Veganism: Not As Intimidating As You Thought

by: Kirsten Hawkins

To some people, the phrase "Vegan Cuisine" sounds like an oxymoron. To others, it sounds like the road of a hardcore food nutritionist. "Scary," was the word used by my roommate when I announced I was going to try to become a vegan. What most people don't realize is that it's very possible, indeed even probable, for a creative chef to make vegan food just as exciting and full of variety as any other type of cuisine. What is veganism, first of all? Strictly put, veganism is a diet which contains no animal byproducts. Not only do vegans not eat meat, like vegetarians, but they also do not consume any food created by animals. No milk, no eggs, no dairy of any kind. No pasta derived from eggs. No gelatin. When you stop to think, it is surprising how much of the typical American diet is animal-derived.  All of this, I admit, can sound rather scary to the typical meat and milk lover, and certainly to the typical American who is surrounded by fast-food hamburgers and bologna sandwiches from a young age. But veganism is not as intimidating as it sounds. In fact, when the right choices in recipe and menu are made, it can be extraordinarily flavorful and rewarding. Think of it this way: Vegan cuisine can't rely on heavy, flavorful ingredients like meat and dairy to get its flavor and substance. So what do they do instead? They replace those ingredients in a way that makes you never even miss them- with fresh vegetables, heady spices, wonderful texture combinations and delicate wheat-based starches. One of the most uniquely vegan foods on the market, and the one that tends to scare the layperson the most, is tofu. Tofu is basically a soybean curd with a sponge-like consistency and a bland taste that absorbs whatever flavors are around it. Am I tempting you yet? Wait. Let's try this. Imagine a dish of Italian stuffed shells, loaded with tomato sauce and basil, garlic, and oregano. Now imagine that instead of cheese, the shells were stuffed with a mixture of soft tofu, blended with fresh spinach. The tofu absorbs the Italian spices and has a delicate, creamy flavor all its own. Would you notice the absence of the cheese? Sure. Would you miss it? Not likely.

"Create A Romantic Evening At Home"

