Ani's Fat Blast Revisted

Back in October, I did a review and a giveaway of Ani's Fat Blast. After the New Year and some minor health issues, I decided it might be worth putting Ani's book to the test. Five friends and I decided to embark on a 28 day clean vegan eating program. I am the only veg in the group, so I was excited they agreed to go totally vegan for the duration.

Sadly, one person dropped out after only 3 days. I was bummed because I felt he could benefit the most. But on we went! The first 15 days, four of us decided to put Ani's book to the test and try to go raw for at least the first week. Two of the four had a very hard time with having mostly smoothies and soups the first week. They decided to forgo Ani's plan, but did stay vegan for the first 15 days. Yay! Two of us decided to do the full 15 day fat blast!

Each Sunday I would prep the weekly meals for everyone who was doing raw. As I was prepping my weekly meals, I found myself wishing the page numbers were listed on the menu pages. It was kind of a pain to have to keep looking for the recipes as I was doing the prep. It's not a deal breaker on buying the book, but a suggestion on how to improve future editions perhaps?

Admittedly, the first week was a little challenging for me as well. The first few days, I could really feel the detox happening. My stomach was a little yucky and I felt a little toxic to be honest. After the first couple of days, I started to feel really energetic. Almost too much so. I was having a little trouble sleeping. That soon passed and I just felt good. I didn't realize how very sluggish I had gotten over the past few years as my weight climbed up. My co-worker started feeling a lot better too. You eat 5 small meals a day, so not once did I feel hungry. I have to admit, I was very excited to be chewing instead of drinking during week two.

Week two brought chewing and happy tummies. We both found some of the recipes very tasty and plan on making them often in the future. I fell in love with the Thermo Dressing (pg. 138). It is addicting. A lot of the smoothies were really good! There were a couple of soups I had to choke down, but most were pretty darn good. I particularly liked the Zucchini Noodles and Raw Marinara Sauce (pg. 160). The Pesto Wraps (pg. 156) were filling and delicious. We had some gorgeous chard coming out of the garden. They made the perfect wrapper!

The raw brownies with fresh raspberries were a great treat. Oh, and the simple blueberries, strawberries, cacao nibs and flax snack were awesome.

The recipes are super easy and quick. It makes it really convenient to be raw and easy to stay on the program. We both decided we would keep doing a lot of raw. She decided to order her own copy of the book. I bet you are probably wondering how much fat we blasted? In 15 days, I lost 7 pounds and my friend lost 6 pounds. While that may not be Biggest Loser numbers, we were thrilled. I have gone down a pants size too! I still have about 20-25 pounds to lose to get back down to my "runner's" weight. I plan on using this plan and the recipes to help me get there! If you were ever considering trying raw, I'd recommend trying out Ani's 15-Day Fat Blast. It is a good starting point and I can tell you it does make your body feel much better!

Winner of the Vitacost Giveaway!

I humbly apologize for the delay in announcing the winner. I have no excuse except that I totally forgot! What the heck?

Thanks to all of you who commented. Even if you didn't win the giveaway, hopefully you learned how to save some $$ on things you need.

So without further delay, the winner of the $25.00 free stuff from Vitacost is...

#4 Elizabeth! Congrats and happy shopping!

Please make sure to email me for your coupon code! vegintraining at g mail dot com.

New Year's Eve Awesomeness!

The anticipation of New Year's Eve was pretty strong this year. Why you might ask? Well of course, I was pretty psyched the Mayans were wrong. But the real reason for my excitement was yet another opportunity to cook and celebrate with great friends and incredible food!! I've had this mini-obsession with Asian influenced food as of late. When my friends were down with the theme, I was so happy!

The first course was incredible. I can't decide what was more impressive: the flavors or the presentation. Beth and Jerry always go all out and this year was no exception. Ohitashi is a Japanese spinach salad. It is a pretty and delicious way to get your greens. In their version it is paired with a crazy flavorful tofu that was flecked with roasted garlic slices.

O-hitashi with Pan Fried Tofu and Caramelized Sauce

On to the second course! Gail and John made their gallant return this year after belly-dancing commitments kept them away last year. Gail was a little tentative about the Asian theme at first, but she conquered her fears and made a stellar slaw that can be made more simple by purchasing pre-shredded slaw mix. The dressing was was a delicious mingling of sweet, spicy and peanut-y. They substituted agave nectar for the honey to easily veganized the original recipe. Look at the beautiful colors!! Oh and by the way, that amazing plate was made by my dear friend Daphne of Daphne Azzi Ceramics!

Asian Slaw with Ginger-Peanut Dressing

Fred decided he wanted the entree this year. We teamed up on this effort. He selected a beautiful and delicious course and sides from Candle 79 Cookbook. I made the seitan the day before. I thought I was having a seitan disaster, but it ended up being really nice. In Jerry's words "The best seitan I've had." It was based on Tamasin Noyes' seitan cutlet recipe from AVK. 

