Cooking with essential oils

Do you want to naturally support your body in staying cool during the hot summer months?  If so, eat more cucumbers.

If you’re looking for an easy way to have a delicious, healthy, homemade dessert, I’ve got the scoop for you. And although it’s not exactly ice cream, its flavor lets it stand on its own. 

Many years ago, after a few hours on a sweltering beach, my friend and I gathered ourselves and climbed the dunes to a restaurant. It was on the patio there that we two tired, over-sunned young girls were brought back to life by generous bowls of cool, hearty, earthy gazpacho. Every summer since, when the temperatures soar, I think: soup.  And although I love a good tomato gazpacho, it’s just the beginning.

Has hunger ever gotten the best of you midflight and led you to eat those things that the airlines pass off as cookies? I set off on a project recently to create a portable snack that I could take on a plane. I had a few prerequisites: it had to be nutritious and treat-like, meaning it had to feel like some kind of reward for getting myself through airport security and onto the plane with my sanity intact.  The result? Blissful energy bites, the sweetish cashew based snacks pictured above.

Oh, the poor potato! Once a staple of many diets around the world, it has been unjustly maligned in recent years due to its starchiness, which lands it high on the glycemic index. In actuality this traditional food comes in degrees of starchiness depending on the variety, and also has a good amount of nutrients. There are documented reports of people living exclusively on potatoes for up to three years. In my mind, the worst thing about them is that they’re often ill-prepared, and what ends up on our plates is a soggy shadow of what a potato could be.