by: Marguerite Bonneville

You've decided to invite someone you're dating to your home for a romantic evening and you want everything to go well. Here are a few tips to help you achieve that result. There are a number of factors you need to consider when planning your romantic evening: 1. Your Physical Surroundings It's a good idea to make sure your house or apartment is clean and tidy. It may not be anyone's primary focus but it will make an impression on your guest, even if it's subliminal. Spend a few hours doing the cleaning yourself, hire someone to do it for you, or, at the very least, shove all that clutter into your closets or under the bed. Wipe down surfaces to get rid of dust and stains. Apart from the living and dining areas, there are two other rooms that need your attention: a. The bathroom Wipe down the sink/washbasin, tub and shower stall. Put a fresh cake of soap on the sink and hang fresh towels. At the very least your guest will use the bathroom to wash his or her hands so make sure it's a pleasant experience. b. The bedroom Get rid of any extraneous clutter like clothes strewn around the room or on the floor. Change the sheets, make the bed and wipe down any surfaces. If your guest ends up spending the night, you don't want him or her racing off for a tetanus shot in the morning. To create a romantic atmosphere in your bedroom, have some scented candles on hand and an easy-to-reach sound system. You might also consider buying a quilt cover in a rich, romantic color and a set of sheets to match. 2. Your Choice Of Menu While food can be an excellent means of seduction, it's a mistake to choose too complicated a menu unless you're an experienced cook and you don't get easily flustered. Simple dishes like spaghetti or ratatouille make a tasty and satisfying meal without spiking your anxiety levels. The point is to enjoy the evening along with your guest, not treat the event like it's a university-entrance exam. How To Avoid Psycho-Chef Syndrome One trick is to prepare as much of the meal as possible beforehand so you're not rushing around like a pinball once your guest arrives. Have all the ingredients chopped, diced and ready for cooking. Do this the night before or earlier that day, whatever works best for you. Salad ingredients can be prepared earlier and stored in separate containers, then added to the salad bowl and dressed before serving. You can even cheat by purchasing your meal from a favorite restaurant and having it delivered (or picking it up) before your guest arrives. Definitely buy desert from your favorite bakery or supermarket, unless you're a wiz at whipping up a Pavlova or meringue. Another option is to prepare dessert the night before and reheat it if necessary when you're ready to serve it. 3. Your Cooking Area Make sure your kitchen is clean before you begin cooking. Yes, you'll no doubt make a mess once you start but you don't want yesterday's dishes in the way. Your guest may offer to help so the kitchen needs to meet minimum health standards. It's up to you whether you accept this help or not, but we recommend that you do, even if it's only a token effort like tossing the salad. Sharing cooking tasks can be a wonderfully romantic interaction as it creates a special kind of intimacy. Have you ever noticed how much more easily conversation flows when two people are doing a task, as opposed to sitting face to face? 4. Setting The Table   Set the table beforehand. Use a good tablecloth, your best silverware and a nice set of plates. Use your best glasses and an attractive salt and pepper set, milk jug and sugar bowl. Show your guest that you went to some trouble to make the meal a special occasion. This is not the time for melamine dishes or chipped or mismatched crockery. You're aiming for a touch of class.  Use candlesticks on the table for a romantic ambience, or place candles on other surfaces around the room. Background music is a must but make sure it's romantic and subtle. Limit blaring rock and roll or rap to the period when you're preparing dinner, but please, no high-octane music while you're eating. Set the sound at a low volume so it doesn't interfere with your conversation. And remember, if you don't play music during the meal you run the risk of filling any silences with the sound of people masticating. 5. Cleaning Up Later Don't let your guest anywhere near the kitchen after the meal is over. Hopefully you'll have better things to do with your time together. But all is not lost if they do insist on helping with the chores. Many a couple has fallen in love while doing the dishes, for two main reasons: 1. As mentioned earlier, there's the ease of conversation that takes place when you're doing a task rather than concentrating on talking. 2. Doing dishes together is like playing house. It can actually feel very romantic, especially when one or both people realize, "This is what I want with this person." You won't get the same effect if you use a dishwasher, so set aside at least a couple of pots, which will you allow to suggest, "I'll wash and you dry." With a little forethought, anyone can create a romantic evening at home. The old cliché, "the way to a person's heart is through their stomach", has more than a little truth to it. Test it yourself with someone you care about. The least you'll get is a great home-cooked meal. About the author: Marguerite Bonneville is a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) whose passion is publishing information online. She is a contributing writer at http://www.favorite-recipes-online.com,a resource site dedicated to helping visitors access the best online recipes.

Order Food Delivery Online And Get Ready To Feast Like A King!

Do you want to try different kinds of dishes without leaving the comfort of your home? Online food delivery websites are here to serve your palate desires. From Chinese to Chilean, Asian to American, Mexicanto Mediterranean, you can savor dishes of all kinds by just clicking a button! If you are not sure what type of food you feel like just click the GPS location button and you will be provided with a list of the restaurants near. You can also filter the restaurant list by cuisine, nearest to you, price or ratings and also order any type of food that you want instantly! The best thing about ordering online is that you can choose from over 70,000 menus that come with pictures, rating and descriptions. Further more, you can find the best restaurants in Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach. Delray Beach and other areas just by choosing the cuisine type.

You can order food in just a few minutes a large variety of restaurants, no matter where you are. No more searching for menus on your kitchen drawer, no more waiting on hold, no more misunderstood orders. Online ordering gives you more menus, more delivery choices, more convenience, more hassle free time to do what you want to do. There more, you can also sign up for emails and newsletters and get information about new restaurants, menus, discounts, specials & offers, and more. You can play games with your friends and win plenty of prizes, FREE food and discounts. The online sites provide plenty of choices when it comes to dishes and you can choose anything you want.

In the mood for Sushi? How about a salmon roll, dragon roll, JB roll.Feeling like Chinese? How about orange chicken, pepper steak, honey garlic chicken, seafood fried rice, General chicken, and more...
Maybe something veggie/healthy like a salad, low Cal. Sandwich, or falafel?

