Acorn Squash with Apple Walnut Topping

I am so excited to be dusting off my cool-weather recipes now that the temperature is finally dipping into the 60s around here. I have some perennial favorites that I simply won't make until there's a chill in the air, colored leaves visible from the kitchen window, and a football game playing on the TV in the next room. One of those is this acorn squash. 

For those of you not familiar with all of the squash varieties, an acorn squash is the smallish green one shaped like, well, an acorn!  They are super-easy to cook and are absolutely delicious. This particular recipe uses the microwave so it's quick enough to make even for a weeknight meal - I love that!

While the squash is good prepared simply and topped with just a little butter and salt or grated parmesan, this version is sweet enough to stand in for dessert! Pair it with a roasted pork tenderloin or crispy baked chicken for a satisfying way to celebrate these first chilly fall days.

Acorn Squash with Apple Walnut Topping

serves 2

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced

1 Macintosh apple, peeled and diced

1 Tbsp. butter

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 acorn squash

3 Tbsp. chopped toasted walnuts

Directions:

1. Place apples and butter in a nonstick skillet and saute until tender. Add  brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and stir until sugar dissolves.

2. While apple is cooking, place whole acorn squash in microwave on HIGH for 4 minutes. Turn over and microwave 4 more minutes. Carefully remove squash from microwave and cut in half (from stem to tip) with a sharp knife. With a spoon, scoop out seeds and discard.

3. Fill each half of the squash with half of the cooked apple mixture and sprinkle with toasted walnuts. Serve immediately.

Have you seen your family lately?

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Family Day - a Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children. This "holiday" (or movement, perhaps?) was created by CASA, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, because its studies show that the more often children eat with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Family dinners also have a direct impact on positive self-image, higher grades and parent-child communication. So CASA created a holiday to encourage people to eat family dinners.  Did you celebrate it by sitting down to dinner with your family?

It makes me sad that we need a holiday for this. Sad that we need need an annual reminder to sit down at the table together and share a meal and talk about our day. But since we apparently do need that reminder, I'm grateful that CASA has stepped up to provide it and that other companies who believe in the power of a family dinner have joined them to sponsor and publicize it.

As one example, Stouffer's has partnered with Todd Parr, a children's author who has penned a new book called "Let's Fix Dinner"  in celebration of this day. It's available for a limited time through the link I included here. (I just ordered mine!) Incidentally, Todd Parr also wrote "This is My Hair," one of my daughter's most favorite books when she was a toddler...love love love that silly book.)

I am a big believer in the importance of family dinners. My own family sat down to a meal together every night growing up, as did my husband's family. Our growing family eats together every night now unless my husband is traveling for work. Sometimes that means we eat early or late to accommodate our schedules...but we do it.  We all look forward to that symbolic point in our day when we come together from our disparate activities - work, preschool, tumbling, kindergarten, errands, exercise, whatever - and reconnect in one place, at one time, around one table as a family.  I'm frankly a little anxious about how our ritual may need to adjust as our children grow older and begin to participate in activities that cut into the family dinner hour. My hope is that we'll be so attached to this family tradition that we'll do whatever we can to preserve it, as often as we possibly can.

Since I love to cook, these family dinners provide an opportunity to put home-cooked food on the table, but the data from CASA suggests that it's not so much the food that matters. It's the ritual. The connection. The conversation that unfolds. So please don't pressure yourself to prepare a homemade feast if you can't see your way there. Simply put food on the table and eat. Pick up takeout if that's what works. Just eat. Together. You'll be glad you did.

If you're already having family meals, will you write a comment below this post and share why they're important to you or how you make them fit into your schedule? And if you're not having them as often as you'd like, can you try to have one family meal a week and let that be your ritual? It could be Sunday breakfast or Friday dinner or whatever works for your family. Just do what you can; you'll create an opportunity for your children to open up and share about their day and for you to make memories you'll always cherish. If the toddler runs laps around the table while everyone eats, so be it. If your teenager doesn't talk at all, so be it. Do it anyhow. Routinely. And let the ritual do its work.

Perhaps if we all commit to eating as families as often as we can, we won't need an annual holiday to remind us of why these dinners matter. We'll be celebrating them all year.

Healthy or Not? It's not black and white...

My daughter likes to play a game she calls "Is it healthy or not?" She's 5, so everything I do is still cool to her and apparently I spend quite a lot of time talking about this subject so it's very very cool. The game goes something like this.


"Okay Mom - let's play 'Is it healthy?'  I'll name a food and you tell me if it is healthy or not!"

You might think I'd be pretty darn good at this game. But I promise you that it is more difficult than it sounds! More often than not, my answer to her seemingly simple question is "It depends."

