Veestro: Organic, plant-based meals , a Review

Ready to cook meal services are nothing new to me. There are several vendors out there who send 1-2 meal recipes with the exact ingredients prepackaged, to your doorstep. I have tried meals  from Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. It is definitely convenient as you don't have to go grocery shopping, you know what you are going to cook on a given day as you place your order atleast a week ahead of time. The ingredients are purported to be fresh and from the best sources and they are literally delivered to your doorstep. The flip side is that this service does tend to be a bit pricey and you still have to make time to cook the meals. I also feel bad that there is so much packaging that is required. 

When Veestro reached out to bloggers via Meatless Monday, to try their plant-based vegetarian food service, I was intrigued to say the least. I cook and eat vegetarian meals most of the time. I do not eat meat. I truly believe  that eating vegetarian food is a healthier way to live. Those who are used to eating meat in all their meals often find it hard to go vegetarian. I usually recommend beginning by switching to one vegetarian meal a day and then going to one vegetarian day a week. Meatless Mondays is a great way to do this. I was very happy when I was one of the bloggers selected to try their meals. 

A week later a big box was delivered to my doorstep with contents packed in a nice freezer pack. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the meals were already cooked. All I had to do was heat them up as per package instruction and serve it. My expectation was to see ingredients, not prepared meals!! 

In the package that I was sent I had 4 meals and one drink. They were as follows: 

Tuscan Calzone
Veggie Lasagna 
Southwest BBQ chick'n
Golden Chickpea Stew

Hand Grenade

Tuscan Calzone

The Tuscan Calzone was a decent sized one. All I had to do was stick it in the oven for 18-20 mins and Voila!! It was nice and crusty with filling of vegan cheese, tofu and squash. 

Veggie Lasagna 

The veggie lasagna was made from Rice noodles, vegan cheese and  zucchini. It was truly delicious! I don't think that I could have made that at home!! My husband and I enjoyed it.

Southwest BBQ chick'n

The Southwest BBQ Chick'n meal came with a slice  of vegan chick'n breast , a side of fries and a side of sautéed vegetables ( squash and corn). It is a great vegan alternative to the regular BBQ chicken. 

Golden Chickpea Stew

The golden Chickpea Stew was made from chickpeas, quinoa and vegetables such as squash, potatoes and tomatoes. It was more like a curry which was right down my alley. I eat all these ingredients regularly but not cooked together. I make quinoa salad, quinoa dosa and quinoa pilaf but never tried it in a stew! 

Hand Grenade

I simply loved the hand grenade!!! The taste was refreshing with no added sugar. It was made up of apples, celery, kale, broccoli, kiwi and maqui Berry. 

All portions were decent sized and filling. The cooking instructions were simple and easy to follow. The ingredients were clearly listed at the back with the nutrition information. There was no ingredient that I did not know or couldn't pronounce. The meals tasted fresh and  were delicious. 

Veestro would be the place to go for Vegans. Each item listed above costs roughly around $10.00. You get everything that they promised and the convenience makes it worth it especially if you are only now going vegetarian/vegan and are at a loss as to how to substitute for meat! This might give you some ideas for vegetarian/vegan cooking too!!

Happy eating!!

I am sharing  this at Angie's Fiesta Friday #198. Her co-hosts this week are two accomplished bloggers and my favorite people, Judi @ cookingwithauntjuju.com and Liz @ Spades, Spatulas and Spoons.

Please do share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

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Museum of Icecream; my visit.

Kindly note: The children's faces have been blurred on purpose in all the pictures in this post.

At the outset, I would like to start by saying that as much as my today's topic might seem against everything that I believe in and promote, that cannot be further from the truth!
The idealism behind Su's Healthy Living is to promote healthy eating and healthy living. This is not something that you do for a brief time, it is a way of life !! If something has to last, then you cannot have cravings or be deprived of anything. That's why, I believe that everything in moderation is good. As long as you are eating & living healthy 99% of the time, you have room for 1% indulgence! This is especially needed for children.

The visit to the Museum of Ice cream was one such indulgence!

Today, I am writing about my experience at the latest rage in town, the pop-up museum: Museum of Icecream. The museum opened on 29th July, 2016 and will remain open until 31st August,2016. Single tickets are $18,the Double couple package is $30 and kids under 12 and seniors pay $12. Ticket prices include a Scoop of the Week and studio custom tasting. The tickets for the entire period was sold-out the day it was released!! It is located in the Meatpacking District , a block from the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The museum on the opening day offered free tickets to all from 11am until 3pm. I had read about it in the newspapers.  My cousin and niece were visiting. Since I was working, I told them that the museum would be an interesting place for them to visit. My daughter went along with them. Of course, when they arrived there the line was snaking around the block!! After waiting for almost 3 hours they were  sent away stating that the museum was filled to capacity! And this was at 12 pm, an hour after the museum opened! The girls started crying. When I came to know about this, the mother in me was enraged!! Why couldn't they have let them know about this when they stood on line?? Why after 3 hours? I mean when they saw the amount of people standing in line, they should be able to tell how many could fit in the museum!!

