Nutritious choices made simple®
Whether you’re just learning to cook or are looking to expand your skills into a specific area, we’d like to help. Our cooking advice tends to focus on preparing delicious food that’s packed with nutrition. We showcase recipes that earn Guiding Stars. This means that they have more of the nutrients we should each more of and fewer of the food qualities we should limit.
Bulk acquisition of produce is one of the ways we can save money while eating fresh food. We’ve discussed nutrition-oriented ways of preserving produce and tricks for experimenting with a vegetable to keep it from getting boring. Sometimes, of course, you just need to get it out of your house. Not many people appreciate it when we play “ding-dong, ditch” with a paper bag of zucchini. And, more to the point, if you find someone who would actually appreciate that zucchini, you might be able to exchange it for a food you don’t have.
Was your garden planting a bit overenthusiastic in places? Do you find yourself struggling to use up one or two veggies? It happens, and I am here to help. When I’m trying to use up a vegetable I am getting tired of, I think about my opportunities for change in terms of temperature, texture, and taste.
Have you got an abundance of one kind of produce? Whether you’re shopping seasonal sales, have a farm share, or grow your own, it happens. One of the key ways many of us deal with this bounty is preserving it to take us through the year. Not all preservation methods are, however, nutritionally equal. I’m […]
Whether you’re taking advantage of seasonal produce sales at your local grocery store or participating in a local farm’s CSA program, eating in-season produce can save you money. Taking this focus can also help introduce more fruits and vegetables into your diet, which is great for nutrition. Why doesn’t everyone eat this way?
Snack bars can run the gamut of snack foods. Easy to make and highly flexible, they’re a great option to experiment with if you have kids. Though often designed to be eaten at room temperature, they can include warm and tender variations fresh from the oven or chewy, frozen varieties perfect for summer. How you might play with bar-shaped snacks depends a lot on whether or not they require cooking.
When I was a kid, my absolute favorite recipe to make was called “Peanut Butter Bumps.” It had three ingredients: peanut butter, butter, and oatmeal. All you did was mash everything together and roll it into sticky little fat bombs, and I LOVED them. Those little bumps have too much saturated fat, salt, and added sugars to earn Guiding Stars, but working on the Guiding Stars recipe database, I have discovered something: snack balls can be delicious and nutritious.
Nothing says “Hello, summer,” quite like a smoothie. Smoothies are also a great way to engage kids in some culinary play. Offering ample room for choice and creativity, taking very little time, and yielding a sweet treat that can give the ice cream truck a run for its money, smoothies are prime for playing with.