So, while you’re contemplating which conference call service is right for you, and where you can best host your online meetings, here are some free cauliflower recipes you should try!

Fatimah’s Dad’s Curry Roasted Cauliflower

Prep Time: 10 minutes (about the same time as an efficient online meeting)
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 medium to large head cauliflower
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder, your favorite blend
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

While you’re waiting for your attendees to join, line a large baking pan with foil; spray lightly with cooking spray. Heat oven to 425°.
Calliflower will send you an SMS message once your first participant arrives on the call bridge, so don’t worry about missing your meeting. In a large bowl or food storage bag toss the cauliflower florets with the olive oil, curry powder, and cilantro. Spread out on the baking sheet and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Roast for about 25 minutes, turning every 10 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned.

Classic Calliflower Cheese Cauliflower

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 head of Califlower
• 2 tbsp (25 mL) butter
• 2 tbsp (25 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (250 mL) milk
• 1 cup (250 mL) shredded extra old cheddar cheese
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) dry mustard
• 1 Pinch cayenne pepper

Preparation

Cheese Sauce: In saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; whisk in flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk and cook, whisking constantly, until thickened, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese, salt, pepper, mustard and cayenne pepper until cheese is melted. (Make-ahead: Transfer to microwaveable container; let cool. Cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Reheat in microwave.)

Meanwhile, cut cauliflower into florets; Place in steamer over boiling water; cover and steam until tender-crisp, about 9 minutes.

Transfer to serving platter. Pour cheese sauce over cauliflower.

Calliflower’s Curry Cauliflower Compote

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (175 mL) Balkan-style plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup (50 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp (5 mL) curry powder
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) ginger
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper
• 1 head cauliflower, (2-1/2 lb/1.25 kg)
• 1 large onion, cut into eighths
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon juice
• 3 tbsp (45 mL) chopped fresh coriander or fresh chives

Preparation

This is a great dip you can nibble on during your teleseminar. In large bowl, stir together 1/3 cup (75 mL) of the yogurt, oil, curry powder, salt, cumin, coriander, ginger and pepper. Cut cauliflower into florets; add to yogurt mixture along with onion and garlic, tossing to coat.

Spread on large foil-lined baking sheet; roast in 425°F (220°C) oven, stirring once, until tender and browned, about 40 minutes. Let cool.

In food processor, purée cauliflower mixture, remaining yogurt and lemon juice until fairly smooth with a few chunks. Stir in coriander. Eat with pita or tortilla chips.

Nielsen Family Cauliflower Soup

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Yield: Serves 4
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cups coarsely chopped fresh cauliflower
1 – 10 ounce can condensed chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
salt and pepper
buttered croutons
chopped parsley

Rob loves this and will sustain his development work on our Webinar platform with this hearty dish. Melt butter in large saucepan. Sauté onion until tender. Stir in cauliflower and condensed chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 12 to 15 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender.

Smoothly combine flour and milk. Add the mixture to the saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens.

Remove from heat. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into soup bowls. Sprinkle with buttered croutons and parsley.

Buttered Croutons:

1 1/2 cups bread cubes
2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Toss bread cubes in melted butter. Bake for 7 to 8 minutes or until golden brown.

Many of our customers use Calliflower for:

• Daily inspiration
• Support group calls
• Committee calls
• Campaign and Fundraising Online Meetings
• Scripture Readings
• Personal discovery forums and conferences
• Meditation Calls (yes, we have people who sit quietly on the call bridge)
• Prayer Lines
• Coaching Teleseminars
• Personal Development Web Meetings
• Social action calls

Calliflower makes deeper use of social media than any other conference call provider. Our integration with Facebook makes it especially easy to promote your calls and to keep them private within your community. Add our Facebook App to include your Facebook Friends on a call and to use your profile picture. If you prefer, we can also help you promote your group call by making it a public call in our own listings and tweeting it through Twitter. We automatically add the “#teleseminar” hash tag, helping you gain subscribers if you like. Of course, all Calliflower conference calls generate a bit.ly link that makes it easy for you to email, SMS or otherwise distribute a short link to your followers.

Especially for those who wish to participate in charity and social endeavors, yet are isolated, Calliflower can help you extend your network to the home-bound or physically challenged to include them in important group work.

Calliflower is supportive of both religious and non-religious charity organizations who feel called to a mission in helping others.

Calliflower is the most affordable teleconferencing service available for the features offered in Web meetings and audio calls. Our plans are very effective and flexible, allowing you to buy what you need or to drop out when you need to. Our unlimited calling plans give your charity the best tools for conference calling with telephone dial-ins and online VOIP participants. Flat phone bridge fees make things very affordable. Calliflower is an elegant service, but it is cheap and cheerful.

Teleconferencing allows you to have easy, affordable meetings. Our international dial-in numbers give your international workers, donors and benefactors an easy way to connect with home base and keeping costs down. If you have workers in disaster zones or remote locations, our global dial-in numbers and Skype partnership can let you conduct meeting and allowing your team to focus on their mission.

The invitations themselves have been redesigned, with improved fonts, layout, and information access.  This is what the new email invitation looks like:

We’ve also redesigned the reminder email that arrives 15 minutes before the scheduled call.  It’s now shorter, with more detailed information about the call, including a drop down to discover dial-in numbers.

And lastly, extensive feedback from our European customers indicated the need for a 24 hour clock, rather than just the North American AM/PM convention.  Simply log into Calliflower, select Settings, and set your Calliflower profile Time Display to 24 hour clock.

Enjoy!

According to what I’ve read, not much is known about the cause of the disease.  It can by asymptomatic, or chronic.  It commonly improves or clears up spontaneously.  And yet 50% have some kind of relapse, and 10% develop a serious disability.

