Tip, Trick & a Recipe: The hourglass-shaped winter squash, in a (butter)nut shell

I love me some delicious, nutritious fresh sliced zucchini in a stir fry, but when winter squash season comes upon us in the fall, I tend to reach for butternut in favor of the milder flavored summer squashes. Like zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, and melon, butternut squash is a member of the gourd family. You may not think of […]

Tip, Trick & a Recipe: The buzz about honey – my sweetheart!

Fifteen million years ago, folks were enjoying honey. We know that beekeeping has been going on since 700 BC. Before then, I guess it was brave souls sticking their arms in beehives! The Egyptians sacrificed tons of honey to river gods. Rumor has it that Alexander the Great was embalmed with honey. In ancient Rome, […]

Dinner Diva: Thinking outside the lunchbox

Today’s Dinner Diva article isn’t about our evening meal, but it’s an important topic to cover just the same – I hope you’ll agree! I’m talking lunch today, and specifically, lunch boxes. My kids are beyond the “but Mawwwmmmm, everyone else has [insert your child’s most desired petroleum-by-product-based poison of choice here] why can’t I?” […]

Dinner Diva: The Dirty Dozen—Which foods to always eat organic and why!

The word “organic” is on everyone’s lips these days, from choosing organic cotton bed sheets to buying organic fruits and veggies. I always reach for organic first whenever I can, and I recommend you do the same. But, I do realize that we don’t all live in places where fresh organic produce and meats are […]

Tip, Trick & a Recipe: Big fans of cranberries!

Cranberries are related to blueberries with both fruits being members of the Ericaceae family so it’s no wonder these lovely little orbs are so healthy for us. Cranberries can be found growing wild in boggy areas but we’re mostly used to the cultivated ones which are grown on sandy bogs on trailing vines. Cranberries are […]

Healthy Foods: Wild about salmon!

Whether you buy it fresh, frozen, smoked, or from a can . . . cook it in a pan, on the grill, in the oven, or poached . . . salmon is good for you. It’s versatile, easy to prepare, and delicious! The thing is, we hear so much about the omega-3 benefits we get […]

Tip, Trick & a Recipe: Fall in love with hemp hearts

Don’t worry. I’m not going to sit here and tout the health benefits of marijuana! Hemp has an association with marijuana because they’re both related. Hemp is a variety of Cannabis sativa, but it does not contain high levels of the stuff that gives you a high. It does have a whole lot of health […]

Dinner Diva: If it’s cruciferous it’s good for us!

Bok choy, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. What do all these things have in common? (Besides starting with b’s or a hard c sound.) These superheroes of the plant world are all cruciferous vegetables and we should be eating lots of servings of them each week because of how important they are to […]

Tip, Trick & a Recipe: When your plate needs a grain, fill it with millet!

If you’ve been saving all your millet for your bird feeders, you might want to rethink that! Millet technically is a seed and not a grain, but in the culinary world, it’s a grain . . .  so that’s how we’re going to treat it for the sake of this article. This delicious tiny round […]