Fruit butter is a delightful treat that is wonderful on toast, muffins, waffles or pancakes and once took hours of slow cooking to produce the rich, velvety texture from fresh fruit. There is a better way to make these luscious spreads, which do a great job of replacing fatty butter or margarine.

High fat dairy products have more than artery clogging saturated fat and cholesterol on board. A number of environmental pollutants bioaccumulate, therefore the higher up you are eating on the food chain, the more concentrated the environmental toxins.¹

There is not a drop of butter in fruit butter.  The name comes from the smooth, easy-spread consistency, much like room temperature butter. Traditional fruit butter recipes call for a full cup of sugar to two cups of fruit and were actually cooked twice. Not so with these terrific spreads! …read more of Easy Fruit Butters: Fat-free, Sugar-free and Delectable! here

Health conscious consumers once shunned avocados for being too high in fat. These days, avocados have been vindicated. Numerous scientific studies suggest eating avocados as an important part of a healthy diet.

No matter how you slice it avocados are not only delicious, they are exceptionally good for you, too!

Health benefits associated with eating avocados:

A Healthy Heart

• Avocados contain heart-healthy monounsaturated fat like that in olive oil, which actually lowers blood cholesterol. Avocados are also rich in Vitamin E, antioxidants and folate, which can help reduce the risk heart disease dramatically. …read more of Top 10 Reasons to Eat Avocados here

We change our wardrobes with the seasons, we should be changing our salad ingredients as well. Eating seasonally not only tastes better, but it requires a lot less energy to create.

In wintertime, instead of basing your salad on something light like a butter lettuce, consider something that weathers the cold climate, like endive, escarole or a more common spinach.

Once you’ve chosen your base leaf, move on to the add-ons. New York City-based chef Carlin Greenstein recommends building the salad around the green and in fall and winter, she likes to add a cooked element for those cold days.

Here is her recipe for a winter spinach salad complete with seasonal fruits (pomegranate, persimmon and pear). …read more of Winter Spinach Salad here

Banana bread is a great way to use up those bananas going soft on your counter. Bananas are also a great way alternative to refined sugar.

The ideal bananas for making banana bread are actually those that you may be less interested in eating. So the next time some of your bananas get overripe instead of tossing them, either consider making a loaf of banana bread or simply freeze them for when you are ready to bake.

By simply putting bananas in the freezer, you will stop the ripening process. The skins will turn black, but once you’re ready to use them simply defrost them with their peels on and once they’re thawed peel them and they’re ready to be cooked. …read more of Naturally-Sweetened Banana Bread here

For this I use the water bath canning method. One can also use a pressure cooker canner, but water is easier.

Apple butter adds elegance to bread and is delicious as a baste to chicken and pork.  It can be a sauce for ice cream, oatmeal, baked apples, and – well, your imagination is the limit!

This is the easiest recipe I have, and I like easy! Please read the whole process before starting so you know all the steps and have everything you need. …read more of Apple Butter: Simple Canning Recipe here