A Day in the Life of a Very Busy Vita-Mix

It finally happened. After 11 years of almost daily use, our old Vita-Mix container began showing signs of wear (that time I accidentally left a stainless steel spoon in the blender and turned it on probably didn’t help…but the spoon lost).

So we got a spiffy new one! The 5200 model we got has some nice new features — new lid, new handle, BPA-free container, and it’s quieter than our old one, too.

I’ve raved over and over about the Vita-Mix on my blog and in my books, but I hear what you’re saying: “It’s a blender, Jennifer. What on earth could make a flippin’ blender so special that you would spend that much money for it?” (At least, that’s what I think you’re saying, because that’s what I said to my husband when our old Vita-Mix first arrived.)

To give you some idea of why I love my Vita-Mix oooh so much, I present you with A Day in the Life of a Very Busy Vita-Mix:

5:30am: Our busy blender’s day begins at the crack of dawn with a smoothie for Hubby shmoo (his smoothies involve raw eggs, so I’m not even going into it).

7:00am: I’m finally awake and it’s time for my morning smoothie.

My breakfast smoothie is almost always the same: 1/2 cup pomegranate juice, 1/2 cup hemp milk, 1 tbs. flaxseed (whole, no need to grind them first), a banana, 2/3 cup frozen blueberries, 1/3 cup frozen pineapple, and about 2/3 cup chopped organic frozen spinach.

A quick blend and the flaxseed and spinach disappear without a trace. I pour the smoothie into my travel cup, take a couple sips, and head for the gym. When I’m done working out the smoothie is waiting for me in the car, still cold.

10:00am: I whir up a batch of creamy Nacho Cheese for our afternoon out with friends. My mom reports that her regular blender never gets these vegan cheese sauces as creamy and smooth as mine.

5:00pm: It’s time for dinner and one of my favorite Vita-Mix tricks: blending a portion of a vegetable soup and then stirring it back into the soup to make the soup “creamy” without using any cream.

This Indian Cabbage Soup is nice and spicy. I serve it with dahl and brown rice.

7:00pm: Dessert, our favorite! And here’s something a regular blender really can’t do: make sorbet. Tonight I go all-out and make Healthy Fruit Parfaits.

I start by bringing out the bins of frozen fruit I have in my freezer and washing a bowl of fresh (not frozen) blueberries. I blend frozen peaches with a bit of orange juice, using just enough liquid to get the blender going while keeping a thick consistency (I use the tamper to keep things moving). I put the peach sorbet in a bowl in the freezer for just a minute while I rinse out the container and blend frozen strawberries with a few pieces of frozen pineapple and just enough soymilk to get it going again.

I layer spoonfuls of peach sorbet, strawberry sorbet, and fresh blueberries in pretty parfait glasses garnished with slices of tangerine. Oooh, fancy shmancy! And no sugar!

08:00pm: After one last wash and rinse, our Vita-Mix is ready for a well-deserved rest. Good night, Vita-Mix! See you in the morning!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Acne

It must be true. Shmoo must really be hitting his preteens, because now he has zits. Last night he pointed to the big red blotches on his chin and asked me, “What is this?” My little baby!! Next thing you know he’ll be going on dates and asking to borrow the car…

I’ve dealt with acne my entire adult life (they all told me I’d grow out of it, the liars). And although acne has been linked to milk and dairy products in several studies, going vegan did not clear up my skin at all.

Of course, although it didn’t contain dairy, my early vegan diet did include daily servings of things like soda, chips, candy, and french fries.

When I learned about nutrient-density and started following Eat To Live, things changed. I cleared sugar, white flour, and oil out of my diet and added more fruits and vegetables, and within two to three weeks my acne had disappeared. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. Each morning I would stare intently into the bathroom mirror, ready to do battle with my face, and would find that I had nothing to fight. I would stand back and gape at myself. No zits!

Of course, I’ll always have acne scars and pores you can see across the room (along with wrinkles now, how lovely), but for the first time in my adult life I have clear skin. The nasty bumps return and flare up all along my chin and jawline within two to three weeks of bringing sweets back into my diet. (I wish I could say one experience of this was enough to keep me on the wagon forever, but I must admit I’ve fallen off a few times now, always with the same results.)

