Cucumber and lime juice

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Every morning, while in Con Dao, I have been drinking cucumber and lime juice. It is so refreshing and really cools me off! I will continue to make this juice combination on my own for the summer:

- 1 large cucumber - 1/2 or a whole lime peeled (depending how limey you like it)

The weather here has been SO hot. If I am outside for a long period of time I can only stand it if I am in the shade, ocean or the pool.

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Con Dao is a small island off Vietnam. It is very tropical and there are a lot of mosquitos!!! The mosquitos seem to love me as I have had about 20 "kisses" already and my camera man maybe only about 5??  Bahhh

The food is so fresh and delicious! I am really enjoying all the exotic fruit! My favorites are the mangos (sooooo good and meaty here!!!!), drinking fresh coconut juice, and something called mango steen! They are not too sweet and just a little sour. I have never seen or heard of mango steen before coming to Vietnam.

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Can you name all the fruit above???

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Mango steen!

The Vietnamese diet is mainly some form of rice, vegetables and some type of meat or fish. I have never eaten so much rice in my life! Everyday, without fail, I have been eating rice! They also use a lot of lemongrass for things like seasoning dishes, scents for soap, massage oils, candles, insect repellant... pretty much everything. Good thing I like the smell...phew. Actually, check out the picture above of the fresh green coconut. The green straw that is stuck inside is a lemongrass straw!!!

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Lemongrass

I was able to film a short arms and abs video for you. Enjoy!!

We only have a couple more days here until our trip is over! Ok now I am off for some dinner.... (probably rice!)

xin chào!

Cooking class in Vietnam

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Brandon and I took a cooking class today! As part of the class we went to a Vietnamese market and picked our own produce. The produce was abundant but there were also things in this market that I had never seen before. Out in the open were pig brains and every part of a cow you could think of. There are no fridges in the market, so everything is fresh and must be sold that day. We saw live fish having their heads cut off, and most shocking to me were frogs that were being slammed on a counter in order to kill them. I accidentally took a video of this, but have decided not to show it.

This is the culture in Vietnam, so I am being open minded. All very interesting.

Brandon and I have a driver/tour guide while we are in Saigon. His name is Hung!

He is the sweetest! He is Buddhist and as part of his practice he and his wife buy a fish from the market twice a week and set it free in the Saigon river. He does not believe in killing animals, even mosquitos!

For our cooking class today we made 3 main dishes:

I tried to take a video during class, but this was a little difficult. I did get a quick one though and will post later.

First dish was a mustard leaf roll. Inside was carrots, onions, coconut stalk, lotus stem, lemon basil, mint, and some other green thing. Ill get that name later :)

This green wrap really reminded me of a wrap I made with Elyse from Lillybelle foods! Just a Vietnamese version.

Next: sticky rice fritter aka fried rice balls

Inside these balls I chose not to put meat, rather I stuck with veggies.

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They were crispy on the outside and very dense. The chef said this is traditional Vietnamese street food. It's cheap and filling!

Last dish: fresh rice noodles with BBQ pork! I do not eat pork so I took a picture of Brandon's dish. I just made mine sans meat. There was not much cooking for this one other than making the sauce and grilling the meat.

The sauce was made of mostly:

Kumquats Garlic Water Fish oil Sugar Salt Chili peppers Pepper

Sing Ciào! Off to De Lat tomorrow!

PS excuse any typos! This is all done on my phone!

Black rice... very nice!

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This past weekend, I tried black rice for the first time. I had never heard of, seen, or tasted black rice before. It tasted similar to brown rice, kind of nutty in taste and sticky in texture, but was a little chewier.  When it's cooked, black rice turns into a DEEP purple. Now, we know that brown rice has more nutritional value than white rice, but how does black rice compare? My curiosity got to me and I have done a little research on black rice and its nutritional value:

Benefits of black rice:

• has anti inflammatory properties
• has similar nutrient levels to brown rice
• has high amounts of antioxidants
• has high fiber and iron
• is packed with anthocyanins (Anthocyanins are phytochemicals that are found in foods with a deep purple color like blue berries. These phytochemicals are said to fight chronic disease such as cancer and heart disease.)
• has the same superfood properties as blueberries, but it is much cheaper
• has more fiber and less sugar than blueberries
• has the highest amount of protein when compared to white and brown rice and double the fiber of brown rice
• A 100g serving of black rice has 8.5g of protein, 3.5mg of iron and 4.9g of fiber 
• A 100g serving of brown rice has 3g of protein, 2mg of iron and 2g of fiber

NOTE: Different resources listed different amounts for protein iron and fiber for 100g of the black and brown rice. I took the average.

Have you ever tried black rice? What do you think? I am personally going to try to cook black rice more often!