Archive for October, 2007

October 31st, 2007 | No Comments

My Halloween Candy Top Ten

In honor of Halloween, I’ve decided to post my Top Ten List of the best candy. Since I am a self-proclaimed sugarholic, I know candy

10. Candy Corn – A Halloween staple of which I was never a big fan; it’s just too sweet. It was one of my younger sister’s favorites.

9. Butterscotch – This hard candy goes a long way………….

8. Bazooka Joe – The gum doesn’t last very long, but is tasty & I really like the comic strips.

7. Jawbreakers/Gobstoppers – Large and small, these are fun, but could break some teeth.

6. Whoppers – Chocolate and malt always work well together.

5. Caramels – Melt them down & put them on apples or eat them straight out of the bag, caramels are wonderful, milky goodness.

4. Sweetarts – Hard, gummy or chewy, Sweetarts rule. At Easter there are jelly beans and they are out of this world!

3. Nerds – This one is just fun. Tiny little pieces of tart and sweet goodness. I prefer the grape/strawberry combo myself.

2. Tootsie Rolls – For that quick chocolate fix, this candy is perfect.

1. Smarties – These are the best! They’re made with more natural sugars than other candies, so even those who have problems with refined sugar, like myself, can have them sometimes.

So, those are my top ten favorite Halloween candies. To be honest, I love lots more, but these are ones that just remind me good times Trick or Treating with family and friends.

Relevant pics from Flickr

By ~Erin~ Sweet Baby Photo

By boopsie.daisy

By diyosa

By ~Erin~ Sweet Baby Photo

Posted in Desserts, Holiday Foods, Other Healthy Eating Info

October 30th, 2007 | No Comments

From the Garden to the OR

Hot peppers; most people have tried at least one and burned everything in their mouth. I admit I am one of those people and have loved peppers ever since the first one.

According to a report on CNN.com, scientists are now experimenting with an ultra-purified version of Capsaicin ([methyl vanillyl nonenamide], a lipophilic chemical that can produce a strong burning sensation in the mouth) on open wounds during certain types of painful surgery. What they believe is that the numbness you feel after biting into a pepper can be useful for painful surgeries such as knee replacement. The hope is that if they use a large enough dose of Capsaicin on exposed nerves during surgery, then the patient will not have to take some highly addictive narcotics for pain during the healing process.

Tags
chili pepper, capsaicin
Relevant pics from Flickr

By Farl

By 45street

By David Reeves

By Naseer Ommer

Yahoo Answers
Is it possibly true that capsaicin from hot chili peppers cured diabetes 1 in diabetic mice?
What makes chili peppers hot and i’m not talking about the capsaicin.?
Exctractin Capsaicin?

Posted in Food News, Healthy Foods, Vegetables

October 28th, 2007 | No Comments

Tastebook

Tastebook allows you to create personal, hardcover cookbooks filled with recipes from Epicurious.com, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and world-renowned chefs. Browse Featured TasteBooks, search over 25,000 recipes, and share favorite recipes with friends.

you can add personal recipies from your own kitchen or pull them from popular websites, and while your at it put your own name on it.

Posted in Healthy Food Websites

October 25th, 2007 | No Comments

PeaceWorks For MidEast Peace

There is a health food store downtown where we live and they have the most wonderful foods and snacks. I recently purchased some fruit & nut bars and began reading the ingredients (since I am a diabetic, I have to be careful). I noticed they are distributed by a company called PeaceWorks. I checked out the website to see if I could order some of our favorites. And what I found was extraordinary:

PeaceWorks fosters coexistence through business. We unite people traditionally on the opposite sides of conflict via a shared goal. The result? An exciting range of all natural, speciality foods AND a shared vision of the future.

Basically, they are producing health foods that taste heavenly while helping bring some peace to certain areas of the world.

PeaceWorks is a not-only-for-profit company. We have proven that we can build and sustain a profitable company AND do a little good in the world.

Together with people striving to co-exist, we create and deliver unique and exciting specialty foods- only the freshest ingredients, always all-natural, always delicious.

PeaceWorks currently does business with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, South Africans, Turks, Indonesians and Sri Lankans.

In fact, their pestos and tapenades are created through the cooperation of several different countries:

Meditalia TM is a line produced in Israel through mutual cooperation between Israelis and Arabs. They are produced in Israel with olives grown in Palestinian villages, the glass jars made in Egypt, and the sundried tomatoes come from Turkey.

So, if you are interested in snacks that taste good and are REALLY good for you, then head over to PeaceWorks and help them help others.

Relevant pics from Flickr

By Jalca

By CharlieBrown8989

By Leviathor

By cobalt123

Posted in Healthy Foods, Organic Foods, Other Healthy Eating Info

October 24th, 2007 | No Comments

Happy Halloween

Pumpkin Cookies
It’s almost here! That bewitching day of ghosts, goblins and witches: HALLOWEEN. I have to admit that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I loved dressing up and going Trick or Treating until I was at least 13 (my sister was younger, so I have an excuse). But even as an adult I love Halloween because of its history. According to Wikipedia:

Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is now celebrated in several parts of the western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom.

The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Gaelic festival known as Samhain (pronounced /ˈsˠaunʲ/ from the Old Irish samain). The Festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is regarded as ‘The Celtic New Year’. Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The Ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them. When the Romans occupied Celtic territory, several Roman traditions were also incorporated into the festivals. Feralia, a day celebrated in late October by the Romans for the passing of the dead as well as a festival which celebrated the Roman Goddess Pomona, the goddess of fruit were incorporated into the celebrations. The symbol of Pomona was an apple, which is a proposed origin for the tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

Now that I have children, I enjoy making Halloween special for them. My son wants to make Pumpkin Cookies for his Kindergarten party. Since my mom couldn’t find her recipe (which is the best sugar cookie recipe I have ever eaten), I use a sugar cookie recipe that I found on a bag of generic sugar (below is the recipe). It is the only recipe that tastes most like my mom’s lost recipe. I usually make my own icing to decorate these cookies, but with an additional 1 year old, I don’t have time. So, we are going to use orange & green sprinkles; less time, much cheaper and less sugar

My son loves jack-o-lanterns, and we may have to make two this year. One of our traditions is to roast the seeds after taking them out of the pumpkin. It makes a tasty (and healthly: they are a good source of iron, zinc, essential fatty acids, potassium, and magnesium) snack, and we all love to eat them. Using pumpkins as jack-o-lanterns goes back to the Celts, according to Wikipedia:

Using pumpkins as lanterns at Halloween is based on an ancient Celtic custom brought to America by Irish immigrants. All Hallows Eve on 31 October marked the end of the old Celtic calendar year, and on that night hollowed-out turnips, beets and rutabagas with candles inside them were placed on windowsills and porches to welcome home the spirits of deceased ancestors and ward off evil spirits and a restless soul called “Stingy Jack,” hence the name “Jack-o-lantern.”

So, take time to enjoy Halloween with your little ghosts & goblins. It is a special day indeed

Relevant pics from Flickr