Is it Taco Tuesday? Then get the Jefe's "phatty" Burrito, or the El Colonel Tacos, and some chips Con Queso. With the help of online food delivery sites, you can eat any kind of food that you like without stepping outside your home. Placing an order is as easy as eating a pie and you can do it within minutes! You have to create an account and become a member and start ordering right away, then your delivery addresses & billing info can be saved for even faster future orders. Searching for a particular restaurant can also be done easily with the help of the advanced search functions. You can filter the search results by cuisine, popular, ratings, coupons, price, and more. If you have any doubts on how to order food and other such details, you can just contact the customer service executive and get your doubts clarified instantly.
When you order food online you can order food delivery from many more places than you previously could. After ordering food, you can make payments in a safe and secure way without worrying about anything. Payments can be made through debit cards, American Express, Visa, Discover and MasterCard. You can also easily include driver tip on the card so you have to fumble around looking for cash. You can save your favorite restaurants to your profile making future orders even easier. With so many options to choose from, the ease and convenience, you wonder how you you got by before you could order food online? Join the 21stCentury, Order food delivery online and feast like a king!

Foodoozle, a unique food delivery service in Florida that delivers food to you at your home, office, hotel, beach or anywhere you want. For more information regarding food delivery online just visit, Foodoozle.com or call us at 855-336-6953

Food For Thought: Health Benefits of Lamb Meat -Baaaa

Why Lamb?
In today's ever-increasing health conscious society, consumers are looking for new, exciting, and healthier alternatives to the traditional American diet. Lamb meat may be just the answer they are looking for.

Availability
With the rise in popularity of grass fed meat, the number of markets where advocates can buy lamb meat has increased. One of the best places is a meat market where the lambs are farmed locally and organically. Talking to the farmers if possible will allow the consumer to have the best idea of how the lambs were raised. 100% grass fed, organically raised meat with no added hormones or antibiotics is best.

Nutritional Advantage


The benefits of grass fed meat have been documented for some time, but the American trend has been mainly towards beef, and more recently, bison. While the grass fed versions of these meats are considerably healthier than the grain fed options, grass fed lamb may be the healthiest of the red meats. Lamb is unique among the red meats due to it being a complete protein, containing all 8 essential amino acids and many vitamins and minerals. Lamb also contains the highest amount of CLA,(conjugated linoleic acid) a naturally occurring compound found in the stomachs of sheep and cows that is believed to encourage antioxidant activity and may also have anti-cancer properties.

Heart Healthy
Lamb meat is typically leaner than beef, and half the fat in the lamb is monounsaturated fat. Mediterranean diets are generally high in lamb, which may contribute to the lower incidence of heart disease in that region. Lamb also contains laudable levels of the antioxidants zinc and selenium, as well as many B-complex vitamins that help regulate many metabolic processes.

Versatile
Lamb is a very versatile meat. It can be portioned into a variety of cuts, the main five being the shoulder, rack, loin, shank and leg. It can also be ground for delicious burgers and meatloaf. Preparing lamb is as easy as preparing any other meat; grilling, braising, roasting and frying. Lamb is a mainstay in Indian and Mediterranean recipes, where lamb meat is soft, buttery texture carries the varied spices well.

Environmentally Friendly
The environmental impact of cows is considerable, with many acres of land required for the larger, heavier animals. Erosion, overgrazing and water contamination can result from inadequately managed cattle farming. Sheep require less space, and can often graze on terrain deemed too rugged for cows. Sheep also eat a wider variety of plants and grasses, helping to keep balance in the natural flora. Sheep manure produces much less methane, a large contributor to pollution issues. For an overall healthier human population and planet, one of the best things we can do is to buy lamb meat!


The author has written this article keeping various uses of lamb meat for sale. The author has made its presence felt by researching on the health benefits delivered lamb beat. Lamb meat is a complete package of protein, containing all the essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Japanese and Chinese Food: Different, But Ripe for Fusion

Japanese and Chinese foods are too often mistaken as the same cuisine. They are starkly different styles, especially in terms of ingredients and attitude. However, through Japanese fusion techniques, the two cuisines can be combined to make some truly powerful dishes.

Japanese and Chinese Food: Different, But Ripe for Fusion
By Kevin Prague
Quite often the uninformed patron can mistake Japanese and Chinese food, dismissing their differences through ignorance or apathy and just labeling them as Asian cuisine. After all, if it has rice, meat, and some sauce it's pretty much the same thing right? This really couldn't be further from the truth as Japanese and Chinese foods have many differences in their respective cuisines through treatment of the meal, ingredients, and tastes.

