♡ Girlcology ♡

♡ Valentine's Day inspired French Toast ♡ (Gluten Free, Dairy Free)

blogger 6:32:00 PM

Valentine's day is quickly approaching and we're always looking to surprise our loved one's with something extra special so I thought, why not start off the day with a thoughtful Valentine's day inspired breakfast. In this post, I'll be showing you guys how I created these adorable chocolate drizzled heart shaped french toasts.

What you will need:

Gluten free toast (Pictured: Udi's gluten free multigrain toast)
1 egg
1/4 cup of milk (I used Silk almond milk - my favorite!;))
1 tsp of vanilla extract
Cinnamon to taste
Maple Syrup, agave, or honey
Chocolate Chips (Pictured: Enjoy Life's vegan chocolate chips)
White chocolate melts
Heart shaped sprinkles
Scissors
1 Plastic bag

Instructions

For your toast:

1. In a bowl, combine all your french toast ingredients. This includes 1 egg, milk, vanilla extract, and your cinnamon. Whisk together until well combined.

2. Next you want to take a pair of kitchen scissors and cut your toast into a heart shape. I found scissors worked best for me rather than a cookie cutter seeing as Gluten free toast has a harder consistency than your traditional loaf of bread.

3. Place your griddle on med-high heat and spray it with non stick spray. I decided to drizzle a tad of olive oil which works quite nicely as well. :)

4. Dip your toast into your french toast mix and let it soak for about 30 seconds on each side.

5. Place your toast on your griddle until both sides are golden brown.

6. This part is optional but I personally thought would fit perfectly with the Valentine's day theme. While waiting to flip your toast, you can push some chocolate chips into the side of the bread that is face up. That way they will melt into it and give it that extra chocolate flavour. After all, who doesn't love some chocolate on this special day. :)

7. Once your toast is ready, you can remove the slice and place it onto a plate as shown in the picture below.

For the chocolate sauce and final touches:

1. You can choose to melt your chocolate over a water bath or in the microwave. If you decide on the microwave, make sure to melt at 10 second intervals in order to prevent the chocolate from burning.

2. Once your chocolate is ready, place it into a small plastic bag and cut up a small hole. This will allow you to drizzle it nicely onto your chocolate chip french toast.

3. Ofcourse, we can't forget our traditional maple syrup. I placed some on the side in a little sauce cup.

3. Finally, you will want to grab some heart shaped sprinkles and sprinkle them over it for some final touches.

And there you have it, a simple yet adorable french toast recipe!

I hope this recipe inspired some of you to kick it up a notch this Valentine's day.

Much love, and as always,

Happy eating!

xox Léa S.

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Five Tips on living with an autoimmune disease

Autoimmune disease 6:32:00 PM

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Being Constantly Connected and Quick Self Care

advice 1:05:00 AM

No one can deny the progress and advantages technology has provided us within the last 10 years. Whether it's in the medical field, in the educational system or in the obvious day-to-day life, technology has altered much of what was previously unnecessary behaviors into an automatic stream of habits we don't need to think twice about. For many, waking up in the morning and checking our cell phones or emails is automatic. I personally pull out my phone whenever I am wondering about a specific question. "Where have I seen this actress before?". "What's this song again?", "How do I get to this place?", etc.

One of the awesome thing about technology is that you can pretty much reach anybody. I love being able to call my grandparents overseas without worrying about minutes and fees, and being able to keep in touch with my friends and cousins. It makes everything so much easier!

But of course, everything has a bad side. Keeping connections with old friends and relatives is great, but what about the people that we don't want to keep in touch with at all? Or what about the people who we shouldn't be keeping in touch with, really for our own well-being, but can't really get rid of without apparently transgressing some kind of new social norms?

