I’m learning more about technology through the Toshiba Brand Ambassador Program

Like most people, I have a busy life, and I spend a lot of time my time out of my house, waiting - waiting at Dr. Appointments, hockey arenas, community centres, for the subway, to reach my destination. Depending on where I’m going, I usually bring a combination of the following- my netbook, e-reader, smart phone and portable DVD player. That’s a lot.

Road Trip to Future Shop
So when I was given the opportunity participate in the Toshiba Ambassador program through ShesConnected, I was very excited to learn more about the Toshiba Tablet.
Recently, I spent some time with Eric from my local Future Shop, who answered a lot of my questions about the Toshiba Tablet. I thought I knew quite a bit about tablets, but was pretty surprised to learn more about the features of this device.

So, as a consumer, what am I looking for? I want value for my money, but I also want a trusted brand name that will provide me with good service, and quality products. You get the picture.

Smile for the camera (and video camera!)
If you had the Toshiba Tablet, well, actually, you would also be able to take the picture, because the tablet has a 5.0 megapixel camera – It also comes with a 2.0 megapixel webcam to capture all your video moments too! This tablet lets you take fantastic pictures and post, email or tweet them to your favourite people!

Memory saver
Did you know that the Toshiba tablet has a full sized and mini USB port? Why is this important? Well it means that you can plug in almost any kind of keyboard, which for people like me who really love the feel of a real keyboard, is important.
It also has a full sized SD card reader, which delivers the opportunity for more storage and memory space on your tablet – you can transfer video and photo images, and also allows you to transfer big files from your table to other devices.
You can get 8, 16 or 32 g hard drives, which gives you flexibility to decide how much you want to have on your portable device.

It’s Android and you can use Flash
I really like this word – ANDROID - it sounds so cool and it is the platform Toshiba Tablet uses. It allows you decide which kind of apps you want to download, and believe me, there are tons of them. But more importantly, you can use really have a great on-line experience because the Tablet can run Flash- so you can enjoy the robust flash applications that you are used to on your computer on your high resolution Tablet screen. This is a big bonus for me - I like seeing things moving.
It also comes with another port, a full size HDMI – which means you can plug the table into your TV, so you can see your photos or videos on a larger screen, when you have crowd.

The Price is Right
As far as pricing is concerned, the Toshiba Tablet is very competitively priced, starting at $375.00, which gets you started on real fun. Way cheaper than some of the other options.

How does it look?

The touch screen seems very durable, and Eric said that while you can purchase screen protectors, the screen really stands up to a lot of wear and tear – and sticky fingers!

I really like the size and feel of the unit. It is very light and it comes with a removable back plate. If you want a little more colour, you can buy another one for about $20. The other accessories were also really affordable. You can purchase a keyboard, carrying case, all in a range of prices.

What do I want for Christmas?
Who doesn’t want a tablet? Being able to read eBooks, watch videos, play games, and listen to music are just some of the great features of Toshiba’s tablets. Best of all, they are light weight and the perfect transportable device.

I will say that it does take a bit to get used to the layout, and where to find the home base, but it is definitely not complicated. Once you find where things are, the interface is quite friendly. Just a few swipes of your finger, and you are ready to surf, chat, read – whatever you feel like doing. Most importantly, this is really fun.

Want more information?

To learn more:
- Go to the Toshiba Canada website - http://www.toshiba.ca/web/link?id=4725

- Tweet them a question @toshibacanada – #ToshibaTablet , #ToshibaTelevision

- Or visit them on facebook http://www.facebook.com/TOSHIBACA

I am participating in the Toshiba Brand ambassador program by ShesConnected. I received a Toshiba Camileo in exchange for my participation in this campaign. The opinions on this blog are my own.

I’m not always the most adventurous when it comes to chicken. I am known for my Greek chicken souvlaki recipe, which wins me rave reviews from all who try it. Sometimes I buy one of those rotisserie style whole chickens from the grocery store. But, after that, I get nervous, and I know I shouldn’t, particularly, because my family likes chicken.

To help get me over my cooking fear, I’m going to participate in a twitter party hosted by the @chickenfarmers featuring @ChefRobRainford. Twitter parties are a fun way to meet other like-minded people, and in this instance, the rare chance to engage with a real, live, chef! They are also fun because you have the chance to win prizes. And they are free!

