Rosemary Thyme Pot Roast

The weather is getting colder, I finally replaced the tank tops in my closet with sweaters, the pretty leaves are off the trees and in my yard, and my bed is now graced with flannel sheets.  Winter is officially right around the corner.  Every year I think to myself that global warming is really going to kick in this winter and it will never get below 40 degrees.  No luck so far. 

But with winter's inevitable return comes warming, wonderful, comfort food.  The menu in my kitchen is definitely seasonal and meals I wouldn't dream of making in my shorts and flip flops become staples when I am snuggled up in my sweats and fuzzy slippers.  Pot roast is one of those meals.  There is something irresistible about the aroma and warmth of a roast this time of year.  And because everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off during the holidays, the fact that pot roast is easy is just an added bonus.

Makeover Monday: Low Fat Cornbread

Cornbread is delicious, but it has a bad rap for being high in fat.  Case in point, the southern part of our great Union.  I didn't eat a lot of cornbread going up.  Then I discovered what apparently the whole world already knew; cornbread is awesome with a hot bowl of chili.  And I do eat a lot of chili.  So now I eat a lot of cornbread.

I started my cornbread journey with a basic recipe from an old cookbook I inherited from my grandma.  It was good and I do want just a simple cornbread to take the edge of the heat of the chili.  But the original recipe was a little fatty for me.  Between the one cup of whole milk and 1/4 cup of shortening, I was potentially looking at a little over 7 grams of fat for piece one piece.  Compare it to a slice of whole wheat bread with its 1 gram of fat, and that seemed a little extreme.  

Food Science 101: The Perfect Pie Crust

My unofficial statistic (as in, totally made up but I'm sticking with it) is that about a billion pies will be made in America over this Thanksgiving weekend.  Some of those pies will have a beautiful, flaky, tender crust with a perfect crispiness.  And some will be dry, tough, crumbly, and/or soggy.  You want yours to be the former.  But how does one acheive such pastry perfection?  I've heard many times that making the perfect pie crust is an art.  That's incorrect.  The perfect pie crust is actually a science!  

A standard recipe for pie crust is actually a pretty simple.  It only contains flour, fat (generally butter and/or shortening), salt, sugar, and water.  The thing that makes pie crust scary to the casual cook is that those simple ingredients can turn into something terribly wrong if not prepared properly.  To make the perfect pie crust, you must first have a basic understanding of how the different ingredients help a pie crust get its tender, flaky, crispy characteristics.  

Health Tips: Surviving Thanksgiving Dinner

Photo from clatl.com

Let’s all let out a joyous cheer that we are in the holiday season.  It is a wonderful time of year, filled with friends, family, and food.  Lots, and lots of food.  Thanksgiving, holiday parties, treats at the office, food gifts from neighbors and friends, sneaking a Cinnabon at the mall, Christmas dinner, Christmas cookies, more Christmas cookies, New Year’s, etc, etc, etc!  While this might be the happiest season of all, most Americans will not be cheering when they step on their bathroom scales January 2^nd.   Although weight loss during this time of year can be challenging, if not impossible, with a little planning and some will power, weight management is possible. 

I could probably focus this whole blog on tips for managing weight during the holiday season, but for now I will focus on the most imminent threat to your waistline: Thanksgiving dinner.  According to the Calorie Control Counsel (yes, there is officially a counsel for everything now) the typical holiday meal contains a whopping 4,500 calories.  That’s like eating 8 Big Macs.  Goodbye, skinny jeans!  How can a meal possibly be that atrocious?  Blame it on fatty, sugary foods and lots of ‘em.  But here’s a few things you can do about it:

Makeover Monday: Cranberry Walnut Jell-O Salad

The week of Thanksgiving is upon us!  After a two year hiatus, I am finally returning to my parents' house to have Thanksgiving with my family and I could not be more excited. As the big day quickly approaches, I find myself thinking about my favorite dishes that my mom has been making every year for as long as I can remember.  While I love them all, perhaps the one I get the most excited about every year is this Cranberry Walnut Jell-O salad.  I know that Jell-O salads aren't usually the star of the show, but for some reason I can never get enough of this stuff.  It is sweet, tart, crunchy, and just plain good.  With cranberries, apples, oranges, and walnuts, it is a perfect dish for this time of the year.

As with many of the recipes I have requested from my mom over the years, I was a little surprised when I saw that this seemingly healthy side dish was deceptively unhealthy.  It had a cup of sugar!  I've eaten desserts with less sugar than that.  And that is on top of the 73 grams of sugar in the package of Jell-O.  Ouch!  But I loved this recipe too much to just forget about it.  I was going to make it myself.  I was going to enjoy it without feeling guilty.  And I was definitely going to eat it more than once a year.