Then last week I discovered that I’m not alone. Here’s the passage I read in Anticancer:

“When [Loren Cordain, PhD] was told that certain population groups whose way of life is very different from ours had no experience of acne (which is caused by an inflammation of the epidermis, among other mechanisms), he wanted to find out how this could occur…Cordain accompanied a team of dermatologists to examine the skin of 1,200 adolescents cut off from the rest of the world in the Kitavan Islands of New Guinea, and 130 Ache Indians living in isolation in Paraguay. In these two groups they found no trace whatsoever of acne. In their article in Archives of Dermatology, the researchers attributed their amazing discovery to the adolescents’ nutrition. The diets of these contemporary sheltered groups resemble those of our distant ancestors: no refined sugar or white flour, thus no peaks of insulin or IGF in the blood.

“In Australia, researchers convinced Western adolescents to try a diet restricting sugar and white flour for three months. In a few weeks, their insulin and IGF levels diminished. So did their acne.”

Think this information will be enough to convince shmoo to go sugar-free? I doubt it. That monkey just don’t let go. But maybe when he gets interested in girls…

Popularity: 7% [?]

South East Asian Fruits & Vegetables

Tropical fruits are in abundance in the far east, so many varieties are not heard of or available in the west.

attap seeds – a gummy like texture, semi transparent round seeds. Usually available in tins. Just eaten as they are or mixed with fruit salad or with agar agar jelly as dessert.

belimbing manis (starfruit or yang tao 楊桃 in Chinese) – angular segmented on the outside, once cut looks like star shape slices. When unripe usually green it can be quite sour with a bitter undertone, but once ripen usually turned yellowish and can be quite sweet and juicy.

buah belimbing asam (camias) – a cousin to starfruit, looks like a baby pale short green cucumber very tart, not eaten as a fruit but usually use to make pickles or sambal with chillies and belacan and eaten as a condiment.

breadfruit – a round green rough skin fruit with a white pulpy and bland flesh, high in carbohydrate, not eaten raw usually for cooking in stew or deep fried fritters.

cempedak – looks like jackfruit but smaller and slimmer. The fruit segments are a bit more fibrous and quite sweet and more pungent flavour than jackfruit.

ciko (naseberrry or sapodilla or ren xin guo人 心果 in Chinese meaning human heart fruit probably because of its shape) – this fruit is similar in texture like a kiwi fruit, soft and juicy the skin is usually brown and the flesh is light brown and sometime with a hint of pink. Sugary sweet when ripen but don’t eat it if not ripe or it feels like cotton on your tongue similar to eating unripe sharon/persimmon fruit.

dragonfruit – usually the skin is fuchsia pink in colour, the flesh is either pure white or deep pink with tiny black seeds. The white flesh type is quite bland but the deep pink can be a lot sweeter.

durian – king of the tropical fruit, love it or hate it like marmite. Pungent sweet custard like flesh in segmented pods from a very hard and spiky fruit. True or not I don’t know, I was told from very young never mix durian with alcohol or you will get food poisoning or giving you a very bad head.

guava – can be the size of golf ball to quite large like a grapefruit, when unripe it is hard as rock with not much taste or fragrance, when ripen it has a lovely fragrance and getting very soft and usually sweet and sour taste. Skin usually light green and flesh ranging from white to beige to pale yellow to orange to deep pink when ripen and full of tiny tomato like seeds. In the far east some people like to eat the unripe crunchy guava with chinese preserved snack sweet/sour plums 話梅 like this

hog plum – I think this is also called Malay apple, like a large lime with dark green skin, when unripe it is hard as rock and tasteless, when ripen it could have a hint of yellow and slightly sweet and sour taste. It has a hard and fibrous stone. Unripe ones are suitable for pickling.

jambu air (rose apple) – a lovely bell shape looking fruit usually pink in colour but can also be light pale green when ripen. The whole fruit can be eaten, taste not too sweet and refreshing, light and pulpy in texture. Do watch out for wriggly worms, they are a menace with this fruit. The word ‘air’ means water in malay and read as ‘i-yer’

langsat (longkong in Thai) – like a brunch of custard yellow grapes, lovely to eat but don’t bite the skin with your teeth, the white sap (juice) from the skin is sticky and bitter will also make you finger/nail sticky and staining grey to black, the flesh inside is segmented which is translucent white, sweet/sour depending on how ripe they are. The seeds if they are large can be quite bitter and not to be eaten.

limau kasturi (kalamansi) – small green round local limes about 1 inch wide. The skin is green when unripe and turn yellowish when ripen. The flesh is yellowish/ light orange, sour and tastes like a mixture of green lime with mandarin. Makes refreshing limesquash, great for making dressing like rojak, gado gado, kerabu (malay salad) etc.. or use just like common lime juice. Also wonderful for pickling or making salted limes.

limau nipis – common green limes that most people recognised. Common in all S E Asian countries.