Fred prepped the sauce ahead of time. I'm usually not a huge fan of mint in savory dishes, but I have come around to a lot of different flavor combos over the years. The mint sauce was awesome with the asian spices in the rest of the dish. Fred paired it with a local vegan wine: Arizona Stronghold Centennial Pink which is a blend of Zinfandel, Grenache and Muscat. I thought it would be very sweet, but it was actually very well-balanced.This was a lovely pairing for this dish with hints of cranberry and rhubarb. It paired very nicely with the subtle spiciness of the soba noodles and the ginger laced snow peas. 

Nori and Sesame Crusted Seitan with Edamame-Mint Sauce

I was in charge of dessert again this year. Not my favorite course, but I always embrace the challenge. I decided to create my own dish with a little help from Terry Hope Romero. The cookie bowl was made from her fabulous Terry's Favorite Almond Cookie recipes from Veganomicon. I created a ginger-lychee ice cream and sprinkled the top with fresh diced mangos and pomegranate seeds. The plate was painted with mango puree and a black sesame caramel sauce. This was paired with a lovely vegan saki: Sayuri Nigori Sake. 

Here's a little side story about my sake shopping experience. So I'm standing there by the sake at BevMo with my iPad fired up to Barnivore. A woman was checking out the sake at the same time. For some reason I felt compelled to explain what I was looking up...well actually I wanted to brag about my pending awesome vegan dinner to anyone who would listen. Talk about perfect timing! She told me she was meeting her vegan friend for NYE and didn't know what to get. She was in luck. We checked out some options on Barnivore for her friend. She was very happy and I was thrilled to be able to help her out! 

As the midnight hour approached, I popped open the bubbly. This year's selection was Piper-Heidsieck Extra Dry Champagne. I wish I could describe it to you, but I waited to long to post and my memory is now a little fuzzy. I do remember it being a little more fruit forward than some of my favorite sparkling wines, but the crowd liked it and it was a nice way to ring in  2013. 

We planned on choosing our theme for next year before the night was through, but we got wrapped up in many other conversations and never got it done. We did decide it would not be Indian which make me kind of sad. But there are so many other options, I'm already excited about next year. Food geekery at its finest!

Vitacost - Product and Website Review

Vitamin supplements can be very expensive. Last year I was searching the internet trying to find lower prices for my calcium supplement and multivitamins. In my search I came across the Vitacost website. I was thrilled to find they not only carried the brands I use, but they were significantly less expensive than where I was purchasing them, like $5.00 per bottle less!

I wanted to just test the water to start off with as I had not heard of this company before. It was very easy to navigate their website. The products are organized into different "departments". The site also has a very handy side bar of search criteria to narrow down your search. If you know the exact name of  the product you are looking form there is a search box at the top. I love being able to find things easily, so they were quickly winning me over. The free shipping for orders over $49.00 was the deal closer. What did I have to lose? I was saving money and not paying for shipping. Win/win. My order came within a week. The vitamins bottles were well packed and fully intact when they arrived. They were the exact same product that I had been paying much more for (and I was very happy to see they weren't past their expiration date). 

At first I just ordered supplements from them. Then I started looking around their website and discovered they carried a whole load of other products I used and some interesting ones that I hadn't tried. I now order all of my 7th Generation cleaning products, Eden Organic Beans (about $.30 less per can than retail) and other vegan products from them. Fred has been giving me a hard time about making the postal workers lives miserable by ordering so many heavy products at one time. I am going to try and mix it up, but I just love shopping there, so it's hard to stop.

The folks at Vitacost contacted me recently and asked me to test a couple of their new vegan products. Already being a loyal customer, I said I'd be happy to do it. The first product I tried out was a super seed cereal called TeeChai produced by Santa Barbara Super Seeds, Inc. ($8.99 for 10.6 oz package). It's gluten free, kosher, and nutrient dense with a good dose of Omega 3's from the chia and flax. Each serving boasts 6 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. It's a super quick and easy way to get a healthy start to your day. It is convenient for work too. All you have to do it add 1/2 cup of hot water to 1/3 cup of the cereal mix and wait about a minute or two. The flavor I tried was blueberry date. On its own, I found it to be a tad bitter. I added about a tablespoon of vanilla soy yogurt and a little bit of chopped apple and it was really yummy! I also tried it with almond milk (pictured below) with tasty results. I tried it out on my co-workers too. They gave it a thumbs-up. I'm ordering more of both flavors today for our upcoming clean eating challenge.

The next product they sent was Vitacare whitening gum. This is no regular gum. One serving (2 pieces) provide 20% of the RDA of vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Vitamin E. There is even 2% of the RDA of calcium. It's a cool way to get some extra nutrients.