Cereal? 
It depends.

Macaroni and cheese?
Depends.

French fries? Chicken? Milk?
Depends. Depends. Depends! 

Apples?
Healthy! Yes! Praise God - apples are unequivocally healthy! Whew..

Aaaaargh! I wish I could give her more straightforward answers, but I simply can't because so much of the answer depends on the method of preparation used.

For example, a high-fiber, low-sugar, whole-grain breakfast cereal is pretty healthy! It may have a few too many additives, but I'd give it a passing grade. But Fruit Loops? Cocoa Puffs? Even Rice Krispies? Not so much.

Mac and cheese. If it's made from scratch with a whole wheat pasta, skim milk, and a sensible amount of real cheddar it's actually a pretty healthy food. But the kind in the box with white pasta and cheese flavored powder, maybe not so healthy.

We make homemade baked fries that are very healthy, and Ore-Ida even has a variety or two that would earn the "healthy" moniker...but any fast food or restaurant fries certainly would not.

Chicken can be grilled or baked or sauteed into a lean healthful entree. But if we're talking about a chicken nugget, I just can't call it healthy.

Even milk has been compromised. Organic, skim milk may well be part of a healthful diet. But sugar-laden chocolate or strawberry milk (organic or not - have you read the label on Horizon flavored milk boxes?!) just isn't.


It's no wonder that kids, and many adults, are confused about what exactly is healthy these days. As a way to simplify, I'm partial to Michael Pollan's Food Rules approach. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Brilliant. In his book, he breaks down each of those principles into really simple guidelines. Things like "Avoid food products that contain ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce," or "It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car".

The bottom line is that in today's food environment, we need to be savvy food consumers who read labels in stores and ask servers in resataurants to get information about the nutritional profile of our food so that we can make good choices. 


All manufactured food is required to carry these labels, so it's important to learn to read them! And restaurants are increasingly publishing nutrition information for their menus to help patrons make informed choices. If the nutrition info is not posted in the store, it's often available upon request or online. 

McDonald's, for example, has quite an elaborate system online in which you can "Bag a McMeal" and calculate its nutritional profile, making any customizations you'd like. And if you forgot to investigate in advance, the nutrition info for their menu is also printed on the backside of the paper tray liner. (Really! Check if you don't believe me.) 


Earlier this year an Oregon-based chain, called Burgerville, began printing the nutrition profile of the ordered meal on their receipts....and making suggestions for how to order more healthfully! Here's an article explaining that choice - I've never heard of anything else quite like it!

So while restaurants are making strides to assist us, and food manufacturers are putting info right in front of us, it's ultimately up to us to take a moment to read the label before making an informed choice. Because in most cases, it's just not black and white.

Does your life have enough "white space"?

From time to time (and with his permission!) I'll be re-posting some things written by Leo Babauta on his ZenHabits blog. Leo has an interesting and admirable philosophy of un-copywriting his content, preferring that others help to spread the word. I find that a number of his posts reinforce the principles I teach at Nourish and  I hope they will inspire you on your path to well-being. This one beautifully illustrates the "Rest" principle.

Create space.

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter .

I’m not a designer, but I’ve always been in love with the design concept of white space.

It’s the space in a design that isn’t filled with things — as you can tell from the design of Zen Habits and my other blog, mnmlist, it’s something I use (perhaps too) liberally.

But white space can be used in the design of our lives as well, not just the design of magazines and websites and ads. By using white space in our lives, we create space, balance, emphasis on what’s important, and a feeling of peace that we cannot achieve with a more cramped life. Let’s look briefly at how to do this.

 The principles of white space

Some of the things white space accomplishes in design:

• greater legibility
• feeling of luxury
• breathing room & balance
• more emphasis

These same concepts can translate to our lives:

• Clarity. Instead of legibility, white space can give clarity to the things in our lives — whether they’re possessions, projects, tasks, or just things that occupy our time and attention. A nice piece of furniture is more beautiful when it’s not surrounded by clutter. A well-prepared piece of food is more tasty when it’s not smothered in sauces and piled with fries and cheese. A presentation is more effective when we don’t use Powerpoint and have only a few points to make.
• Peace. When our lives are cramped, and our homes and workspaces are cluttered, we feel stressed. When we have fewer things on our schedule and fewer things around us, we feel peaceful.
• Breathing room & balance. Many people talk about finding “work-life balance”, but this is very hard to do if you have no white space. Leave space between things to find the breathing room you need, and to easier achieve balance.
• Emphasis on the important. When our days are non-stop busy, everything is important and nothing is important. But put white space between things, and those things acquire more weight, and we place more importance on each individual thing.