Green oranges or clementines – looks like western orangy oranges or clementines but the skin is green and sometime very deep green and inside is ripe, sweet to sour.

limau bali (pomelo or 柚子 in Chinese) – a large citrus very common in most S E Asia countries including Thailand and China.

kaffir lime - a knobbly looking green lime without much juice unique to Thai cooking but not so much in other S E Asian countries. I bought mine from Raan Thai freeze well and last for long time.

longan – This is a Chinese fruit but has spread all over S E Asia, plentiful in Thailand. Malays usually called this fruit mata kucing or cat’s eye. Take a look at the opened fruit you will see why. The flesh does not taste much and usually sugary sweet and juicy.

lychee – similar to longan this is a chinese fruit and has spread to S E Asia. Colour of skin ranging from blush pink to deep pink, the flesh is also similar to longan but with hint of sourness in some to super sweet, the stone is oval and dark brown. Do not tempted to eat a bucket load of this fruit or you may end up having a sore throat and likely needing some Senokot for relief.

mangga (mangoes) – like banana there are numerous varieties. Some so sweet it’s like sugar and some sweet with a sour tang. Different varieties have different skin from green to yellow to red, different flavours and textures can from very smooth to fibrous.

mangga muda (young green mangoes – unripe) – usually from a variety which is very tart, usually the mangoes are picked while still they very young and the flesh is still white in colour, mainly used for sweet/sour/spicy pickles or pounded with chilli and belacan to make sambal mangga.

mangkis (mangosteen) – only fruit I know that has a blueish purplish thick skin and a white soft flesh inside the pod. The pod/skin will bruise easily and will turn brown. I was told from very young never mix sugar with this fruit or you will get tummy ache, true or not I don’t know I do what I was told.

nanas or pineapple – there are few varieties, some small some slender in shape and some huge as big as a large water melon.

nangka (jackfruit) – durian is the king of tropical fruit, jackfruit is the queen. This fruit can be huge. The yellowish segmented fruits inside have a rich sweet flavour and sometime quite crunchy. The seeds are edible boiled in salted water or roasted, taste like potato. Raw fruit can be used in curries.

tampoi – very similar to mangosteen but the skin is brown, with white or yellow segmented flesh and seeds similar to mangosteen.

nutmeg pulp – light beige colour flesh from the nutmeg fruit which the seed is a well known spice and the lacy red covering around the seed is mace another spice. The flesh is usually peeled and pickled with sugar or ground to make jam. Candied nutmeg flesh or manisan pala in Malay similar to this link is a famous product from Penang – Malaysia, usually beige in colour but colour may sometime added.

pisang (bananas) – In UK we probably seen may be less than 3 different kinds of bananas, in S E Asia there are so many kinds there are mini ones like pisang emas , thick skin and thin skin type and some with red skin. Beside these there are plantain green and ripen one too, great for curry and making banana fritter or pisang goreng.

rambutan – 紅毛丹 in chinese, hairy looking fruit ranging from deep red to orange to yellowish green when ripen. The flesh is opaque white like lychee and usually sweet with a hint of tartness, the stone is longish and not edible.

salak – distinguished by its brownish red snake skin. Once open looks like big cloves of garlic with similar garlic colour to light yellow, the texture is usually crunchy and tastes sweet and sour with an applely pineapple flavour, usually eaten raw as fruit but also can be pickled.

soursop (prickly custard apple) – Chinese called this 紅毛榴槤 (‘red hair’ aka western durian) usually green with a slightly prickly skin and odd shape with the end bit pointed. The flesh is pure white or yellowish with black seeds dotted around which are not edible, the taste is usually sweet and sour.

sweet granadilla (asian passion fruit) – much larger than the purplish passion fruits many people know, usually green to yellow to orangy in colour. Taste very similar to the common passion fruit. Usually for making drinks and sweet puddings.

sweetsop (sugar apple or sweet custard apple) – in Chinese is 番荔枝 or western lychee, knobby looking fruit usually green or pink on the outside. When ripen turned very soft and can be broken apart by hand, inside the flesh is usually white but yellow is also available and is very sweet sometime with a slightly sandy texture and full of black not edible seeds.

tarap – a very unusual fruit, similar size to durian with soft needle like thick skin, easy to tear open once ripen, inside packed with a very soft, sweet and quite slippery globules of white/beige looking flesh with seeds. The seeds can be eaten either boiled in salted water or roasted tastes like potatoes.

watermelon – various sizes round or oval, small to huge, seeded and seedless, varies colour ranging from the common pink – red to the unusual bright yellow. Super cooling to eat when the weather is scotching hot and many people would wipe the white part of the flesh on the skin and face to keep cool.

