I am not a vegetarian, but I really don’t care much for meat. I will eat chicken or ground beef a few times a week, but honestly, it doesn’t bother me if I go all veggie, all the time for a while.

Lately, it’s been so freaking hot where I live (hello, summer) that I don’t even want to turn on the stove for 30 seconds, let alone the oven. Remembering an awesome avocado and egg sandwich that I once had at a New York City deli, I devised this AMAZING veggie wrap.

You need: one wrap tortilla, half a fresh avocado, half a small tomato, one hard-boiled egg, one carrot, a couple tablespoons of cheese (type is up to you), a tiny bit of Miracle Whip, a tiny bit of pesto sauce, a tiny bit of honey mustard, and sprinkles of salt and pepper. Read More »

Bet you didn’t know that:

• Spraying your oven with water will make your bread crisp and brown. Getting a nice crust on homemade bread is tricky, but steam is the key. Fill a clean spray bottle with water, then lightly spray the bottom and sides of the oven right after you pop in the bread. You can also create steam by warming up a pan in the oven and then dumping a little bit of cold water in the pan as you start to bake the bread.

• You can make better rice by rinsing it. Most types of rice contain excess starch, so if you think ahead a little bit, you can get far better-tasting rice. Soak the amount of rice you’re using in clean, cold water for 20 minutes before cooking it. When it’s done soaking, drain it and rinse it thoroughly a few times. The result: a less sticky, nicer-tasting batch of rice.

• Stainless steel will get rid of garlicky fingers. If you’ve been chopping and chopping cloves of garlic and your fingers have the scent to prove it, rub them for a minute on the side of a stainless steel knife or the bend of a stainless steel faucet. Use some muscle! Then lather up with soap and wash your hands normally. When you’re finished, that garlic smell should be almost totally gone.

[Image courtesy of 4hisglory.wordpress.com]

Mmmmmm. If you like regular tomatoes, I personally guarantee that you will REALLY like baked tomatoes. If you’ve never tried them before, you are seriously missing out.

For one person, one small- to medium-sized tomato is plenty. You’ll also need some basil (fresh or dried), salt, pepper, a bit of olive oil, and a couple of tablespoons of parmesan cheese.

Cut out the hard upper center of the tomato and then cut the tomato either lengthwise or widthwise into slices that are between ¼” and ½” thick. Preheat the oven to 400, then arrange the tomato slices at the bottom of an 8”x8” square pan. Sprinkle them with a dash of salt, a little pepper, and some basil (fresh is best) to taste. Drizzle the tomatoes with the olive oil, and top them with the parmesan cheese.

Then pop those suckers in the oven and bake them for about 15 minutes. You’ll probably drool when you take them out, so be prepared!

Smoothies are the ultimate food. They’re packed with vitamins and nutrients, they give you energy, and they taste AWESOME. If you’re pressed for time, a big smoothie makes a great breakfast or lunch, and it really fills you up and keeps you full for a while.

You might think a blender is essential for successful smoothie making, but I’ve used my food processor on countless occasions and been just fine. Until recently, I believed that the Perfect Smoothie was strawberry-banana, with a thick (though not lumpy) texture and a little yogurt and milk thrown in for good measure.

Two days ago, though, I discovered a new Perfect Smoothie, and I am now convinced that nothing can beat it. It is criminal that I should keep this new recipe to myself, so I am sharing it with CC’s readership so that every one of you can also make yourselves delirious with enjoyment over this particular smoothie.

It’s easy: you just need one banana, half a mango (peeled and roughly chopped), a little over half a cup of milk, a tablespoon of heavy cream, half a teaspoon of sugar, and one ice cube. Read More »

So, the Food Guide Pyramid. What was the last update it gave us? Three to five servings of veggies per day?

Ha, ha, ha. I’m laughing all the way to the grocery store.

No, seriously, though, that’s a lot of vegetables. And it’s not that I don’t like vegetables—it’s just that I don’t really eat them. I can eat about ten zillion servings of fruit per day, but when it comes to vegetables… I feel like a small child sometimes because I have to sneak them into my own food. I mean, who does that?

Maybe you will after trying this awesome homemade mac and cheese. Read More »

At least once a week, I find myself with less than a half-hour window to make and eat dinner. I guess I could just grab a sandwich or some Chinese takeout or something, but I have this annoying insistence that most of what I eat taste delicious and have recognizable ingredients. Yeah, I know, I’m a tough customer.

Since there’s no way I’d have time on those days to do more than punch a few buttons on the microwave or set the dial on the oven, I rely on three staple dinners that I can freeze and pop out of the freezer whenever I want. I usually make giant batches of each and then separate them into single portions that I can easily grab from the icicles. Read More »

I’m probably one of the hardest gals to please when it comes down to what’s for lunch.

I love flavor, I need my food to be moderately healthy, not too expensive, and easy to make. I do love cooking elaborate meals, but not in the middle of the day when I’m consumed with everything else I’m doing.

So over time, a few simple lunches have worked their way into my mental cookbook, simple lunches that I’m now going to share with you! Here are four options that are delicious, easy, and relatively cheap to make, as well as healthy for you…well, healthier than Wendy’s…that’s for sure.

1. Toast whole wheat bread. Spread your favorite hummus across both pieces of the bread (I prefer using the really spicy stuff). Then add turkey or your favorite lunch meat.

2. Stuff a whole wheat wrap with avocado slices, tomato slices, and mozzarella cheese. This is AWESOME, trust me! Read More »

It sucks when it’s 8 p.m. and you have no clue what you’re having for dinner. No one’s going to make it for you, and you’re on the verge of going to the drive-thru or ordering take-out again.

Save the money and the calories by stocking these five magical ingredients. With them, you can whip up a quick and delicious dinner any night of the week.

1. Cooking wine. Though not really the kind of thing you want to drink straight-up, cooking wine is great for making amazing sauces, putting in some casseroles, or adding major flavor to meat dishes.

As with regular wine, white tends to go better with chicken and red with beef. If you like to drink wine, there’s also something to be said about keeping your cellar stocked with good drinking wines that can double as cooking wines.

2. Chicken broth. Every bit as useful as cooking wine, but for slightly different things. Chicken broth can help make a wonderful pasta sauce, is a fantastic base for soups with a lot of flavor, and will make rice and noodles taste a lot better (if you boil them in the broth instead of water). Read More »

My lunch break at work usually consists of a quick dash for coffee and my brown-bag sandwich, but next year, I could also use that hour for a quickie boob job. Cytori Therapeutics, a California biotech company will be introduced a procedure called Celution—a one-hour breast enlargement injection.

The procedure involves minor liposuction of fat from the patient’s stomach or buttocks, and then injecting the fat mixture into breast tissue. A few thousand dollars later, you can expect your breasts to gradually enlarge over a period of sixth months. Read More »