Achieving white space

In theory, achieving white space isn’t difficult: you remove non-essential items from your life, your workday, your surroundings, your possessions, and leave the essential items with space around them.

But of course in practice it’s a bit different, and requires experimentation, learning, practice. I’d suggest starting small, with one area of your life, and making small bits of white space. Start by identifying what’s important, and the slowly removing the non-essential things to create the white space.

Some ideas:

• Breathe. Simply take a couple minutes between tasks, meetings, anything that you do, to breathe. After a meeting, for example, return to your desk and just sit still for a couple minutes, focusing on your breath going in and out. When you get home, pause and breathe. When you’re done with a task on the computer, close everything and breathe, before starting on the next task. This creates space between tasks and allows you to focus on each one.
• Schedule. Don’t overschedule. Leave space on your schedule, between tasks, instead of putting things back-to-back. The space gives you time to go between tasks, to recover, to refocus, to breathe.
• Projects. Do fewer projects at a time. Instead of juggling a bunch of projects at once, try to do one for as long as you can before switching to the next (sometimes you need to switch because you’re waiting on information or on someone else to do something). If you can, take a short break between each project — as long as you can afford.
• Sit. Start your day with the white space of just sitting still for 10 minutes. It can be a meditation session, or simply sitting still with a cup of coffee or tea. If you like this, try putting it in the middle and end of your day as well.
• Remove clutter. Pick a few important things on your desk, or in your home, and remove the rest. This will give you visual space and create a more peaceful atmosphere.
• Savor. Slow down and savor everything you eat, everything you do. Breathe before you take each bite, and enjoy each bite.

You can read more about simplicity in Leo’s books, The Zen Habits Handbook for Life & The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. More here.

White or Wheat?

America, we've flipped the balance! This year, for the first time ever (and by a narrow margin), sales* of wheat bread have surpassed sales of white bread in our country. Americans appear to be getting the message that whole grains are best and that wheat bread is healthier than white bread. Hurray for us!

But before we celebrate too heartily, let's review a few important reminders that will help to ensure the wheat bread you are buying is actually a healthy one and not just white bread in disguise.

1 - It has to be 100% whole wheat (or whole other grain) bread, not just "wheat bread". There is a huge difference between these two. Companies can label a bread as wheat bread even if it contains largely refined wheat flour (also knows as enriched flour). This is basically white flour in disguise - it doesn't count as healthy.


2 - Beware the "whole grain" marketing hype. Calling it "Twelve Grain Super Health Nut Bread" does NOT make it healthy. Sorry marketers. A bread that states it "contains whole grains" or is "multigrain" is not necessarily a healthful choice. Net, claims on the front of the package aren't very helpful and can even be misleading. So, instead....

3 - Let the nutrition label be your guide.  The only thing that matters is what's really inside the package...and that information is found only on the nutrition label. Check out the first few ingredients - one of them should be 100% whole wheat. And one of them should not be sugar (or a pseudonym for sugar). Check the fiber content - you're looking for at least 3g fiber/slice...there are brands with up to 6g/slice that are delicious.

Buying bread shouldn't be difficult, despite the guidance above. Once you've done a little homework and found a brand that is healthful AND tastes good to you, you can simply and quickly buy that variety every time you shop. 

If you'd like to learn more, check out this article; it's jam-packed (no pun intended) with even more info about how to choose a healthy bread.

*According to Nielsen Co. For the 52 weeks ended July 10, wheat bread sales increased 0.6 percent to $2.6 billion, while white bread sales declined 7 percent to $2.5 billion. White bread is still ahead in volume, but the margin is shrinking. Americans bought 1.5 billion packages of white bread in the last year, a 3 percent decrease, and 1.3 billion packages of wheat bread, a 5 percent increase.

3 Kitchen Tools You'll Love

I'm not a big gadget person. I like to keep things pretty simple, especially in the kitchen. I detest clutter (I mean really detest clutter) so I don't always think gadgets are worth the space they take up in my cabinets. 

Have you seen some of the crazy things being sold on television? Do we really need the Egg Genie? Or pizza scissors? How about the hot dog toaster  - one gadget to simultaneously cook hot dogs and toast buns? Please.

Yet there are a few kitchen tools that I find myself reaching for so often, they are worth every square inch of space they require. There are more than three on my personal "must have" list, so I'll share some more another day,  but here are three I don't think I could (happily) live without.

