Halloween, our birthday, and a GIVEAWAY

By Giselle Wedemire

PIcky Bitchez turned two years old this month (!!!) and Halloween is right around the corner, so we've been feeling pretty festive lately while struggling with ideas of what we could do to celebrate our blog's birthday while making our readers' Halloween festivities even sweeter. And is there any better way to improve trick-or-treating season than by filling you in on what candies are both vegan and gluten-free?

Nope, there isn't. Because that right there is a good deal -- a scary good deal, if you will.

But before we get to the good stuff, we've got a scary story to tell to get you in the spooky spirit of the holiday:

Photo courtesy of Flickr

An Awesome Gluten-Free Flour Mix

By Casey Knoll

My mom is from Nova Scotia, so baking was a huge part of my childhood. As soon as I could hold a measuring cup, I started to make biscuits, cookies, muffins -- you name it! Ever since then, I’ve always loved to bake, especially biscuits. They go perfectly with a nice cup of tea.

When I became gluten intolerant, baking wasn't fun anymore. I couldn't find a flour recipe that I was happy with because everything seemed to taste like sawdust, or just fell apart in the oven. Yes…there were many biscuit meltdowns.

Finally, after at least two years of sawdust-esque, flaky, crappy baked goods, I got an incredible gluten-free flour mix from a friend of mine that washed all my biscuit woes away. The recipe is at the bottom of the post, so make sure you have a look! Give it a whirl with this recipe for gluten-free orange zest raisin tea scones. 

Baby your skin with Live Clean (baby) Calming Bedtime products

By Giselle Wedemire

In my opinion, babies are like beards: they're pretty cool, but I don't ever want to have one of my own. However, babies have kind of cornered the market on smelling good and having super soft skin, which are both pretty cool things that I wouldn't mind having for myself.

So, when I received (baby) Calming Bedtime,* Live Clean's latest line of baby bath products, I jumped at the chance to baby my skin. Packed with skin-soothing safflower and coconut oils and relaxing essential oils like vanilla, lavender, chamomile, and jasmine, the bubble bath and lotion in Live Clean (baby)'s Calming Bedtime collection sound like a recipe for stress relief for anyone, young or old. 

After a full day at work and an invigorating evening of living room yoga, I set myself up for a more grown-up version of a baby's nighttime bubble bath. Armed with a glass of vegan wine, a great book to read during my relaxing soak, and a tub teeming with bubbles, I got down to business and tested out how effective these products can be on an adult who sets her own bedtime, thankyouverymuch. 

Here's what I think of Live Clean (baby)'s Calming Bedtime collection:

Cilantro pesta salad to beat the heat

By Giselle Wedemire

The summer heat has been getting the best of me lately, and retreating indoors often provides little to no relief for me -- especially in my kitchen. For some strange reason, my kitchen seems to retain even the smallest amount of heat during the summer, regardless of if the last time my stove was turned on was two hours ago or two days ago!

This presents the unique challenge of needing (and wanting) to make myself nutritious meals while avoiding excess heat at all costs. Salads are a great way to solve this problem,  and I've been taking advantage of the cool simplicity of making salads a lot this summer, but I was in the mood for something a bit heartier the other day. 

I also needed to use up the rest of the cilantro pesto I had lingering in the fridge after I made some amazingly delicious black bean wraps earlier that week. Thus, out of necessity and high humidity my pesto pasta (pesta?) salad was born!

I strongly suggest you whip this gluten-free and vegan wonder up whenever you feel you've had enough of the summer sun, and dig in while cooling off in the shade.

Cilantro pesta salad
(serves 4 as an entree)

What you'll need:
2 cups dried gluten-free pasta (I used Catelli's gluten-free penne)
1/2 cup Thug Kitchen's cilantro pesto
1 ripe avocado, diced
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted
1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
1 tbsp chopped cilantro, for garnish
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

What you'll need to do:

• Prepare the pasta in boiling water according to the package's instructions. Once cooked and cooled, transfer to a large serving bowl.
• In the meantime, whip up the cilantro pesto in a food processor or blender. The recipe makes one cup of pesto, so measure out 1/2 cup of pesto and save the rest for another day.
• Add the pesto to the bowl of pasta. Add in the black beans, corn, and peas as well, and mix until everything is well coated with pesto.
• Add the diced avocado and mix lightly, being careful not to smush the bits of avocado.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately.

Try this recipe out and let us know what you think of it by commenting below or by tweeting us at @PickyBitchez.

Three girls, three hair oils

By Giselle Wedemire

Though it kind of took its sweet time getting here, summer is finally in full swing here in Calgary. And while the summer sun is great for adding a golden glow to our otherwise pale post-Canadian-winter complexions, it can also wreak havoc on our hair. That's where hair oils come in to save the day.

In general, hair oils help to restore moisture that may otherwise have been lost by a host of everyday occurrences like shampooing, brushing and combing, heat styling, and other environmental factors like dry weather and pollution.

Live Clean's three hair oils (seen below) work to replenish hair and transform it from the inside out while instantly providing smoother results.

Live Clean's hair oils from left to right: Exotic Vitality Monoi Oil Leave-in Treatment, Age Resist Miracle Nutrition Oil, and Exotic Silk Keratin Oil Leave-in Treatment

Kiss Me Organics organic matcha review + GIVEAWAY

By Giselle Wedemire

A month or so ago, Starbucks had this weeklong happy hour deal going on where all of their frappuccinos were half-priced everyday from 3 - 5 p.m. My wallet sang praises from on high at this revelation because though I love me some Starbucks, my bank account is not too fond of full-priced Starbucks delicacies.

During that week in early May, Mr. Picky Bitch and I patronized Starbucks locations across the city almost every day during happy hour, and each time we left the cafes with dreamy smiles on our faces and frothy, green tea soy frappuccinos (sans whipped cream, of course) in our hands.

The days of Starbucks' happy hour are over, but we are still hooked on the deep, earthy, sweet matcha green tea flavour of those half-priced green tea frapps. Needless to say, we were overjoyed when we received a bag of Kiss Me Organics organic matcha green tea powder in the mail.

Matcha green tea ice cream sammiches from the planet Delicious

By Giselle Wedemire

You know that feeling when you decide, quite firmly, on what it is you're going to be baking, only to find that your hopes and dreams have been dashed because the recipe you had in mind actually doesn't exist?

Well, I do.

Yesterday, I had planned to test out some of Kiss Me Organics' matcha green tea powder by making the green tea ice cream sandwiches in Veganomicon. But when I flipped to the page in question in the veritable vegan bible, I found that that recipe was actually for green tea ice cream which you could then sandwich between cookies of your choice. 

Disappointed, I embarked on a harrowing and frustrating search for the perfect matcha cookie recipe via Google and came up short. Then, I stomped into my kitchen like a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum and, after a few deep yoga breaths, I set out on making up my own matcha cookies.