Emily von Euw's Blog, page 4

GOOEY BROWNIES with ALMOND BUTTER FROSTING

OMFG. BROWNIES THOUGH. I was equally obsessed with chocolate when I was a kid as I am now (arguably, I am still a child but we can save that discussion for another day). The difference is that I used to think brownies and other chocolate treats had to be full of crappy ingredients to taste good. Then I discovered vegan baking and raw vegan dessert-making. Now I realize that not only can my cocoa faves be free from animal products (I don't like to eat friends) and other junk that isn't doing my body any favours, they can also - and most importantly - taste AWESOME. I am not kidding when I say I eat chocolate and various other desserts on a daily basis. These recipes are filled with nutritionally-dense foods instead of nutritionally-void foods. It's a win win win win win. There is nothing morally bad about junk food ingredients but whole food ones make me feel better, so I eat those. 
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CALMING DATE MILKSHAKE with CARDAMOM + CINNAMON

There is something about cool weather in this mountainous, temperate rainforest region that just DOES it for me. The colour gradients that show themselves during our cooler months always appear impossibly beautiful and wise. Moody, dynamic, charcoal grey clouds break at dark green, stubborn, forested mountains; those mountains give way to ancient, mysterious waters and rugged, mossy rocks the colour of slate and life; and all these colourscapes fold together, in and out of each other, and I am a part of them. We are nature. It is us. There is in fact no place to draw the boundary that we imagine is there. This philosophy is applicable not just to our relationship to and participation in evolution; but also our relationship to one another and our participation in our societies. 
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PUMPKIN PIE with WHIPPED COCO CREAM + SALTED CARAMEL

Soooooooo I am really excited about this recipe. It is adapted from one in the GORGEOUS Greenhouse Cookbook and it tastes even better than it looks. I have tried making raw pumpkin pies before and they haven't been bad (in fact I think a pumpkin pie was my first-ever recipe published on this lil blog!?) but they haven't left me wanting seconds either. Finally: I have discovered a recipe that leaves me wanting not only a second slice, but the whole DANG PIE. As of writing this, I made the pie yesterday and have already eaten two pieces. It is so luscious, delicate, light and nourishing for your bod and soul alike. I will be making this often from now on. Please do yourself a favour and whip it up the next day you have an extra moment. It is everything - and more! - that I remember the perfect pumpkin pie being before I went vegan several years ago. Sometimes a recipe is so good that no words really do it justice, you just have to taste it yourself. This is one of those.

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REFLECTIONS IN IRELAND

Ireland: you were good to me. You provided me with much locally-made chocolate, a wonderful host who gave me a whirlwind tour of the south over the course of seven days (thank you again, Cliona!) and some moments of calm, solitude and beauty which were deeply needed and appreciated. You made me rethink why I am so in love with the past, and what it means to live in the present. In fact, the past, present and future are not disparate but flow in and through one another; as do all our lives, collectively and individually. 
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PEANUT BUTTER CARAMEL FUDGE SLICE

As with nearly all my recipes, this one came together randomly, unplanned, and turned out to be pretty irresistible. This isn't so much me trying to brag about my cooking skills as it is simply an example of how ridiculously easy vegan sweets can be to make. If you don't have a lot of experience with vegan cooking and think it's going to be super complicated, I am here to say: not really! Like with any other kind of food, it can be as simple as you like; OR you can get fancy with it if that's your thing. It's up to you!

As we all know by now, I am lazy as crap in the kitchen so I tend to opt for the easy/quick/basic recipes most days. This is yet another one of them. If you dig peanut butter, sweet stuff, chocolate and dessert that nourishes your bod and gives you energy: this is the recipe for you. And this is the blog for you as well... just sayin'. ;)
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MY (VEGAN) GUIDE TO SCOTLAND

Note: I am writing this post April 1, 2017.
Ah, Scotland. I miss you already. I was in the country - mainly on a farm just south of Edinburgh - for three weeks in March 2017 and it was everything I needed it to be. It was a peaceful escape from the non-stop noise and energy of city life. It was an opportunity to become friends with an exceptionally warm, kind group of people I hope I will know for a long time (and see again very soon!) It was an ever-illuminating, practical introduction to culture, history, art, food and language - accents as well as vocabulary - in the UK, a part of the world I've always yearned to explore. Thanks to the rural and urban landscapes and folks I had the great fortune of meeting, I learned about myself, mulled over new philosophies and had some epiphanies about The Big Picture. I flew into the country having zero ZZZs for over 24 hours, not yet having met the people who'd invited me into their home. I flew away with a few tears in my eyes, a more familiar person to myself, feeling as though I was leaving a kind of home and family. I was so happy here. 
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CHICKPEA COOKIES with DARK CHOCOLATE CHUNKS

When you need a warm, chewy chocolate chunk cookie: grab one of these. They also happen to be full of nutritious, plant-based ingredients so they won't make you feel weird or tired after you eat one (or.. let's be real, three or four). Making healthy recipes doesn't mean you have to compromise delicious flavour and satisfying texture. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL, HUNNY. This is why I am so into raw desserts. They are rich, decadent, sweet and fulfilling to eat; you'd never know they were good for ya. 
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REFLECTIONS IN SCOTLAND