Sayur-sayuran (vegetables) also include roots, beans and other plant materials for food preparation

Kangkong (water spinach or ong choi or tung sum choi in Chinese)– cousin to the morning glory. This plant is either cultivated or grown among wet swampy areas. Dark green leaves with hollow stems. Great stir fried with chilli and belacan Malay style or with garlic chilli and white fermented beancurd Chinese style. Also an essential vegetable for making rojak a malay salad with a dressing made with udang petis a black sticky shrimp paste.

Banana flower/blossom – not commonly eaten but if available, great for adding to curry or added to salad. This beautiful flower bud from the banana tree is picked before any of the petal is opened and the individual banana buds are still beige/white in colour. Only the lighter colour part of the whole flower blossom is eaten not the outside red petals, once cut should be soaked in lemon or acidulated water to prevent from turning brown.

Thai pea aubergines – as the name suggested this is a unique Thai vegetable, looks like green peas usually added to green curries, they have a slight bitter taste, not really my favourite vegetable.

Thai apple aubergines - small aubergines just over 1 inch wide, usually pale green and eaten raw or added to thai curries, much nicer and sweeter than pea aubergines in my opinion. There are also other yellow or oval small Thai aubergines which I am not too familiar with their use, to buy some in UK, go to oriental or Thai supermarket or online from Raan Thai.

brinjal (aubergines) – usually the oriental long slender type either purple or green in colour. Used in some Malay dishes but mainly a vegetable for Chinese or maybe Thai.

kacang bendi (okra or lady fingers) - common with Malay/Nyonya cooking stir fry with sambal belacan or in curries, a favourite vegetable by Chinese too. This is an internationally known vegetable love by many and hated by others because it can be slimy when cooked till very soft.

kacang botol (wingbean or four angled bean) – more of a quick stir fry vegetable to keep its crunchy texture. Malay cooking usually with sambal belacan, Thai also love this vegetable and sometime in salad.

kacang panjang (yardlong bean or snake bean or dau kok in Cantonese) – a long thin straight bean sometime can be a bit wiggly, normally cut into pieces for stir fries or finely chopped for omelette, love by most S E Asian. In Thailand this is usually eaten raw, e.g. in green papaya salad called som tam.

petai (Stink beans or Parkia Beans) – grown in a fibrous long pod, the beens are stripped and skinned reviewing jade colour looking sulphuric smelling beans popular with Nyonya cooking such as Udang Tumis Petai i.e. stir fried stink beans with prawns or Sambal Udang Kering Petai i.e. stink beans with ground dried shrimp sambal. These beans have an acquired taste but once you have get used to them, it’s quite tasty. Like asparagus it could give you a whiffy urine.

ubi manis (sweet potato) – varies colours ranging from pure white to yellow to orange to deep purple. Some quite bland and some super sweet. Leaves from the plant are edible as a vegetable, a bit like spinach.

sayur bayam (chinese spinach/ amaranth/ 莧菜 yin choi in Chinese), a spinach like vegetable usually green but can also have red, pink patches on the leaves, stem or root. Chinese eaten this vegetable more usually stir fry or make soup, those with red patches will make the soup pink which is quite pretty.

ubi kayu (cassava) – a common root vegetable and easily grown in any back garden. One single plant can sometime produce over 10 kg of long starchy roots. The outside skin is thin and looks like wood bark, when peeled will reveal a second skin usually pink outside and white inside, the flesh is pure white with a string like fibre in the centre running from the top to bottom of the root. Can be eaten just steamed or boiled, added to stew or curries or grated to make sweet Malay kuih called bingka ubi kayu. In factory cassava are dried and processed to make tapioca starch.

mooli or daikon – not normally eaten by Malays, usually a Chinese vegetable or other S E Asian especially Korean and Japanese.

sayur paku (fiddlehead fern or Chinese called this paku chai), grown only in the wild in bushes or swampy areas, picked by local and sold in market or tamu (open space street market.). Tender and tasty green shoots (browned if bruised), usually stir fry with sambal belacan.