1) A garlic press                2) A salad spinner             3) A citrus juicer

Let's start with the garlic press. There are few kitchen tasks as tedious as mincing garlic. If you've ever found yourself mincing clove after clove with irregularly shaped bits clinging to your knife and praying you don't cut off your fingertips, this is for you. This tool allows you to hack the ends off a clove of garlic, stick it inside, and press out perfectly minced garlic. Simply scrape out the fibrous outer layer that is left inside the press and toss the tool in the dishwasher. Brilliant.

The salad spinner is a relatively recent addition to my kitchen (and one my husband is amazed I actually use - it's pretty big for my taste). But washing greens is so important in order to remove dirt and potential contaminants, and there is nothing worse than a salad made with the resulting wet lettuce. The leaves are soggy and the dressing won't stick! A quick turn through the salad spinner (which is a job my 3 year old refers to as "pumping the lettuce") crisps the greens right back up again. Just the way they belong.

The citrus juicer is one tool where simpler is better. There are fancier versions on the market, but the one I have pictured above is my favorite. It makes short work of juicing lemons, limes, or oranges. If you're doing that job by squeezing with your hand today this is a worthwhile upgrade. You'll get more juice and no seeds or pulp in your finished dish. This is another one you just throw in the dishwasher to clean.

So there you have it, 3 kitchen tools you'll love. I'll share another round of favorites soon.

Kale Chips

Now before you click delete or navigate yourself right out of this post, hear me out. I was a kale chip skeptic. In fact, i was a kale skeptic altogether (just like you are, right?). Kale just looks so incredibly...well...healthy in a good-for-rabbits kind of way. Cooked kale can be a little bitter or even tough to chew if you're not used to eating greens...so that skepticism may even be warranted in most instances. But not if that bunch of kale is prepared this way. This way it becomes one of the healthiest snack foods you can imagine. But not just healthy - it's also salty and flavorful and crispy and just plain addictive. Reserve judgment until you've tried these. Please.

Why kale? It's absolutely packed with health benefits and is often cited as a superfood (on lists of such things). If you want to read about all of its merits, check out this link from the World's Healthiest Foods website - amazing stuff. But in a nutshell, it's about the most efficient food on the planet for providing a host of nutrients for practically no calories. To get these health benefits, I've started to add kale to soups and stews and casseroles - all slow cooking methods with a ton of moisture -  which helps to break it down to a more "chewable" level. But this recipe? This takes it to another level altogether.  This method literally transforms kale from an uber-healthy green to a "pop in a DVD and kick back on the couch" kind of snack.

Betcha can't eat just one.

Kale Chips

1 bunch fresh kale
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
freshly ground black pepper


1. Preheat oven to 300. Wash and dry kale. Remove hard center "vein" from each leaf with a sharp knife. Cut remaining leaves into "chip sized" pieces. Place in large bowl, drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.
2. Spread kale pieces in a single layer on large baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Bake for about 20 minutes or until thoroughly dried and crispy to the touch. Cool and eat.

Can't Talk Now Mom, I'm Exercising!

The kids "exercising" on makeshift elliptical machines

"Children learn what they live" is an adage my mom often quotes. It's a powerful reminder to be careful about the example we as parents set for them in daily life. It's not what we say that they'll necessarily remember or take heed of; it's what we do.

So, the other day I watched as my son overturned one of our kitchen stools, placed his hands on the now upturned legs, and ran his little legs in place as fast as they would go. He was huffing and puffing and fully occupied as I stood nearby wondering what was going on. Before I could ask, he looked up at me, waved and said "Hi Mommy! Can't play 'wich' you right now, I'm exercising." Then he held up two toddler fingers and said, "I've got two more minutes." He was pretending to be on an elliptical trainer like the one we have in our home gym!

I was unequivocally amused by this exchange until I realized that he was playing back something he's probably heard from me a time or two (or twenty) if I was wrapping up an early morning workout as he came downstairs with his Daddy to start his day. "Learn what they live", indeed! I guess he's taken the good with the bad in this case.

While this particular interchange certainly inflicted a bit of guilt (over making him play alone while I exercise), it also made me happy that my kids are picking up on the notion that exercise is fun. And a priority. And a part of our everyday life. As a result, there are other preschool-isms about exercise that come out from time to time. Ones like:

"I'm soaky sweaty! That's b'cause I'm exercising!"  or 
"My bones in my body are getting stronger b'cause I'm exercising." or
"Please I ride my bike too, Daddy?" or
(While playing Barbies)  "Where's the Mommy?" "Oh! She went to Pilates!"

My kids think exercise is fun; it's a natural outlet for their energy and an exhilarating way to spend part of their day. I only hope that what they're observing and mimicking in our household today fuels a lifelong exercise habit for them. 

Children learn what they live. Not surprisingly, Mom was right....again.