Tomorrow there will be several prizes, including a $500 AMEX gift card - great timing for the holiday season. I’m hoping to score an autographed apron! I really need a new one.

I’m really looking forward to getting motivated, and start testing some chicken recipies on my poor, bored family (they have had enough of my chicken souvlaki for now!!)

If you are interested to learn some tips from a real chef join me on Wed Nov 23 8pm - RSVP here.

Look Good Feel Better has supported more than 100,000 women across the country through the workshop experience. Facing Cancer Together is a cancer support community that provides information, resources and tools to help women – and those who care about them – manage the social and emotional effects of cancer. Help ensure that these programs can continue.

You can participate for free at the TWITTER BALL on November 19th, from 7-9pm EST, and help spread the word about these programs. And, for each TWITTER BALL participant, $10 will be donated to the CCTFA Foundation, to ensure that thousands of more women will have access to these vital programs.

Please RSVP now to participate.

During the TWITTER BALL, there will also be great prizes from Twitter Ball sponsors ELLE Canada, MORE, Canadian Living, Style at Home and Canadian Gardening.

They say your children are your mirrors: you can see yourself reflected in how they act and what they say. So my son’s recent description of me came as a bit of a surprise - ‘my mom only likes healthy things and hates video games’.

As I tried to defend myself, I realized that maybe there was some truth in what he said. I am always trying to feed my family healthy food, much of it vegetarian, most of it with a side of meat. I make soup stock for homemade soups, and slice and cook my own hand-picked apples, and support my local farmers market each week.

But does my son need to know, or does he really care that he is eating free range, fresh-not-frozen, hormone free chicken for dinner? It is essential to his well being that tell him exactly why I choose to purchase what he refers to as “not real” cereal for breakfast? Am I turning him off of ‘healthy’ things because I talk about them so much?

Maybe…maybe not. I’m not one to go the easy route on things, so I’m ok with the fact that my family sometimes rolls their eyes at my attempts to educate and inform them about my ideas on healthy eating. I think this is important information. However, perhaps I should take heed of my son’s comments and try to limit the frequency of my food rants. Although, I must give him credit for being accurate on the other point, I do kinda hate video games!

My son asked me today why people donate Halloween candy to charities. His friend told him his parents had ‘donated’ half of his candy to charity. I thought to myself, what clever parents they are managing to get rid of too much candy.

But, it got me to thinking, how much does my son really understand about doing good? He’s always been good about donating some of his own money to charity at Christmas, and he’s always helping out with fundraising drives at school.

But, I have noticed, as he’s getting older, he hasn’t really grasped the true value of doing something without anything in return. He felt badly for his friend, who walked for at least two hours to collect all that candy, only to have to give half of it away.

Hmm…. So, I think I need to work on this, particularly as the holiday season approaches.

In the meantime, I have stashed away the rest of the Halloween candy - I’ve saved them for our gingerbread decorating next month

I’m usually a one man show when it comes to cooking for my family. I’m the shopper, menu planner, cook and even sometimes dishwasher (but I’m working on this one).

My husband leaves too early for us to eat breakfast together and we are all away at lunch, which makes eating dinner together so important.

But as a vegetarian cooking for meatatarians, finding something to eat for dinner can be very challenging. In the early days I would ask everyone what they wanted, like, “hey, what do you guys feel like for dinner?” You can easily see where this strategy went wrong. My son would invariable ask for pizza and my husband would wisecrack with a request for beef bourguignon. In the end, no one was happy.

Ultimately, due to my ongoing frustration, and growing resentment of feeling like a short order cook, I came up with a plan that not only helped smooth over our conflicting appetites, but also helped me plan in advance for meals. We all get to pick a dinner menu one day each week. The benefit is that my family feels like they have some level of control and can enjoy one good meal a week. Also, I am able to make them eat things that they usually would resist, or make them go to restaurants and order things they normally wouldn’t - surprise, our local Korean restaurant makes amazing won ton like soup!

I’m not saying this strategy is perfect. Sometimes we forget to shop for the right food for the request, and sometimes members of my family suffer from chooser fatigue – which is actually fine for me – I’m never at a loss for what I can make for dinner.

Guess what we’re having tonight? My son gets to choose, so he has voted for tacos tonight. What’s your special way to keep the peace during dinner hour?

