Love nachos but don’t have the time to prepare it? I feel you! Nachos and tacos are my go-to snacks whenever I have guests at home. While cooking ground beef and dicing vegetables are quite easy, there is one thing that I find difficult to do whenever I am preparing these dishes—making the cheese sauce. That is why I make sure that I always have a stock of canned nacho cheese … Read more
I love chili. It’s one of my absolute favorite go-to meals in fall and winter. A well-constructed chili is healthy, filling, and freezes beautifully for later meals. But cooking good chili takes all day; the longer it cooks, the more delicious and blended the flavors will be. So while I definitely make my own chili from time to time, sometimes the right answer for my family is to pick up a … Read more
Everyone knows that fish is a fantastic, healthy food. With lots of great omega fatty acids, fish is virtually fat free, yet packed with protein. The problem is that fresh fish is expensive, and depending on where you live, not actually very fresh at all. So many of us turn to canned fish to try and get the right balance of nutrients without spending a lot of our grocery budget. Unfortunately, … Read more
It’s getting into winter in the northern United States, and winter is the time of year when I most like to have a cup of soup available. I’m the kind of cook that tends to keep frozen broth and different types of bouillon in the house, so sometimes assembling a soup from scratch is easy. At other times, however, the house is messy, the kids are cranky, and I feel … Read more
In a perfect world, every pizza would be made with homemade sauce created from vine fresh tomatoes and lovingly dried spices. In the world of a busy family, however, that’s just not practical. I’m thrilled whenever I’m making pizza from “scratch” and not ordering delivery. Finding a great jarred or canned pizza sauce has been crucial to making sure that my family enjoys homemade pizza, and doesn’t end up ordering … Read more
The other day, I made black bean sweet potato enchiladas. They were on my weekly meal plan, so I had all the ingredients except for one key piece: the enchilada sauce. I threw something together from canned tomatoes and spices and though the end result was tasty, well, it was just not quite a true enchilada. The sauce is really key. Although I like the idea of making my own enchilada sauce, … Read more
If you live in one of the many regions of the United States, like I do, where tomatoes can’t be grown year round, you know the pain of trying to find a good tomato during the cold months of the year. I don’t care where they’ve been imported from, any tomato that has to travel for hundreds of miles is just never going to be as good as something grown … Read more
One of the fascinating dichotomies of healthy eating is the pressure from nutritionists to eat more Omega-3 fatty acids, preferably from fish sources, combined with the concerns about toxic levels of mercury and pollution related to fish farming. The bigger the fish, the more likely it is to be dangerous for you due to its pollutants. Shark, swordfish, and tuna all have the potential to raise mercury to dangerous levels … Read more