The enraged me took to social media to express my opinion!! I even sent Museum of Ice cream a message on Facebook complaining how ill planned their event was and how callous their behavior! And then I forgot about it.. My cousin, niece and the kids had a great weekend in the city exploring other places and they went back home.Now, some of you might say that it is my mistake to make them stand on the line and may be that I was hoping to get in for free.The fact is that i came to know about this event only when I saw the advertisement for the free day in the newspaper a couple of days before the event. When I did look for tickets, they were all sold out!! There was none available!! 

Anyways, on Sunday, I noticed that Manish Vora, the co-founder of the museum of ice cream had sent me a message on Saturday, apologizing for the inconvenience on the previous day. I responded back to him and he offered for the kids to come back any day that was convenient to me. He asked me to email him. Being that I was busy at work, I didn't get a chance to get back to him until last Thursday morning!! I asked him if I could bring the kids that day or some day this week! The man immediately responded to my email and asked me to pick a time that afternoon. I was amazed by his efficiency!! I am just a mother who works full time and has a food blog but I have such a harf time keeping up with my emails, Facebook messages, so and so forth with the social media! Compared to me, how busy must this man be, yet he manages to respond to my email and messages almost instantaneously!! I took a leaf from his book!

Anyways, I scrambled around with my appointments and made it to the museum on time that afternoon. As soon as I got off the cab at the front door of the museum, the nice young man standing there asked me if we were the 3:30 pm guests?? When I replied yes, he escorted me to the inside of the museum where a young lady gave us all a cup of home-made boysenberry ice-cream, which was the flavor of the week. While we were eating another lady narrated the history of Ice cream.

Once all the ice cream was done, they led us to the next room, where the lady was making and giving out sugar balloons which was extremely sticky and filled with helium!! The kids were enthralled.

I noticed that guests were let in only in small batches and the staff in each area ensured that it was not crowded. You could not go into the next area if there were already too many people there. The staff were well dressed in uniforms, polite and efficient.

Our next room was the "sundae" room where we got to help create the world's biggest sundae!! This was by scooping some fake Ice cream and piling on the huge cup. More anecdotes related to Ice cream were shared.

We were next shepherded to the "melting chocolate room", where the walls were melting chocolate and there was a huge bean bag on the floor where you could take in the aroma of melting dark chocolate. Dark chocolate by dove was heaped all around the place.

From there we went to the next area, which was by far the favorite of kids and adults alike!! The sprinkle pool!! There was a 3 feet pool with fake sprinkles, complete with a diving board and all! While the kids had a ball jumping and rolling in the pool, I saw adults act like kids too!! On the wall in this room, there was a spread of candy from Dylan's candy bar! You could eat as many candies as you wished! I had to be firm and tell my kids that they can only try two of each! It was amusing to watch  grown men  indulging in fistful of candies! This was one room where the ushers had to tell people that they only have a minute or two left to get out of the pool!! I had a hard time getting my kids out of the pool!!

The next area is  Dr. Irwin Adam’s studio, wherein a taste-bud/ taste change experiment  is conducted. 

They have us suck on couple of small pellets of something which is supposed to alter the taste in the mouth such that anything sour that you eat will taste sweet!!

So, once the pellets are completely melted, they give us a sample customized ice cream in a cone with lemon slices in it. While the ice cream was absolutely delicious, the taste of the lemon was interesting!

The last area is a play area where there is an Icecream sandwich swing, an Icecream scoop see-saw and a sprinkle mural wall.

As you leave, there is a small stall where you could purchase Icecream-related stuff.

As you leave they have everyone a 8oz bottle of Aquafina, water.

We spent a total of 2 hours there. If you don't have little children with you and are not wanting to take many pictures like us, you could tour the museum in one- one & half hour.

My kids had the time of their life. I have Manish Vora to thank for this. He didn't have to do this. There woul have been no consequences if he didn't take any action regarding my ranting and raving. What could a simpleton like me do?? But he chose to make two little kids happy and for that I shall remain forever grateful!!

If you ever have a chance to visit the museum, do so.. It will bring the child in you out!

I hope the museum comes back next year!

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