sayur manis (potato vegetable or she zai choi in chinese) – some people called this paku too (don’t know why) this is usually a Chinese vegetable either stir fry with scrambled egg or making soup with ribbon egg or Malay style with belacan.

ubi Sengkuang or mangkuang (yam bean or jicama or sa kok in cantonese) – a root vegetable, looks like a spinning top, with sandy brown skin once peeled will review a whitish flesh similar to daikon but with lightly sweet earthy taste and crunchy texture. This root vegetable is widely available and very cheap in the far east and in American especially Mexican supermarkets, but strangely very hard to find in England I have only seen them occasionally in Chinese supermarket and quite expensive. In Malaysia, Singapore or Brunei it is commonly refer to as mangkuang and use for filling for spring rolls or in malay salad like rojak.

taro or oriental yam – an oriental starchy root with a fibrous black/ brown skin, once peeled may see sap or juice appearing on the surface which some people can be allergic to so do wear gloves if you can before you found out you have itchy hands to deal with for hours to days. The flesh can be pure white or with speckles of purple vein once cooked will give this root vegetable a lovely light purple colour. Some especially those with a purplish colour has a distinctive lovely flavour. Taro can be used in all sorts of savoury dishes, Chinese dim sum, Malay sweet puddings or for sweet cakes. Widely used by Chinese, Malays, Thai, Vietnamese and Filipino. In Philippines they made a lovely purple ice cream with this taro and coconut milk, seriously yummy. The leaf stem of taro is edible and can be used to make a curry with lots or coconut milk, once cooked it is soft and slimy like okra. This leaf stem is quite a traditional ingredient for Vietnamese sour fish soup, canh chua ca.

kelapa (coconut) – coconut is probably one of the most important ingredient in Malaysian and most SE Asian cooking. Coconut is such a versatile plant, the tree provides shade and the leaves can be cut and use for thatched roof, string etc, individual leaf segment can be stripped and weaved into container for food cooking like these ketupat or rice dumplings, the spine of each leaf segment can be used as skewer for satay. The young green coconut (flesh and juice) is so refreshing as a drink and the jelly like flesh which has not hardened yet is great as a dessert. When the fruit is matured and turned brown, the husk has many uses like fuel, make into brooms etc.. and the inside tortoise like hard shell can be turned into eating bowls, the white hard flesh is most important to make santan (coconut milk in Malay) or coconut cream. When coconut milk is boiled to remove the water content and the milk solid condensed, separated and filtered, a rich oil with lovely nutty flavour can be made for cooking . In factory coconut oil is made by filtration technique without the nutty taste like homemade and widely used in baking and cosmetic industries. Coconut milk can also be dried to powder form which is widely available, a convenient material to use. In the west and also in Far East for convenient sake, coconut milk is widely available in tin which is one of my most essential cupboard ingredients. In the far east fresh matured coconut is normally grated at home or taken to grate in a shop and milk is then pressed with a cotton or muslin bag. Here is a gadget similar to the one my family had for years, it’s a piece of metal with saw tooth fixed at one end of a piece of wood plank, the person grating the coconut will sit on the plank so it will not move and the coconut usually broken in half still with the hard shell on is then grated. Over in England I had successful process a fresh coconut at home using a Microplane grater see this post. You can also get coconut cream in a block like butter this is more of a Indian/ west indian cooking ingredient, not commonly used by S E Asian. Grated coconut also has many used, we have seen them in the shop dried as desiccated coconut or coconut flakes for making cakes and biscuits. Freshly grated coconut can also be fried till brown and ground to powder to make kerisik a typical Malay ingredient usually for curries like rendang.

pandan leaf (pandanus) – a green long leaf plant mainly used to extract the juice for flavouring sweets and cakes in S E Asia, so popular it is commonly known as S E Asian vanilla, here is a chiffon cake recipe I insist on using the real juice. Can also used for savoury dishes, the leaf is popular to use as is for wrapping pandan chicken to give that unique flavour or as a wrapper with bamboo leaves to wrap Nyonya zhong (Chinese style glutinous rice dumplings with meat filling). Artificial pandan essence is also available, this one is commonly used by S E Asian which also has colouring added. I always use fresh leaves when available, quite easy to find these days in UK oriental supermarkets. Will freeze but IMO the flavour will disappear quite rapidly during freezing.

banana leaf – the leaf from the banana tree, not edible on its own but usually use as a wrapper or use to serve food with as a liner. Very versatile materials will imparts a nice light fragrant when bbq or chargrilled, here is one example how I would use it for some sticky rice rolls or pulut panggang , also great to wrap fish and put on a barbie. Can also use to wrap all sorts of food like lontong a Malay banana leaf wrapped rice log, or sweet dumpling type cakes like this pulut inti a Malay sweet rice cake. For Thai food great to make a container for hor mok a steamed fish/seafood/chicken with spices and coconut milk

Read the rest here:
Sunflower’s Food Galore: South East Asian Ingredients

Popularity: 7% [?]

