Food Reviews and What I've Been Eating

I've been taking some pictures lately of different products I've tried and also some of the foods I've been making and I thought I would just do a post on that.  Some of the products are hits and some are misses. 

(Protein Plus Peanut Flour ordered from iherb.com)

Protein Plus Peanut Flour-As far as convenience goes, you can't beat this product!  For me, I use peanut flour just like I would peanut butter.  I mix up about 30 grams of it (roughly 1/4 of a cup) with 1 packet of stevia, a pinch of salt and small amounts of water until I get the right consistency.  Peanut flour is high in protein, low in fat and pretty filling.  I will usually put it in a tortilla with a banana once I have mixed it up.  It also travels well.  You can take it on a plane in your carry on luggage whereas you can't take regular peanut butter.  I love this stuff.....a little too much.  That's going to lead me into the cons of this product.  Once I start to use this product, I use it too much.  I have it several times a day and my portions start getting bigger and bigger.  Basically I start to abuse it just like I would regular peanut butter.  Then I have to back off of it and not order it for awhile until I feel like I am "in control." Haha....Then the cycle continues. 

The other con, and please note that it may be something completely unrelated to this product, is that I think it affects my menstrual cycle.  I really don't have any solid evidence to back this up, I am just going off of a couple of things.  Last year, I visited an accupuncturist and he was concerned about the amount of peanut flour I was eating.  He said he thought it could be affecting my lack of a menstrual cycle.  I didn't really listen to him though because I went to a chiropractor shortly after that and after visiting her just a couple of times, my period started back up and has been going ever since.....ever since a couple of months ago.  Recently I realized that my period had stopped again and I was eating a lot of the peanut flour again.  So when I ran out sometime at the beginning of last week, I decided not to buy anymore.  Here it is about 1 1/2 weeks later and my period started again.  Like I said, it could be a complete coincidence because I can't really find anything to back this up, but I am just going to pay attention to my body right now and avoid the peanut flour for awhile. 

(Pistachios for my morning snack!)

I just recently discovered that I love pistachios more than about any other nut.  It's the best nut to snack on because it's in a shell.  It takes longer to eat and it feels more satisfying to eat these than other nuts.  I typically don't eat nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, etc. for snacks because it doesn't feel like enough.  I always still feel hungry after I eat them.  However, pistachios are different.  They usually do a pretty good job of tiding me over til lunch time.  I love the roasted and salted kind.  Delicious! 

(Hummus with carrots)

I've been making a lot of hummus lately.  I will usually make a batch over the weekend and have it throughout the week.  I have been making it in my Montel blender and it comes out so perfect when I do that.  (The picture above was NOT made in the Montel blender).  The Montel blender is similar to the Vitamix in that it's super powerful and gets things extra smooth.  I will usually bring along some carrots, bell pepper strips and a tortilla to go along with my hummus. 

(Amande Almond Milk Yogurt)

The first time I bought this product, I was so frustrated with it.  I opened it up and it looked like it had been frozen when it shouldn't have been.  It was a lot more like custard than yogurt.  When I tried to mix it up, it then just turned into the consistency of cottage cheese.  The texture was completely off putting and I thought I was just going to throw the whole container away.  Then R got the idea of putting it in the blender.  Brilliant.  We put all of the yogurt in the blender and got it smooth and then just put it back in the container.  Then it was perfect!  This is my favorite vegan yogurt on the market, unfortunately, it's just a pain in the ass to put every container into the blender first before I eat it.  What I usually do now is I buy four or five of the large containers and then do all of the blending at once.  Between R and me, we eat enough yogurt that it doesn't go bad this way.  I eat yogurt almost every day so I really want it to be a yogurt I am happy with. 

Also, I contacted Amande about this issue and they told me it was supposed to be like that.  (???)  I think maybe they are still working out some issues with the product....I don't really know.  However, they did send me a couple of coupons in the mail for 50 cents off.  Not a lot but since I continued to buy the product, I was able to use the coupons. 

(So Delicious Greek Yogurt)

I really could take or leave this product.  I definitely was not really excited about it by any means.  I was excited to try the vegan greek yogurt because I was already vegan when the greek yogurt craze hit a few years back.  So, I had never even tried greek yogurt.  I thought that one of the perks to greek yogurt was that it was supposed to be high in protein so I was thinking this would be a good filling snack option.  Not so much....the vegan greek yogurt only has 2 grams of protein per individual sized container.  I don't consider that very much.  The yogurt was very thick like I had imagined greek yogurt to be but it wasn't anything amazing.  R did really like it though.  I took a bite of it and then I just gave her the rest and she also ate the other container of it that I bought.  I will stick to the almond and soy yogurt. 

(Teese vegan cheese)

I've tried Teese cheese before but I guess when I tried it before, I didn't really focus on the nutritional information.  I found both the greek yogurt and the Teese cheese at our local "scratch and dent" health food discount store.  At 99 cents, it was a bargain and I couldn't pass it up.  So I bought 3 tubes of Teese without even thinking to look at the nutritional information.  When I got home, I decided to turn the tube over and glance at the back.  This is what I see.......

(Teese nutrition)

At first glance, it doesn't look that bad.  Then I looked again and realized that there are 10 servings in this little tube.  I quickly did the math and realized that 10 times 80 calories is 800 calories in one small tube of Teese cheese.  Yikes!  So I started thinking about ways to still be able to use it without breaking the caloric bank.  Then finally R made a gluten free macaroni and cheese with broccoli in it.  It turned out so-so but definitely not worth all of the calories.  We ended up throwing the mac and cheese away and the other two tubes of Teese.  I asked another vegan friend if she wanted it and she said she just didn't like the taste of Teese.  I guess we will just stick with Daiya. 

I think those are most of the new products I have tried lately and the things I am eating the most of right now.