In the past, once you've met somebody, I'm assuming all you did was exchange numbers. If you liked the person, as a friend or otherwise, you got in contact with them and kept the friendship going. If not, you just ignored their calls and the odds of them getting back in touch with you or knowing anything about your life was likely via word of mouth and gossip. Obviously, things have changed since then. We grew up with facebook, or MySpace, or whatever. We added all these people from school or work on our social media realms, whether we were friends or not, and they just stayed there. We're forced to keep up with what our acquaintances or friends are up to, whether you like it or not. And it's very hard to not compare yourself with other people's lives. Sometimes, we almost feel like we're falling behind. But realistically, we all have our own timeline. I totally agree that it's pretty awesome to have your shit together. However, we forget that you can appear to have your shit together and not really have anything accomplished. We forget that we create this online alter-ego, only showing people the best parts of our lives. And consequently, we forget that our counterparts do the same.

Now, if you are simply comparing yourself to another person to seek inspiration or motivation, fine. That's not a big deal, as long as you're doing it for yourself and nobody else, okay. I'm with you on that. But if you begin to turn this energy into a negative one, where you are either harming yourself (physically, emotionally, or otherwise) by putting yourself down, or harming others by putting them down, then there's an issue.

Cyberbullying is unfortunately not something that only happens in high school. It's not only celebrities or YouTube stars that get negative comments. It's "regular" individuals going about their daily lives, accomplishing goals and inspiring others whether they know it or not. This is where being connected all the time gets ugly. When we make these social connections online, we are not forced to stay friends with people in real life. We aren't even forced to stay friends with them online. So why does it feel like we have to stay friends with someone who is posting negative comments on someone else's profile? How am I supposed to be supportive of this person's ambitions and business if they're an asshole? However, we are not obliged to stay "friends" with people who upset us and make us feel bad about ourselves. You'd likely not want to hang out or catch up with that person in real life, so why bother to stay up to date with their lives online? I think it's our sense of curiosity that keeps us intrigued. But it shouldn't.

TL;DR: If someone is being mean to you online, just delete and block them. You don't need that shit in your life. And you're not being petty, you're just taking care of yourself. If you're the asshole posting up mean shit on people's posts, c'mon. Grow up man. Go channel that energy into something more productive!

Wishing you all inner peace and happiness this new year!

- Patty

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Beef Patties (GF, DF, Vegan)

Autoimmune disease 5:15:00 PM

Everyone loves beef patties, myself included. While I was on the elimination diet, I decided to experiment with my ingredients and came up with a gluten free, dairy free (could be made vegan/vegetarian) version that is still equally as delicious.

I subbed the beef in the patties for turkey the first time I made them. But you could stuff these patties with vegetarian or vegan options, or whatever your little heart desires. :)

What You will need:

For the crust:

1 cup of brown rice flour

1 cup of GF oat flour (or can sub with Sorghum flour)

1/2 cup of arrowroot flour

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp salt

2 tsps turmeric (this is optional but helps to give the yellow colour in beef patties)

1/2 cup of cold hard vegan butter, or 1/4 cup + 2 tbsps of olive oil

* If you aren't vegan, gluten free, dairy free, feel free to use traditional butter.

3/4 cup ice water

For the filling:

1/4 pound (250 grams) of raw ground beef (I used turkey)

1/4 cup onions finely diced

1/4 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground pepper

Instructions:

In a large bowl, pour in all dry ingredients.

* For the oat flour, if you don't have it feel free to grind your own which is what I did. :)

Whisk them all together for a couple minute to ensure that the flours are well incorporated.

Create a hole in the middle of the bowl and pour in your olive oil, (or whichever oil/butter you decide to use) and your cold water. This allows you to mix the solids with the liquids gradually and achieve the texture we are looking for for the dough. Once you have your dough, let it sit in the fridge for an hour.

In the meantime, you can prep your filling by mixing the onion and spices into your meat.

you can cook that on medium heat and set it aside.

Preheat oven to 350-400 degrees. While waiting, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out onto parchment paper. To make it easier, I also placed a parchment paper on top for a smoother glide. Take any circular shaped bowl or cut out and cut out as many as you can. Place just enough meat into your dough so that you can fold it over into a half moon shape. Use a fork to create the indents on the outer rim of the patties.

Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until patties start browning and seem to have crusted a bit on top et voila! There you have it Gluten Free, Dairy Free, or Vegan (if you choose)!
Patties for everyone to enjoy! :)

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe and let me know if there is anything else you would like me to try!

Happy eating,

xox Léa S.