A Week of Soup

I have to start by giving credit where it’s due because this was Darlene’s idea. She thought the week of breakfast was fun and since it’s winter it might also be fun to try a new soup recipe every night for a week. This started after she made a variation of the Pho recipe from Quick Fix Vegetarian. This recipe is itself a variation on a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, using seitan instead of beef. We didn’t have seitan so she made a quick seitan batter (wheat gluten and water), then tore off little pieces and cooked them with the soup. She also added a can of coconut milk, which isn’t authentic but sure was good.

The next night our fridge was looking sparse but we did have canned chickpeas so I made this chickpea soup recipe I found in a back issue of Vegetarian Times. It was fairly light, like more of a first course, but we had it with a salad and bread and it made an OK dinner. Here it’s garnished with chopped parsley and chili oil.

We started next on a trio from Veganomicon. First up was the Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup. Only we couldn’t find eggplant so we went with sweet potatoes instead. I know, sweet potatoes are quite different from eggplant but they really worked well with this peanut butter and tomato based soup.

Next it was a quick minestrone from Quick Fix Vegetarian. Honestly I’ve had better minestrone but this was thrown together quickly with canned tomatoes and chickpeas and frozen vegetables and it made for an easy weeknight meal.

Then it was back to Veganomicon for the Baked Potato and Greens Soup with Potato-Wedge Croutons. We baked the potatoes ahead of time so the soup came together fairly quickly, but it definitely took me longer than the 30 minutes suggested in the book. But I admit to being a rather slow cook. At any rate, it was worth it as this was an awesome potato soup with kale and earthy spices (I never would’ve thought to put fennel in potato soup). And the cornmeal-breaded and fried potato wedge on top was the perfect accompaniment.

The last in our V-con trio was the Ancho-Lentil Soup with Grilled Pineapple. I never would’ve thought to put pineapple in lentil soup either but it worked well. This was another weeknight meal so we simplified it considerably by skipping on the homemade ancho chile powder and just using store-bought chile powder. I’m sure it’s much better with homemade but this was the quick version. It would also be better with fresh grilled pineapple but in our quick version we used canned pineapple that we sautéed in a little Earth Balance.

Last but certainly not least was the Taco Soup from Nava Atlas’ Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons. This is a newly released re-issue of her excellent book Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. This particular recipe is not much different from a chili. It was excellent on its own, but was made even more so by the addition of some righteous vegan cheese. And that’s a story for another post.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Review: VegOut Application for iPhone and iPod touch

As I mentioned previously, I was given a promo code to try out a brand new vegan app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The name VegOut brings back again fond memories for me. Veg Out was a excellent vegetarian restaurant in Brisbane, Australia. (I lived in Queensland, Australia for six months.) Anyway, it can make me believe of their incredible sweet potato fries. They’re no longer open, although.

Anyway, on to the review..<br>.

Starting up the VegOut application

When very first loading the VegOut application, it attempts to utilize your present area. I received the subsequent error message: Your area could not be determined. I had been bummed but I do not blame the application, as other apps on my ipod device contact (for example Google Maps) are unable to discover my present area. I guess my ipod device does not know exactly where Stratford, Prince Edward Island is.

Simply because VegOut couldn’t discover my present area I had been prompted to by hand add my area in Settings. I clicked on Settings and input my tackle. It worked! The 3 (yes, only 3) outcomes in HappyCow in Charlottetown had been shown. The outcomes had been listed by proximity to me and had been total with ratings, a label of Vegan, Vegetarian, or Veg Helpful, and the range to every.

I had been impressed and made the decision to go back again to the Settings menu to play close to some much more.

Settings for the VegOut application

Right here are all the settings you are able to configure:

* Area: You are able to select to utilize your present area or by hand specify a area.

* Range: You are capable to adjust the variety to lookup in out of your area.

* Sort by: You are able to sort by Range, Score (typical individual score on HappyCow), or Alphabetical.