I'm not really a big gum chewer, so I enlisted Fred's help on this one. He chews gum often. We tried the Cool Mint Freshness flavor with Chia Mint (vegan). It starts off with a big minty bang of flavor. Fred mentioned that the flavor didn't last a super long time, but the flavor was good. I found it lasted as long as other gums of this size. The texture of the gum is good too.

This product contains xylitol, of which I am not a big fan. While it's base comes from corn (possibly GMO corn), it is a man-made chemically produced product. It can be fatal to doggies too. The gum also contains titanium dioxide. This ingredient has been classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. There is no conclusive evidence that it causes cancer, but as a breast cancer survivor, I tend to avoid anything that is even a suspected carcinogen. I'd personally rather stick to my non-gum chewing ways.

I wanted to make sure to mention Vitacost's great prices on one of my personal favorite lines of personal care products: Aubrey Organics. I have been using their shampoos, conditioners and moisturizers for years. They have over 150 vegan products. Many of their products are also certified organic as well. I used to pay about $10 retail for a bottle of my favorite shampoo (Honeysuckle Rose, which also happens to be vegan!). Vitacost sells it for only $6.99. That's a huge difference!

I love to save money and I've been able to save a LOT shopping at Vitacost, plus the stuff shows up right at my door! I know the holidays probably emptied a lot of your wallets and you're probably looking forward to your own fiscal recovery. Take a look around Vitacost's website. I'm betting you will find great prices on things you use all of the time.

Exciting news!!! The folks at Vitacost are letting me give away $25.00 worth of free products! All you have to do to be eligible to win is post a comment about a product you use that you can get for less at Vitacost by midnight MST on Monday, January 7th. Winner will be drawn randomly on Tuesday, January 8th. A discount code will be sent to the winner. Anyone is eligible! Here is the fine print:

one time use

code does not roll over

does not include shipping

expires in 6 months

Last Minute Holiday Gift Giving

We live in an awesome neighborhood. We get together with the neighbors throughout the year to celebrate life events and sometimes just for the heck of it. Each year, the doorbell rings and standing there is a kid or parent of one of the houses on our little corner holding some delectable holiday goody. So often during the holidays those treats are sweet and far from low-cal/fat. I'm totally not complaining and will scarf them down with glee. But last year, I decided that I wanted to take a little different approach to holiday treat-giving that would compliment (and hopefully offset some of the calorie intake) those sweet treats.

December is sure to bring chilly temperatures, even in Arizona. The chill in the air inspired me to make some belly and soul warming soup for my friends and co-workers last year. It worked out awesome, so I'm doing it again this year. I'm lucky enough to have a few giant stock pots to make the process a whole lot easier and quicker. I like to make one of my own recipes that I've created during the year. This year I'm going back to this post for Garlic Wonder Soup for my recipe. It is a simple, hearty and very healthy soup that anyone can make.

It is super easy to dress up your edible gift. This year I'm doing two versions. The first one I used last year. I bought a case of quart canning jars from the local hardware store. I found some very cute holiday fabric at Joann Fabrics. I recommend getting a thin cotton fabric to make sealing the jar a breeze. I cut circles about 2 inches bigger in circumference than the lids using pinking shears. I placed the lid on the filled jar (make sure to wipe it off first), centered the fabric circle over that and screwed on the outer ring. Tie on a cute curly ribbon and add a tag and you have a thoughtful, delicious home made treat for those on your list. Their waist lines will thank you.

There is a second option you can do as well. I just happened upon a great sale at the Pyrex/Corelle outlet store in Mesa this week. They had these awesome soup mugs with handles on sale for only $4.99. I have the same ones that I paid double that for. They have some great colors this year as well. I got every color they had for my co-workers this year. I simply tied a colorful wired ribbon around the handle and tied a tag on with gold string.

My sister and a couple of our friends are avid stampers. They make beautiful cards and lots of other fun things. I just happened to walk in on one of their stamp-fests yesterday afternoon. They helped me create adorable hand-made tags. Now if you aren't as lucky as I am to have stampers in your world, there are tons of adorable tags out there. Pick up a pack and get a small hole punch to make the holes to insert the ribbon. Tie, sign and there you have it: special homemade holiday gifts for everyone.

The holiday gift giving season can get crazy and stress us all out. But I am so incredibly thankful for every year I have with my friends and family. It is so special to be able to share my love of cooking and my life with those I love. This is a nice way to show that love.

Pizza Heaven in Phoenix Has a NEW VEGAN Menu!!

I was plunking around the internet a couple of weeks ago and found this blurb about a little family owned pizza joint in Phoenix that offered vegan pizza. I was pretty excited right out of the gate and was hoping to check it out. A short time later I got an email from the VegPhoenix MeetUp group saying they were going to be having an event there to celebrate their new vegan menu. Could it be that there would be even more offerings than pizza?

