An evening with Senator Cory Booker.  I appreciated his modesty and his diligence and commitment to truly creating good change.  I learned an invaluable lesson -  why settle for tolerance?  Do we REALLY want to just tolerate others?  His compassion to love all Americans, whether he agrees with them or not, is a high bar he has set for himself.  I have walked away questioning why I simply tolerate and not do more.  I will strive more for loving all, even those I don't agree with.  It's the only way our nation can move in a positive direction and I believe it unites us all on a grander scale too. 

I was completely thrown off when HE thanked ME for my compassionate work!  What did Senator Booker have to say about my cookbook?  "Thank you for all your compassionate work.  It's never too early to teach compassion."   Thank you Senator Booker for your dedication to your passion - creating unity for good.

Are you feeling exasperated with all the sugar that surrounds Easter?  It's hard enough to make a vegan Easter, but to make it a healthier event is, no pun intended, "the icing on the cake".  

My favorite part of Easter has always been the egg hunt.  I grew up battling it out with my sister to no avail. There was a serious competition.  Well, at least, I THOUGHT there was a competition.  Out of all the years we hunted eggs, I won only once.  And I completely cheated.  I would follow my big sister around the house and watch her find the egg.  I would then push her out of the way and run to snag the egg.  And I still lost. It's as if my sister trained all year to win.  When in reality, I was the smack talker and cheater and egg hunting just simply came naturally to her.   I'm not a hugely competitive person, but I was ready to stop at nothing to see more eggs in my basket then her.  Can you tell I'm still wanting to win?  

Ok, lesson I learned.  Cheating doesn't work, so it's really not worth the karma.  I love the idea though of carrying on the tradition of a fun egg hunt for my children.  Now as a parent, I truly relish in seeing my kids joy as they find an egg. Even more fun now is seeing them help each other find eggs and show each other their prizes as the break open each plastic egg.  It's like one great big "show and tell".  I can learn a thing or two about compassion from my children!  

Instead of dying chicken eggs (which, by the way, why does a bunny bring chicken eggs??),  we buy extra large plastic eggs and fill with fun prizes. Thank you dollar store and fill it with no sugar and fun toys. If you are looking to mix it up this year and hold an ultimate Easter egg hunt, look no further.  I've compiled an awesome list of fun and different egg hunts for the young toddler that includes toy cars theme, to a Minecraft themed hunt for older kids,  to teens can do a glow in the dark hunt at night!
_
Don't forget to follow me on Pinterest for all my fun boards! :) 

Yum, yum, and more yum.   I have fond memories of my parents laying out all the ingredients and everyone could build their own submarine sammich (that's what we call them in our house). Of course, my memories were seeing how much bologna, salami, ham, cheddar, mozzarella and Swiss I could pile on before it couldn't close anymore.  I wanted to recreate this comfort food for my own family.  You can put anything you want on your sandwich, but here are some inspiration ingredients you can lay out for piling!  Remember - base always needs to be a really good soft french bread with pizza sauce.  When you are done "piling", wrap in tin foil and cook at 350 for about 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.  As you can see from the photo below, not much has changed with me.  I just went straight for the meat and cheese.  This time around it's all plant- based.  Enjoy!

 - soft french bread (I pull a little bit of the dough out and eat plain while I pile my sammich.  That way it's not too much bread on sammich!)
 - pizza sauce
 - Tofurky bologna, smoked deli slices, ham, pepperoni, roast beef style - variety is more fun!
thinly cut pieces of Field Roast Apple Sausage
 - Chao Cheese.  and tons of it!
​ - nutritional yeast flakes
 - sliced olives
 - chopped onions
 - artichoke hearts
 - sliced tomatoes
 - spinach
 - grilled peppers
 - banana peppers
 - jalapeno peppers