* Filter by diet plan: You are able to filter by diet plan to show Vegan, Vegetarian, or Veg Helpful companies (or any mixture thereof).<br>

Info shown for any company

Should you click on the company inside your lookup outcomes you’re shown the subsequent info:

* Telephone

* Kind of food

* Tackle: Clicking on on the tackle will show the company on the map. You are able to then effortlessly get directions to the destination.

* Web site: Clicking on on the URL will provide up the web site for the company. The plan keeps a little bar at the bottom to permit you to effortlessly close the window and go back again to exactly where you had been in the application.

* Price

* Particulars: Clicking on right here will take you to the entry on HappyCow’s web site, exactly where you are able to look at individual evaluations.

Difficulties encountered utilizing the VegOut application

one. Present Area: As I pointed out above, the request didn’t discover my present area. Nevertheless, I believe that’s a larger concern with the ipod device contact. For some cause it does not discover me right here on Prince Edward Island. I’ll be curious to determine how nicely it functions when I am back again in DC following month. I am assuming it’ll function a lot much better.

2. Maps: When pulling a company up on the map, I wasn’t completely obvious on how to obtain back again to the application. The application did not maintain a bar existing like it did when I clicked on Particulars to load a web site. The only way I could determine to obtain back again to the application was to go to my house display on the ipod device and load the application once again, which took me back again to the app’s primary display. Perhaps I am missing some thing. If not, I’d recommend adding this functionality in the following edition.

Issues about the VegOut application

one. Does the application instantly pull new information from HappyCow if/when the HappyCow web site is updated? For instance, if a brand new vegan restaurant opens in Washington, DC and is additional to HappyCow will that seem in the application correct away?

In summary

I adore the VegOut request. The only point I could discover that I did not like was the truth which you cannot effortlessly get back again to the application as soon as you load a company on the Google Map. Should you have an iPhone or an ipod device contact I extremely suggest downloading it. It is $4.99 and worth each and every penny. I maintain considering of how helpful this application is heading to become when I am traveling.

For more information, you can visit the VegOut application’s website or download the VegOut app from iTunes.

(Image courtesy of the VegOut application’s website)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Vegan Application for iPhone and iPod touch

First let me apologize for not blogging in quite a while. It’s lame. I’ve been dealing with a lot in my life recently. Anyway, I want to get back to my blog. I really enjoy interacting with all of you.

My wife gave me a very early birthday present last night (she couldn’t wait until June). I got an iPod touch! I’ve only had it for a day and I already love it. It was actually strange timing that right after I was given my new iPod touch I received an email from Champ Bennett regarding VegOut, a new application he wrote for the iPhone and iPod touch. Here is the press release from the email he sent me:

Brooklyn, NY – Feb 20, 2009 — Brooklyn musician and freelance software developer, Champ Bennett, has partnered with HappyCow.net to bring the largest source of vegan/vegetarian restaurant listings to the iPhone. The idea came to him after having the hardest time finding a good place to eat while touring in Europe in mid-2008. Upon returning back to the States, he promptly got in touch with HappyCow to see if they would be interested in a partnership. HappyCow agreed and development started.

Upon completion of the app, Bennett wrote to Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple, Inc. and well-known vegan) to inform him of the application. “I couldn’t think of a better candidate to beta test the app”, Bennett said. “I wrote to him, and days later he actually wrote back asking when he could try it out! I responded asking for his UUID so I could build him a beta application that he could run on his iPhone. The next day he announced his hiatus from Apple and I never heard back again. Oh, well.”

As of today, version 1.1 of the app is on Apple’s AppStore. The functionality is simple: it finds vegetarian restaurants near your location or a custom location; however, there are plans in the future to extend the functionality to include vegetarian and vegan recipes (Bennett’s wife is a graduate of the Chef’s Training program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts and works at the popular Manhattan raw-food restaurant, Pure Food and Wine).

Champ even provided me with a promo code to download the app for free. I’ve successfully downloaded the app and transferred it to my iPod touch. I’m going to play around with it.

Stay tuned because an evaluation of VegOut is forthcoming.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Two Cute Lunch Kits

Wow, it seems like exciting new lunch-gear is just springing up left and right! I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the fun lunch items I want to share with you all. Here are two more:

1. Etsy craftswoman Becky Striepe recently sent in this email:

“Hi Jennifer!

