I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of freshly chopped garlic just as it goes into a frying pan or pot. I mean, how many times has the smell of freshly cut garlic lured you right into the kitchen wherever you’ve been and prompted you to say, “hey, that smells great! What’s for dinner?” 

All right: today’s Valentine’s Day, and I sure hope you and the one you love have a happy one!

Valentine’s evening is usually a great occasion to have red wine! And if that’s what you have in mind to share with the person who makes your heart glow with passion, then how ‘bout making that wine glow just as well. Now, the kind of wine I’m talking about is sometimes called “mulled wine”, but "mulled" hardly sounds heart-warmingly romantic. Ugh! I mean, is love - true love - common? No way! But look what happens when you replace that "m" word with the word “glow”. Suddenly this warm and fantastically flavorful drink takes on a magically appealing, light-up-your-senses life of its own! And it's so easy to make.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about easy to make and fantastically flavorful salads and salad dressings – and although I LOVE that stuff, right now it’s time to get downright decadent. And I mean decadent in the best possible and most innocent but incredibly delicious of ways. I’m talking about “shoot a Cupid’s arrow right through my warm chocolate heart!” And why not? Valentines Day is right around the corner.  Add a comment

Apple, orange & avocado is just as quick & easy to make as it is fantastically flavorful to eat. The real beauty of the salad is that the ingredients, as shown here, are almost always available year 'round.

Last year I started making warm salads for dinner as a comforting way to enjoy fresh winter fruits and vegetables. What I liked most about making those salads was combining savory and sweet flavors, and this quick & easy warm spinach & pear salad does exactly that.

I just recently I wrote about how to make a quick and easy salad dressing made James Bond style just like his martinis: shaken, not stirred. Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of doing a cooking demonstration with some excellent veterans at Veterans Inc. in Shrewsbury. I started off the demo showing how to make the same dressing I wrote about last week, and just as I added the first ingredient, garlic salt, one of the guys piped up, “Hey, why are you using garlic salt? Why not use garlic powder and salt separately?” I answered that using garlic salt is easier because it's just one ingredient instead of two. “Yah,” the guy said, “except that there’s all that extra stuff in it. And besides, what if you don’t want all that salt - or even the sugar like you’re gonna’ add next. I’m a diabetic. So’s the guy sitting next to me.” 

I hope you’re off to good start to 2012! I just checked online and found that three of the top six new year’s resolutions year after year are eating better, losing weight and getting more fit. Great! 

Let’s start with eating. There’s a good chance that salads full of fresh ingredients come to mind when you think of eating a more healthy diet. Terrific! But what about the dressing that goes on top?

In my last post, I showed pictures and wrote about where to find and how to select fresh chestnuts in the grocery store. Today I’ll show you how to roast those chestnuts as easily as possible. Add a comment

I hope your holidays - however you celebrate them - are going well. Like a lot of you I’m sure, I have a sort of idealistic view about this time of year and the idea of maybe - just perhaps - using some of that time to relax and get some rest. Yah, I know - HA! But on the bright side, and there’s always a bright side, how ‘bout we put together a relaxing fun snack that’s as easy to make as it is great at taking the edge off the cold. I’m talking about freshly roasted chestnuts. And, though they’re not quite “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” (I hope you’re singing. I am - with crossed eyes), roasting fresh chestnuts either in a full-sized kitchen oven or a toaster oven, which I like best for convenience and energy savings, works fantastically well.

First, though, you have to get the chestnuts, and that’s all we’ll talk about here. 

Veterans Incorporated Executive Director Denis Leary nailed it squarely when he said recently that “the treasured art of Tibetan Sand Mandala Painting is a sight to behold”. Veterans Inc., New England’s largest provider of veteran services, has been hosting eight Gaden Jangtse Tibetan Buddhist Monks this week, Dec. 12-17, at their Independence Hall in Shrewsbury as part of the organization’s Health and Wellness Program.