The holidays come with much anticipation and excitement, as well as a little dread. The dozens of holiday cookies, the variations of fabulous fudge, and the finest candies around, are sure to excite the taste buds. But when these goodies have you surrounded each day from November to January, the dread of the holiday pounds weighs you down. Here are some holiday tips to help you gain control. Make your cookies or candies, but freeze half for later in the year. If you’re used to giving...

Sour cream has so many uses that it’s often a refrigerator staple from January to December. It adds richness and acidity to both savory and sweet dishes. It’s similar to it’s substitutes, yogurt or crème fraiche, yet remains a distinctive ingredient. Sour cream is a fermented dairy product made by adding lactic acid bacteria to pasteurized cream. This bacterial action thickens the cream and adds a tangy flavor. Crème fraiche is a French product with a little higher fat content, traditionally...

Turning fresh fall veggies into fabulous favorites can happen with roasting, a simple cooking technique. Roasting allows vegetables or other foods to develop a crispy crust on the outside while creating a subtle sweetness. This is due to the magic of caramelization. Caramelization is a type of non-enzymatic browning reaction. During this reaction, volatile chemicals are released, water is removed, and sugars break down, transforming the food to a brownish color with a nutty-sweet flavor....

As many people are realizing the health benefits of plant-based diets, plant-rich proteins are becoming more popular. While tofu is more widely known as a meat substitute, tempeh is not far behind. Tempeh, like tofu, is made from soybeans. The soybeans are cooked, fermented and then formed into a firm block that resembles a nougat. While tempeh may not sound or look very appetizing, fans of this tofu cousin enjoy it for its versatility and nutrient density. Tempeh is dry and dense, suitable...

Pumpkin season is in full swing, and while great for decorating and carving, pumpkins are also considered a superfood, offering many health benefits. In fact, the seeds, fruit and greens have each been known to be used in herbal medicines. The pumpkin flesh is a valuable source of both vitamin A and fiber, which will help to boost immunity, support weight loss and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer and arthritis. Just one-half cup of canned pumpkin provides 200% of daily vitamin A needs...

Along with the Keto and Whole 30 diets, the Paleo diet is currently trending in popularity. Also called the “caveman” or “stone-age” diet, it’s based on the idea that today’s farming practices are not what they were when our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago. Paleo diet supporters believe in the hypothesis that our bodies have not been able to adapt to a modern diet, and thus is a contributing factor to the prevalence of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. However, there is no scientific evidence...

One of the most popular foods in the fall is named for a different season: winter squash, particularly acorn squash. While still a popular pick in the winter, acorn squash in Illinois is generally harvested in late summer to early November. It’s the first fall food I go for after decorating my house with pumpkins and fall décor. Acorn squash is somewhat round and small, usually around four inches in diameter. It has deep-ridged grooves on the outer skin, making it a bit intimidating to slice....

I recently ordered some pumpkin seeds online, but when I opened up the package, I realized that they were not the pumpkin seeds I had in mind. I was expecting to see cream-colored, oval-shaped seeds, like the ones you’d dig out of a jack-o-lantern, but instead I received greenish, small seeds without a cream-colored hull. They resembled a sunflower seed only a tad bigger. It dawned on me that I had actually ordered pepitas. All pepitas are pumpkin seeds, but that doesn’t mean that all pumpkin...

Sometimes it takes a culinary dictionary to read the recipes in a cookbook, particularly a cookbook that is a little more “fine dine and wine.” You may have come across terms, such as galette, crostata or tart and wondered what the difference is, if any.  All involve either a dough or crust and can be either sweet or savory. A galette and crostata are actually the same thing, only separated by language: The word galette is French while crostata is Italian. Galettes and crostatas are usually...

Split peas look like lentils, but are they? Split peas are a member of the legume family, as are lentils. However, split peas are an actual field pea that is dried. Once dried, the outer skin of the pea is removed and the pea is split in half. Lentils, on the other hand, are the seeds found in the pods of a small annual plant. Split peas come in green and yellow varieties. Green split peas are sweeter than the yellow variety. They are most commonly used in split pea soup. Due to their yellow...

Have you ever felt that you needed a guidebook when shopping at the grocery store? With so many different varieties of the same product to choose from, it can be difficult to know which one to buy. In the world of olive oil, many types stock the shelves; let’s find out which one is at the head of the class. Olive oil is graded on taste, acidity level and processing method. The top quality olive oils are obtained from the first pressing of the olives. These olives are cold-pressed, which means...

U.S. News and World Report gathered a panel of nationally recognized experts where they compared 41 different diets and ranked them based on how easy it is to follow, its ability to produce short-term and long-term weight loss, its nutritional completeness, its safety and its potential for preventing and managing diabetes and heart disease. Do you want to guess what diet took the top prize? The Mediterranean diet ranked #1 for 2019. This diet is based on the traditional eating habits of...

Dieting is nothing new to the U.S., but various diets fly in and fade away. Atkins, South Beach, and the Zone are just a few of the fad diets that have come and gone. So what makes a diet stick around, and more importantly, how do you know if a diet is safe and effective? With a new diet or weight loss pill on the market seemingly every day, it’s important that you are armored with the knowledge to spot a gimmick. Americans spend billions of dollars each year on the weight loss industry,...

It’s back to school time, which means the kids are either excited or groaning. Either way, it’s back to packing lunches for the days that school lunch just won’t do. The only problem: those cute little unicorn and super-hero themed lunch bags are often filled with empty calorie foods. Individual bags of cheddar crackers, fruit snacks, snack cakes and prepackaged trays filled with either crackers, meat and cheese, or mini pizzas and a small candy bar, are just a few of the foods that fill a...

It’s easy to feel a bit of anxiety when faced with the many varieties of flours in the baking aisle of the grocery store. All-purpose, bleached, unbleached, self-rising, and a whole lot more line the shelves. Let’s explore the differences. The most common flour, all-purpose, is a wheat flour that is milled with only the endosperm, not the bran or germ. Since it’s missing the bran and the germ, it’s missing much of the fiber, B-vitamins, vitamin E and antioxidants. However, it’s the most...

Fresh ginger is one of the most common spices used in the world. It’s believed that Indians and Chinese were the first to produce ginger root where it was primarily used to treat many ailments. While not really a root, ginger is in the same family as turmeric, both of which are grown for their rhizomes, an underground stem that sends out roots or shoots. The rhizome is the part you eat.  While many medicinal herbs and spices have little scientific evidence to support their claims, ginger does...

Give your dish, drink or dessert a squeeze of fresh lime for an added sense of freshness and a pop of tartness. Limes grow on trees in warm climates. Similar to lemons, limes are a citrus fruit with a low pH; this means limes are very acidic, making them an influential cooking ingredient. There are many varieties of limes, including the Tahiti lime and the Key lime. Tahiti limes are bright green, shaped like a lemon, and are generally the lime found year-round in the grocery store. Key limes...