Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition

Today, I start the first of three courses at eCornell: TCC501 Nutrition Fundamentals with the goal of completing a certificate in plant based nutrition.

They are all online courses, and I hope to complete one per month for the next three months. While they have no direct relation to my job or career, I hope they will make me more informed.

Nutrition Fundamentals focuses on the following topics:

• State of Health
• Protein, A Revered Nutrient
• The China Project
• Nutrient Fundamentals I
• Nutrient Fundamentals II
• Fat, A Less Revered Nutrient

I’m excited to start. I’ll report back later with my thoughts on the course and eventually the certificate.

Vegan food at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD)

My wife and I recently found ourselves with a few hours to kill and a fierce appetite while waiting to catch a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). We spent some time wandering around and came up with two options for tasty food. There may be more, but we quit looking after finding these two.

JezRipe Gelato

I have eaten a lot of frozen treats in my time, and quite a few of them vegan. I was surprised and excited when I found JezRipe Gelato on a recent trip to Malaysia. It is made locally in Malaysia from fresh fruits and other ingredients sourced from Italy. It is delicious. They have many flavors including: durian, mango, strawberry, passion fruit, coconut, lychee, peach, lemon, dragon fruit, banana, orange, kiwi, pineapple, papaya, jack fruit, watermelon, chocolate, and vanilla.

Cinnamon Rolls

Vegan Cinnamon rolls are a rare thing to find, but are so easy to make. I had forgotten about their deliciousness until I was in Vancouver earlier this year at Edible Flours. Then again a few weeks ago at the Donut Co-Op in Minneapolis we both enjoyed some the size of our heads.

Sunday Dinner

Tonight’s dinner was inspired by Genevieve over at TwinCitiesVegan. She wrote about how much she loved Chipotle and how she was making some of the raw ingredients at home. Coincidentally, we had Chipotle for lunch yesterday. I had never thought about making the black beans or cilantro lime rice. We headed to the store to procure a few missing ingredients.

Thanksgiving Dinner

This thanksgiving I spent with my family, and it was entirely vegan except for a small turkey breast. He claimed vegan food “tastes like sawdust and cardboard.” It made us all laugh. Especially when he in-haled the Brussels sprouts and potatoes.

Whole Foods Takeout

My wife brought us home a surprise last night. On her way home, she stopped at Whole Foods and bought some tastiness from the deli.

We split the beet burger (upper right). It was ok. She liked it a lot more than I did. The texture was nice, but the flavor didn’t appeal to me. In the upper left, was the wild rice and cranberry roast. The pastry crust was awesome as was the “meat”. The cranberry/wild rice middle was just ok; I thought a bit of a let down with how awesome the crust was. The roasted harvest vegetables were awesome. She asked the girl for extra Brussels sprouts too. yum. The veggies were my favorite from this takeout expedition.

After dinner we dove into one of the FOUR vegan pumpkin pies she bought. Apparently, there were only five left, so she bought four. LOL. Into the freezer they go. The pie was tasty.