How to make, use, and freeze fresh pesto

Basil pesto is delicious, but the price of prepared pesto is alarming: expect to pay $5 or more for as little as half a cup! It’s amazing how something so expensive is so easy to make.

Fresh basil is easy to grow in the garden or on your windowsill. Take a pile of leaves, add some garlic, olive oil, and turn a cup of homemade pesto into three delicious meals - some left over to freeze for later. If you grow your own basil, ingredients for all three meals won’t cost much more than that measly little jar of pesto from the supermarket.
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Use Herbs and Spices to Get a Smoky Taste Without Smoked Meat

Southern cooking, also called “country cooking” or “soul food,” often describes foods loaded with fat, salt, and pork – sometimes all three in the same dish! Traditional dishes include fried chicken, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and fried squash. See a pattern? Fried, fried, fried. What’s not fried is likely to be cooked with bacon or a chunk of fatback as “seasoning.”

That “seasoned” taste is so common that many people can’t imagine cooking beans without side meat. As Scarlett O’Hara notes in Gone With the Wind: “Black-eyed peas are no good without bacon. There’s no strength to them.”

Here, as in so many areas, Scarlett was wrong.
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Healthy eating doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be doing something as simple as adding vegetables or fruits to an existing recipe. For example, my husband and I like to make our own lasagna. Almost all the lasagna recipes we saw had meat in them. When we stated thinking about eating healthier and eating lower on the food chain, we took a lasagna recipe we liked and experimented with replacing the meat with different vegetables.

Spinach, minced carrots, zucchini were some of the vegetables we tried. We decided we liked them all and we didn’t miss the meat. Now vegetables are standard ingredients in our lasagna recipe and our family loves it.

Want ideas on eating more healthy? Here are some things we do in our home.

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A little home cooking helps beat the “Freshman 15″

College students and their families expect large expenses like tuition, books, lab fees, and housing. But what family factors in the cost of a new wardrobe when calculating college costs? Most should. Studies show that college weight gain is so common that it has a catchy name: the “Freshman 15.”

On their own for the first time, college students are suddenly free to eat as much as they please. Mom may try some long-distance nagging about nutrition, but who’s paying attention? Drunk on freedom (or other substances), many college students develop bad habits that lead to extra pounds.

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Mark your calendars! April is officially “Soyfoods Month.” According to the Soyfoods Association of North America (SANA) April is the eleventh annual “Soyfoods Month” celebration. Activities for the official Soyfoods Month 2007 will focus on educating consumers about “how easy soy foods are to find, prepare and incorporate into a healthy lifestyle and haute cuisine”.

“Today, the average American is becoming more aware of the effects of diet on overall health, especially in light of recent studies about the obesity epidemic,” says Nancy Chapman, RD, MPH, Executive Director of SANA. “Soy foods are perfect to manage weight and boost health for children, teenagers, and adults. Soy foods are low in saturated fat, cholesterol-free, and packed with essential nutrients. Of all the beans found in nature, soy is the only one that has high quality protein equal to animal protein, a vital part of the nutrition equation and possibly weight control.” Read the rest of this entry