Nutritious choices made simple®
Grilling season… the most wonderful time of year when you can bring the cooking outside and when pots and pans don’t greet you after a delicious dinner! As we embark on another season of warm weather cooking, it seems like the right time for a little “grill basics” refresher.
No one wonders why children countdown the days until Halloween. Trick-or-treating is a magical experience. You wear a fun costume, pretend you are someone/something else, and travel from house to house, through dark neighborhoods filled with spooky creatures and decorations. Along the way, you amass a treasure of treats (mostly candy) before getting home, perhaps past bedtime, to tally up your haul.
Around the holidays (and on through January) you’ll see plenty of blog posts and recipes touting “guilt-free” desserts and treats. I admit that I’ve even used the phrase before when writing about how to modify recipes for sweets to make them lower in calories. I don’t use this phrase anymore, here’s why…
We are deep in the festive feeling that begins with Halloween and takes us right into the New Year. While you can track these few months by the seasonal décor at your local retailer, you also know it by the candy, pies, cookies, and other colorful confections that make their way into your home. These foods, which I always refer to as our “sometimes foods” are intended to be just that, consumed “sometimes.” When seasonal sweets abound every day, it takes a bit of effort to balance it all and not feel like a holiday Scrooge.
It’s perfectly fine to want to thoroughly enjoy all the holiday foods at this time of year—they’re a wonderful part of the season and a big part of celebrations big and small. But when it comes to gifts, might I suggest that this year you skip the store-bought candle or gift card and create something practical, personal and delicious for the people on your list?
Slowing down during the holidays may sound about as hard as finding the perfect present in minutes, but it can be done. In fact, it should be a priority. After all, the essence of this joyous season isn’t to crank up the stress, but rather to connect with family and friends, capture the moments of your growing children, and maybe enjoy a cookie or two. Yes, even your dietitian understands the gravitational pull of Christmas cookies and other seasonal sweets. While I may not be able to lure you away from all your traditional treats, I can with that daily Advent calendar chocolate that counts you down to Christmas. Even better, with just a bit of thought, I can help you create those mindful moments and offer alternatives to chocolate-filled Advent calendars.
During the holiday season, we see an increase in efforts to address hunger like food drives, fundraisers for area food banks and volunteering at food pantries, food banks, food rescue organizations or free, community meal programs. This additional help is welcomed by our hunger relief partners who support the 37 million people in the U.S. […]
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is time-consuming—especially if you are doing most of that cooking yourself. (If you’re not flying solo in the kitchen, consider these ideas for crowdsourcing your dinner.) And, while I love the holiday, the cozy family time and of course, the food, I also love a good kitchen short-cut that doesn’t sacrifice quality and gives me more time to enjoy the day. Here are a few ideas for getting the food prepped faster—and you out of the kitchen quicker…