Note: I wrote this in late March 2017.
As my time here comes to an end, I am realizing this world is a giant convolution of all kinds of things all at once. In the three weeks I've spent in Scotland (mainly on a farm just south of Edinburgh, with some days in Edinburgh, Glasgow and The Highlands) - and since I left home three months ago - I haven't so much grown into a more enlightened version of myself as much as I've become comfortable with who I am now. 
Before leaving on this trip I was hoping to discover a new person amid these cities, mountains, fields, planes, trains and houses and take them home in my body. I was hoping to return as someone else, someone whose heart was not irreparably shattered a year ago, someone who doesn't struggle daily with anxiety and depression, someone who knows exactly what they want out of life and wakes up with a mission and a smile at 7:00am every morning. I thought maybe being away from home for four months travelling around the world would rebirth me into a different person-- because a different person wouldn't have my problems. 

This trip is illuminating that not only was that hope impossible to fulfill, since I will always necessarily be me - with all my "flaws" - but more importantly: those flaws are not flaws, they are the building blocks of my identity from here on out. They are wounds on my spirit that make me more resilient, because these wounds will heal and leave a mark to remind me of what I have survived. For the wounds that don't heal (like my mental illness and other trauma), I'm figuring out how to live with them and to know that dark periods do always end. 
I am learning that no thing is one thing. Every thing is connected. Any thing is in every thing and every thing is in any thing. No thing is truly separate. 

So my heartbreak? It hurts because I loved someone and for a time that love was beautiful and made me deeply happy. The painful memories? They are lessons learned. My mental illness? It allows me to be more empathetic, thoughtful and grateful for good days. My medication? Pharmaceutical companies are usually amoral and this has global negative repercussions, but my meds help me and millions of other people feel better. Veganism? It has a smaller fossil fuel footprint and arguably saves lives, but requires a lot of privilege and often works within colonialist hierarchies. My relationships? I love my friends and family, but I also need space alone. Nature? It's in us. It's in the city. The City? It is part of nature, and the two are not two, but one spectrum of lives, buildings, policies, ideologies, goods and services. Nations? They are socially constructed entities built around problematic philosophies but they also house incredible people who are subverting nationalistic agendas while being proud of where they came from. Death? Goddamn! I am terrified of it, but it forces me to enjoy every single freaking moment I get to breathe and eat and dance and hug people I care for. Love? We all know it can involve the good, the bad and the ugly-- on repeat. We see cyclical patterns represented in every realm. 
It's all in waves: life, death, pain, joy, repression, revolution, love, loss. 

Waves can be pointed out as separate events: each making its mark with sound in the air and powerful pressure on sand and rock, and yet when we look at the ocean it's impossible to single out where those waves are out there. They all whirl into one another and create a cold, blue, beautiful, lively universe. The ocean gives us life, it is where we came from at one point (but this planet came from somewhere else, many places, before that), and it takes life away. The waves come in, distinguishable for a brief moment, temporarily revealing time to seem like something that exists, and always they leave once more; back into the vast, moving unknown where time and space are fluid and every thing is in every thing. 


This is not to say that whatever happens, we should accept it because it's all part of the cycle of life. Social justice matters. Human rights matter. Surviving trauma looks as many different ways as there are survivors. Mental illness can require medication and that's ok. But for me, right now, in my own very comfortable life, this way of thinking is useful and soothing. I have a tendency to want to categorize most stuff as one thing or another: better or worse, healthy or unhealthy, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. But that is not how the world is no matter where you look. It's far more complex. 
And so as I pack my things to move on to Ireland (then England, The Netherlands and Germany), I know that I will - in a month - not be returning home a squeaky clean new person who doesn't have to deal with any of the anxieties or hopelessness I had before I left. I will still have trouble getting out of bed most mornings. I will still cry over the person who abandoned me (and the abandonment itself). I will still have much to learn. I will still be healing, as it is a process that never ends. But I will also be a stronger person, a person who has grown, a person who knows themselves a little better, a person with some new tattoos, friends and memories. All these things can exist at once, and they are not at odds with one another: they allow for one another to be. 
XO

VEGAN CARROT CAKE FROM THE HEART!

Note: I wrote this post before I left Scotland in late March 2017. 
I already ate all this cake - not entirely by myself, but that would've been cool too - and now I want moooore. But we don't have any carrots lying around since I used the rest of them... in this recipe. I absolutely love living on this Scottish farm but it does make getting groceries a bit more challenging than simply popping over to the store on foot. Needless to say having to plan a grocery trip sometimes is worth the solitude and tranquility that I have the fortune of experiencing here on these lush green pastures surrounded by kind people, gentle animals, organic acreage and a 150-year old house that has a whole lot of heart. 
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MY (VEGAN) GUIDE TO ICELAND

Note: I wrote this in early March 2017.
Here we goooooo! I was in Reykjavík (pronounce the í like "ee") from March 2-6, and was able to get out of Iceland's capital for a day on a bus tour to the south of the country. "Iceland" in Icelandic is "Ísland", which looks like "island", which Iceland is, technically. Now you know. 
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