If you’re interested in knowing more about Sarcoidosis Awareness Month events, visit A Song for Life Sarcoidosis Foundation’s event page, here.

Last week, one of our customers showed me how to set up a reservationless call on Calliflower, without changing Calliflower at all.  It turns out to be surprisingly simple as well.

Step 1.  Create an all day (I mean 24 hour a day) recurring call starting at midnight.  Make it recur every day,  or maybe Monday through Friday if you don’t think you’ll need to have any conference calls on the weekend.

Step 2. Mail invitations to the people you need to participate.

Whenever you call Calliflower from now on, and simply enter your PIN, boom – you’ll be on your bridge.  And if you need to schedule a call that isn’t reservationless (say, a webinar), then Calliflower will simply create a different PIN for the second call.  Enter the PIN for the second call, and you’ll be on the second call.  Enter the PIN for the first call… and you’ll be on the first.

Now here’s a few extra things you can do that will make this WAY better than the ordinary reservationless conference call.

1. Reservationless call for a team: Invite only your team to the call.  Calliflower will then send each person an individual PIN, and only your team members can get on the bridge.
2. Reservationless call for two different teams: Invite each team to their own call.  Calliflower will then send you two PINs – one for team call A, and one for team call B.  If you’re meeting with team A, enter the team A PIN.  And if you’re meeting with Team B…. any guesses?  Yup – enter the team B PIN.
3. PINless, reservationless calls: Register your mobile number with Calliflower, and invite yourself to the call.  The next time you call from your mobile, you’ll be automatically put on your bridge – no fuss, no muss.

We’ve been beating ourselves up for not having reservationless calling for the last few months.  Not only can we do it, but we can actually do it better than the competition.

Boy I love customers!

1. Many of our customers host webinars and teleseminars on Calliflower, and we’ve been working on features for those folks for some time.  Now you can control when recordings of your calls are published, and whether participants can see each other during the call. Plus, you can also download a list of attendees.
2. We’re changing our pricing model, and actually introducing a slight price increase. Existing customers don’t need to worry, though. Existing accounts are grandfathered in under the old pricing. Starting today, an unlimited Calliflower account will be $29.95/person instead of the the old rate of $25. In addition, we’re introducing a new Basic subscription at $13.95/mo, for light users, and a pay as you go plan for very infrequent users. Check out all our plans and prices for more details.
3. We’ve updated our Facebook application.  There are numerous new features, but the one I’m pesonally the most excited about and really want to draw to your attention is that Calliflower calls can now be Facebook events.  If you’re a social marketer, this will change how you think about Calliflower.  Calliflower is now a very powerful weapon in your viral marketing toolkit.
4. We’ve just introduced a whole slew of incentive programs. If you recommend Calliflower to a friend, participate in a case study, or give us a testimonial we can use on Calliflower, you’re now eligible for discounts off your monthly bill. Check out the new Incentives tab next time you’re logged into Calliflower.

There’s an old saying that you have to break an egg to make an omelette.  Today I have some sad news as well,  which is that that we are eliminating our free conference calling offering on March 25th. Eliminating the free offering has been a tough decision, and one that we’ve given a lot of thought. We’re doing it because it is simply impossible for us to continue to offer that service reliably in the face of continued opposition at the FCC in Washington DC from larger, incumbent carriers.

You’re probably asking “what do these carriers have to do with anything?” A lot, it turns out. We were able to offer Calliflower at no charge by sharing a portion of the long distance fee you paid to your carrier in order to access the conference service. Those carriers don’t want to pay anymore. In fact, we haven’t been paid by them in two years. Unfortunately, we can’t operate the service any longer without any ability to recover our costs. That’s the reason we made this very difficult decision.

Anyway, the free service is going away, but in it’s place there will be lower prices and discounts available to those who help us to promote Calliflower through our incentives programs.  We hope that it all balances out.  You could actually earn a free subscription to Calliflower, simply by referring some friends.

So go ahead, check out the changes.  And if you’re not already a Calliflower subscriber, shouldn’t you sign up for a 14 day trial?

Since we launched Calliflower we’ve been offering flat-rate services, and comparing ourselves to those who deliver toll-based services, especially services requiring an 800 number to access.  Well, as strange as it may seem, today we launched 800#’s for Calliflower.  Why? You all wanted them.  Customers have been asking us for toll-free access to Calliflower for months.  So we listened, and went out to find a solution that would work for us and our customers.

And just like peanut butter and chocolate, toll-free numbers and Calliflower go well together.  With toll-free numbers we can now reach Calliflower participants anywhere in North America, not just in the big centers.  And for folks that are used to toll-free services, it means not having to remember local dial numbers.

So what about the cost?  Well, we didn’t want to launch until we could find a cost effective way to provide the service.  Fortunately, we’re working with a vendor who makes it possible for us to deliver the toll-free service for a measly $10/mo + 4.5 cents per minute usage fees.  That’s half what the major telcos will charge, and a very competitive price indeed.

If you’d like to know more, contact sales@iotum.com, or call us at 613-686-6600.

During this time, emergency support will be available, but ordinary telephone support will be unavailable.  To access support you may:

• telephone our offices, and leave a message. Someone will try to return your call within 24 hours.
• send mail to support@iotum.com, requesting assistance.  Please ensure that you provide lots of detail to assist in diagnosing issues.

We recommend that you use email support, rather than call on the telephone.  Many of us carry mobile devices, which will allow us to become aware of and possibly respond to your needs more quickly, even if we’re away from the office telephones.

Thank you for your business in 2010.  You’ve helped us to achieve outstanding results this year, and we hope likewise to have helped you, in your business, to have had an exceptional year as well.

Best wishes from all of us.

If you have callers who need to reach your meetings from Portugal, they can now do so by simply dialing +351 308 800 181.

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