Meat The protein of the dish is probably the most glaring difference between the two cuisines. Japanese food is known for having seafood as a traditional part of the meal, with livestock only really being a dish on special occasions. Japan is a fairly mountainous island; while they had a bustling fishing economy, they really didn't have much land for livestock to graze. Conversely, China has a lot more land space than Japan does, with much of its land smack in the middle of the continent of Asia. This means room for herding and raising livestock making meats like pork the mainstay of Chinese food, with smaller seafood salads being a course for holidays like the Lunar New Year.

Technique and Flavor Once again, this is an aspect that Japanese and Chinese food couldn't be more different in. Japanese food typically has much milder flavors, usually involving things like soy, fish stock, and salt. Japanese cuisine tends to try and bring out the natural flavor of the ingredient, sometimes serving it raw so as to not overdo the natural flavor. The popularity of sashimi and sushi restaurants is evident of this minimalist attitude. Chinese food is once again the polarity. Chinese food emphasizes powerful tastes like oyster sauces, and bean curd pastes. If anything is ever served raw, it must be heavily spiced. Also, as far as method goes Chinese food favors the traditional wok to fry the meal together, usually keeping the grease as part of the taste. It is for this reason that Chinese food is generally considered less healthy than Japanese, as Japanese cuisine is grilled on a flat, grill-like table called teppans.

Fusion Despite their differences, the two cuisines have a high compatibility for fusion cuisine. Fusion cuisine is the blending of characteristics between different regional or likewise cooking styles to form a new cuisine. While Chinese food has rarely experimented with fusion techniques until more modern times, Japanese restaurants have been practicing fusion for hundreds of years due to Japan's place as a trade powerhouse in the Pacific and more contact with Western influences. Japanese fusion is famous for bringing beef to Japan from the west, a fascination that has led to modern Japan producing some of the finest beef in the world. Japanese and Chinese cuisines are ripe for fusion, especially through their shared ingredients such as rice, though their attitudes on rice differ greatly. A typical Japanese and Chinese fusion can feature the cooking and attention to detail of Japanese cuisine with the powerful tastes and heartiness of Chinese food, making for a powerful new cuisine to try at a downtown restaurant.

This article is in reference to Fu Ji Restaurant in Stamford CT. Visit their Japanese Restaurant Website for a full menu and directions.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Prague
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The Benefits Of Getting Your Favorite Foods Delivered Through Food Delivery Services

Lots of men and women make use of the food delivery businesses of restaurants and fast food chains these days. Because of the chaotic work schedules and lifestyles most people have these days, they lack time to cook sumptuous meals not just for themselves but also for their children and other members of the family. Nonetheless, this scenario doesn't hinder them from giving their loved ones delicious and sumptuous meals because they can order them directly from restaurants and have them delivered at their homes anytime they want to. According to studies, restaurants, diners and fast food chains generated millions or billions of dollars of revenue from food delivery services.

In response to the trending demand of restaurant delivery services, you can find seasoned and neophyte restaurants the provide this type of service to clients. Restaurant delivery business is not only common in developed countries like the United States of America but it is also found in other nations worldwide. With the innovation of restaurant delivery service, individuals can enjoy their favorite restaurant dishes within the comfort of their homes. To know more about the other benefits of restaurant delivery business, consider reading this article further.

The popularity of this type of services resulted to the sprouting of new and old restaurants offering similar services. Food delivery service revolutionized the manner of how we eat our foods. Gone were the days that we need to cook meals in the kitchen just to eat our favorite foods but with the existence of restaurant delivery business, we can eat our favorite meals anytime.

How Do Consumers Benefit From Restaurant Delivery Services?
1. With this type of service, you don't have to buy different ingredients needed in preparing and in cooking your favorite food.

2. You can order different types of foods anytime you want since there are numerous fast food chains and restaurants which are open 24 hours daily. With this type of service, it is already possible to eat not only American dishes but also Asian, Italian, Chinese and many more.

3. With this Los Angeles food delivery service, your favorite foods will be delivered at home, at the office, at school and other places where you want it delivered. There is no need for you to pay in cash as lots of diners, restaurants and fast food chains accept debit or credit cards as medium of payments.

5. You can save not only time and effort but also gasoline since there is no need for you to drive in your favorite restaurants to satisfy your craving for specific types of dishes. The benefits discussed above are among the numerous reasons why food delivery business is trending nowadays. If you have more questions, you can search for food delivery near me on the web and find the best results.

Written by: Mott Nir