyes with navy or layered browns. It takes a great tool like Alima Pure brush 36 – the Pointed Crease Brush. Plus some beautiful pure mineral eyeshadow of course!  

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It's no secret that Alima Pure loves The Kind Life and by now you probably know our story so we'll keep this short and sweet.  Buy any two full size eye products shadows or liners and we'll send you our 36 brush free 14 value. This brush is not only great for applying color to the crease of the eye but you can also load it up with color for a more intense look on the lid. Just add "Free Brush" to the comments when you check out.

tinas discovery that food is not the enemy!

Kind Lifer Tina recently shared her story about discovering wonderful new food and people as a result of a kind diet.

I began the vegan diet around January 4th. I recently went to the doctor for the dreaded annual check up and weigh in and I had lost 8 pounds since I began the diet. I was sure that I had gained weight because I had been eating a lot but mostly veggies and whole grains. Now I feel fantastic and have even been walking or exercising 3 times a week again for 30 minutes. I feel much more energized and at peace with the food that I am eating. This is the first time in my life that food is not the enemy. It is my friend and my fuel. I used to drink diet coke and diet juices like water and since I have eliminated them from my diet I am less thirsty. I have been drinking organic juice diluted 1/2 and 1/2 water/juice 1-2 times per day and switched to unsweetened tea and of course plenty of H2O.

One of the most exciting things is the discovery of all of these new and wonderful foods that I have walked by in the grocery store for years. I feel content and satisfied and have been reading many books about veganism. I just ditched my designer leather bag well I gave it to a friend who loves it. I am meeting the best people in the health foods stores as well. All I can say is WOW!

I recently asked Tina for an update and here is what she had to say:

I have been vegan since January 2010. I feel great and everyone says my skin looks wonderful and I look really healthy - minus my extensive travel for work as of late. I love trying new veggies and dishes. I don't miss meat or dairy. The smell of eggs cooking makes me nauseous. I even traded in my leather handbag for a faux leather bag. People are really interested in my diet and I see how it can positively impact others' dietary choices in small ways. I feel at peace with food. Finally! I still would like to drop a few extra pounds but it will come with time and cutting back on nut butters / breads/ and pasta. Thank you for leading me to the kind diet! Another neat piece of news is a family member had been hospitalized for high blood pressure. Their acupuncturist / nutritionist suggested a vegan diet. Now they wish they had changed their diet years ago!

Yay Tina! Im so happy for you and we all wish your family member a wonderful recovery with a kinder diet!

sheris fresh lemon mousse

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Sheri is a very nice woman who was helping to cook for me sometimes when I was in Detroit shooting Vamps. Sheri does tons of rescue work and is getting married any day now. Here is a recipe for a lemon mousse that she invented. Very nice!

Serves 6-8 with 5-6 oz. serving size or 10 with a 4 oz. serving size

INGREDIENTS

1 T. agar
2 1/2 c. almond milk
1 c. coconut milk
pinch sea salt
1 t. kuzu
7 1/2 T. fresh lemon juice
1/8 t. turmeric
2 T. coconut oil
1 1/4 c. grade a maple syrup lighter in color
1 T. fresh lemon zest
1/2 vanilla bean scrape seeds out of 1/2 bean

STEPS

In a small bowl combine kuzu lemon juice and turmeric whisking to combine then set aside.
In a small saute pan melt coconut oil.  Then add in maple syrup lemon zest and 1/2 vanilla bean scraping the pod into the liquid.  Simmer for 5 mins. then set aside.
In a small saucepan combine agar almond milk and a pinch of salt over low to medium heat whisking frequently until agar is dissolved this could be 15-30 mins..  Whisk in coconut milk & kuzu mixture and cook over low heat for 2-3 mins.
Remove from heat & fold in maple syrup mixture stirring to combine.
Pour into ramekins and chill 1-2 hours or until well-set.

Enjoy!

foal plays with bouncy ball

This is so cute thanks LA Unleashed!