I’ve been a big fan of yours for quite a while. You’re basically the reason I got interested in bento, so it would be a total honor if you mentioned my Lunch Kits on your blog. Each one comes with: a handmade bag, 5 napkins, a stainless steel lunchbox and a pair of bamboo chopsticks or eclectic utensils.

“I’m also a vegan and love cooking! Your Magical Loaf Studio is one of my go-tos when we need an easy, tasty dinner. It hasn’t failed me yet!”

Oh, thank you so much, Becky! Your handmade bags are super-adorable!

2. A blog commenters recently pointed me towards Kids Konserve, a new company focusing on waste-free lunches for kids.

There’s so much to like here! Their Lunch Kits come with a recycled canvas sack with recycled aluminum name tag, an organic cloth napkin, stainless steel beverage bottle with a carabiner, a BPA-free “food kozy” that replaces disposable baggies, and two stainless steel food containers with BPA-free plastic lids. Eco-impeccable!

There is one thing I don’t like, though, particularly since this kit is geared toward school kids, who usually don’t have access to a refrigerator: I wish that the lunch sacks were insulated and came with an ice pack and a built-in ice pack pocket, to keep foods safe until lunch time.

Also, although I think stainless steel is the best choice environmentally, I wonder about sending kids to school with it. Watching my own son swing and drag his backpack around makes me fear these containers will wind up dented in a matter of weeks. And do schools have issues with stainless steel, particularly those with security? Thoughts?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Road Trip with a Pitted Prune

We’ve been stuck under gray skies so long, I can hardly remember what the sun looks like. It sure feels melancholy around here towards the end of winter. Time to get out of town and take a road trip! Yesterday we packed lunches and rode along with my dad and his sweet dog Libby, up into the pretty foothills of the Blue Mountains.

For shmoo’s lunch I packed a veggie dog in a whole wheat bun, two corn-on-the-cobs, and a Sunsweet Ones. What clever marketing is that? They’ve packaged individual pitted prunes in little wrappers to look like candy!! I saw these at the store and just had to give them a try. It seems like they would make the perfect, healthy treat to tuck into the corner of a kid’s lunchbox.

For myself I made a hummus, sprout, tomato, and lettuce sandwich on sprouted wheat bread packed in our Lunch Skin bag. I also packed a tiffin container of mini cucumber slices, baby carrots, celery, and green grapes, and two Golden Delicious apples.

We started out worried about the weather; the car was wrapped in dense fog and the cold was bitter. We guessed we wouldn’t be able to get too far into the hills and would probably have to turn back. But as the car headed up into Dayton we climbed out of the cloud cover and suddenly, there it was! The sun was shining down on us from a blue sky! We had a wonderful, warm tramp about in the hills. The snow was mostly melted away. The ground was mucky but mostly clear.

Verdict: Shmoo wolfed down the hot dog and an apple but wouldn’t eat the corn (“too mushy” – it was cooked frozen corn), then said “This is my treat? Nice try!” and handed me the prune. Oh well, I still think it’s a great idea. Maybe it will work better with younger children?

We nibbled on the veggies and grapes together on the drive back. I discovered that I love popping a slice of mini cucumber and a green grape into my mouth at the same time. Nice flavor combo!

Popularity: 8% [?]

Society For Animals In Distress

Popularity: 7% [?]

Nacho Cheese for Everyone!

Enough of the serious stuff for a moment — time for some fun! Shmoo and I meet our homeschool friends each week at the community center for games and fun and momma chats. This week I wanted to pack something fun for shmoo and I to share with our friends.

I made a batch of Nacho Cheese Dip and packed it in a warm thermos along with a big bag of organic corn chips for shmoo and his friends. I also packed a big batch of veggies for me (the kids were welcome to eat the veggies, too…but they didn’t): lightly steamed cauliflower, baby carrots, jicama, celery, cherry tomatoes, and radishes.

I packed the veggies in a three-tier tiffin and left the third container empty. At lunchtime I poured the warm dip into the empty container to make it easier for dipping. I also packed some little fondue forks to make dipping the vegetables more fun.

Verdict: Everything tastes so good with this dip! I’ve been experimenting with the recipe and have discovered I can substitute canned white beans for the cashews to make the dish nut-free. I also like to add a bit of fresh salsa to the mix before I blend it, to add more flavor and a nice orange color. (Follow the link to the recipe and you’ll see other people’s variations, too.) James’ best friend was hesitant to try the dip at first, but ended up coming back for more and then more. Can you believe I ate that much cauliflower?? 5 stars.

Popularity: 7% [?]