My friends (all non-veg) and I were planning to go out somewhere to meet for dinner, so I craftily suggested Pizza Heaven. They thought it was a great idea as their 7th Street and Coulter location was very conveniently located for them. We all love to support individually owned businesses, so it was set.

We arrived before our friends and were happy to be able to be seated before 5pm as they were already open. We received a very friendly greeting as we walked in the door. It is a tad bit dark in the dining area, but cozy. Our server was very sweet and made sure we had everything we needed. The owner stopped by to chat for a while. She was super friendly as well. She brought us carry out menus and made sure we were having a good time. I expressed my deep gratitude for the offering of a vegan menu. The place got hopping as there was a group of about 30 people from VegPhoenix that were there for an event. We got our order in before they started to arrive. Even with a full house, the service was great.

On to the food. As always, I tend to want to order every vegan thing on the menu. But I did show a little constraint. I ordered the Veggieballs. They offer a Buffalo style and another option with marinara. I adore buffalo sauce, so that's the way I rolled. Fred ordered the Spaghetti with vegan sausage and we ordered the Veggie Pizza (minus the green peppers) to share. The balls came out first. They had a pretty good texture and were nice and spicy. It was a yummy way to get some Buffalo action, but I think the flavor and texture of the balls was more suited to a marinara sauce. I asked the owner what was in the balls and I can't remember all of the ingredients, but I do remember she mentioned beans and veggies. They came with vegan ranch and carrots. The presentation wasn't anything show stopping, but hey, it's Buffalo balls. Apologizing in advance for my phone pictures.

Next out was Freddie's Spaghetti. Unfortunately, Fred put parmesan on it before I got to take a bite, but he said it was pretty good. He's a bit spoiled with Julie Hasson's Italian Sausages that I make at home. They are hard to live up to. But seriously, it is so exciting to be able to get vegan spaggets and sausage out! 

Then there was the pizza! I loved the crust. It was crunchy and had great flavor. For me, I'm always on the fence with vegan cheese. I feel like less is more. There was quite a bit on the pizza, which most would probably be good with. I wanted more veggies than cheese and Fred agreed. But that crust! Oh Mylanta (as my good friends Sharon and Julie would say).  Pizza Heaven indeed. We reheated the pizza tonight for Fred's dinner. I baked it at 400 degrees right on the rack. The crust crisped back up beautifully and the texture of the cheese was even better reheated. 

Here is a picture with my good camera. This is the pizza re-heated. So good.

The rest of our group had the regular veggie pizza and some salads. One of them had the spinach calzone (which was the size of her head). They were very happy indeed. There is no doubt we will all be returning to Pizza Heaven. I can't wait to try the gigantoid vegan calzone!!! They also offer a couple of vegan sandwich options and vegan baked ziti. Great service, clean restaurant and good food. It is a perfect place for vegans and omnis to both enjoy a great home made meal. Oh and they deliver too!!!

Pizza Heaven Bistro

5150 N 7th Street (7th Street and Coulter)

Phoenix, AZ

602-277-8800

Hackett House Class and Food and Flourish Column all in one week!

November is proving to be a very exciting month in my food world. After winding down from October's Vegan MoFo, it is time to dive right in to the Holiday Season and other fun food events.

The November issue of Food and Flourish is out. Go to page 22 to view my column The Vegan Life for some holiday dinner suggestions.
Food & Flourish - November 2012

I was invited back to the Hackett House in Tempe to host a Dinner Party/Cooking Class that took place on November 8th. The Fall Harvest Menu featured local pesticide free fall produce from Horny Toad Farms. It was a fun filled evening. Family and friends all pitched in to make the food and the evening a great success. We were treated to a vegan wine chat by Fred. I may be a little biased, but I really thought he was charming, approachable and informative. Sadly, I was cooking when he did his second presentation and didn't get video. Click here to see his chat.

We started the evening with East Meets Southwest Tamale Eggrolls. They were served with a Sweet, Sour and Spicy Dipping Sauce.

The second course featured Pumpkin Sage Bisque with Spiced Pecans and a Sage Oil Drizzle. Just look at that Horny Toad Farms emerald colored kale! 

We had one couple that came all the way from IL and were kind enough to send this photo of the entree!!

The evening closed with a Dessert-ini featuring home-made cinnamon ice cream, apple compote, warm salted caramel sauce and chocolate walnut biscotti. It was decadent. 

I can't even begin to tell you how incredible the Hackett House volunteers are! I thank them from the bottom of my heart for making this such a wonderful event for all of the guests!

The spring class is tentatively scheduled for April 9th. So mark your calendar!