We’ve got apples! Lots and lots of apples. My parents brought us a big, bushel of lovely, crispy and sweet fall apples this week. In my opinion, this is truly the best time of the year to eat them. These little gems are sweet, but not too sweet, and super crunchy.

Our apples were lovingly hand-picked from a local farm, so they are in multiple sizes, I like having the option of using the bigger sizes for baking and cooking, while the smaller ones are perfect for a quick snack.

This week, my folks decided that they were going to dehydrate some of our apple harvest, so they have been peeling, slicing and drying. Dehydrating is an excellent way to preserve fruit, and apples are so very easy to dry. They are great for lunches, because they don’t yellow. I often don’t like sending apples in my son’s lunch because I get it back, looking like it’s been attacked by a small animal. And slicing them is never good, because he doesn’t like the browning that occurs.

So, we are not only dehydrating, we have been juicing, baking, grating, and making sauce. And this weekend, I’m going to make an apple pie, because how can you have so many apples without a pie? Oh, and for sure we will have an apple crisp. I will also have to look for my apple pie muffins - so moist with apple sauce and grated apple!

What are your favourite apple recipes?

My son’s school hosts an annual movie night screening with kids dressing up, fun family friendly Halloween themed movies and lots of treats - donated baked goods included. Every year we try to make fun treats, and this year we had some mixed results. We made cut sugar cookies and decorated brownies. The great thing about this project is that it is family time - we all work together to roll and cut the cookies and decorate. This year,my son helped even more than ever. Check out the amazing tombstone cookies - RIP to you all.

I have a presser cooker, one of those stove-top units that makes me nervous every time I use it. I like the pressure cooker concept because it helps speed cooking times up. Don’t get me wrong, I really love my slow cooker, but the slow cooker is, well, slow. It doesn’t accommodate the, ‘what am I going to make for dinner in the next hour’ situation.

So, when my sister recently purchased an electric pressure cooker, I was intrigued. How different would this work from my stove top?

Our first ‘experiment’ involved pot roast. We placed a completely frozen roast into the pot - we browned the meat in the pot, and then added the liquid and spices and closed the lid. About 65 minutes in, we added potatoes, carrots, onions, and then 6 minutes later, we had dinner ready. Once we removed the cooked food, we cooked down the liquid into gravy - right in the pot! The result, very tender flavourful pot roast - or at least that’s what my meat-eaters told me!

In total, I will say our first experiment took about 1 1/2 hours, mostly because we were tinkering with the steam/vent settings. There are a few things to consider when timing your dinner, you need to include venting time, which can take up to 10-15 minutes, and the actual cooking time doesn’t start until the pressure is up, which can take approximately 5 minutes.

I am so excited about this new discovery - the electric pressure cooker is a winner. It takes a lot of the fear out of pressure cooking, and also turns off by itself, which means you don’t need to stand around and monitor the cooking process.

So, now, I’m on a mission to come up with some new pressure cooking recipes (and will be putting this item on my Christmas wish list).

I’m on a mission to feed my family nutritious, tasty food, while focusing on ingredients I already have at home. During my recent fall food clean up I discovered a half used bag of mixed beans and decided it was time for soup. Soup is a staple at my house for at least nine months of the year. I admit, I don’t often feel inspired for soup in the midst of the heat of summer – at least not cooked soup.

I also found a bag of frozen tomatoes (hopefully they weren’t from too long ago - no sign of freezer burn) as well as some swiss chard, neatly chopped and preserved for some future recipe.

The beauty of soup is that you can really go crazy improvising. Almost anything goes. Here is what I did

• 1/3 bag (about 1 cup) of mixed dried beans – soaked overnight

In the morning I placed in my crock pot:
• 1 diced onion
• 3 cloves of garlic (who doesn’t love garlic?)
• Bag of frozen chopped tomatoes
• Bag of frozen swiss chard
• Vegetarian soup stock (I used two of my favorite vegan cubes)
• ½ cup of bulgur
• Some salt
• Some pepper
And let it cook on slow for about 5 hours.

The result was an amazing smelling house, and a warm, hearty simple soup. It reheats very well, and makes a great, satisfying lunch for me and my family. I’m happy to report, I made enough soup for at least 8 servings and at the same time created a little extra space in my freezer and cupboard!