Cherry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Makes 2 Dozen

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried tart cherries

Preheat to 325°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl until well blended. Mix in egg and vanilla extract. Beat in flour mixture. Mix in oats, then chocolate chips, and cherries. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake cookies 12 minutes. Switch and rotate baking sheets. Bake cookies until golden, about 6 minutes longer. Cool cookies on baking sheets.

Chewy Raspberry Almond Bars

Makes about 16 bars

• 1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3/4 cup red raspberry jam
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray 9-inch square pan with baking spray. In large bowl, mix oats, flour, brown sugar and salt. Cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Reserve 1 cup mixture for topping. Stir in egg to the remaining mixture until moistened. Press dough firmly and evenly into bottom of pan. Spread with jam. Arrange raspberries over jam. Stir almonds into reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle evenly over raspberries. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until top is golden. Cool completely on cooling rack. Cut into 4 rows by 4 rows.

Banana Walnut Bread

Makes 1 Loaf

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 very ripe bananas, peeled, and mashed with a fork
• 1/2 cup walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F Sift the flour and baking soda into a medium bowl and set aside. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a separate bowl, set aside. Grease a loaf pan with butter. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the butter while mixing until incorporated. Add the bananas (the mixture will appear to be curdled). Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts and transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan and let cool completely on the rack.

Chewy Chocolate Pistachio Brownies

Makes 25 Brownies

• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup shelled pistachios, chopped
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350° F. In mixing bowl, combine cocoa, sugar, flour, baking powder, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup chopped pistachios. Add melted butter, egg and milk; mix just until ingredients are blended. Scrape batter into greased 9-inch square baking pan. Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until center is baked. Use remaining pistachios to dust the top of the brownies. Cool before cutting.

Apple Cranberry Crisp

3 cups cubed Granny Smith apples
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup regular oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine the apples, cranberries, and sugar in a medium bowl; spoon into an 8 x 8-inch greased baking dish. Lightly spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, and oil, stirring with a fork until crumbly. Sprinkle over the apple mixture. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.

If you are picking them from the apple trees in your garden before the snow comes or picking them from the store shelves; here are some great apple recipes for fall.

Creamy Apple Cheesecake

4 cups sliced apples

16 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons melted butter

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine 3 tablespoons sugar, butter, ½ teaspoon cinnamon and graham crackers in a large bowl. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan. Bake 10 minutes. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and ½ cup sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beat well. Add vanilla, pour mixture into pie crust. In the large bowl, mix remaining 1/3 cup sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. Add apples, and then spoon the apples over the filling. Bake one hour, cool before serving.

Crunchy Apple Crisp

1 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ cup water

10 cups peeled, sliced apples

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup quick cooking oats

½ cup melted butter

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a 9×13 inch pan, place the sliced apples. Mix 1 tablespoon flour, ground cinnamon, and white sugar. Sprinkle over the apples. Pour water over. Mix the oats, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, melted butter, and 1 cup flour. Crumble over the apple mix. Bake for 45 minutes.

A+ Apple Pie

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¾ cup sugar

5 apples

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 cup vegetable shortening

2 tablespoons cold water

2 cups all purpose flour

1 egg

1 tablespoon white vinegar

¾ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, and shortening until mixture balls up. Beat water, vinegar, and egg. Pour over the flour mixture evenly. Stir in until mix is moist. Cut dough in half and shape into a ball. Flatten to a circle, about 4 inches. Wrap and chill for 15 minutes. Lightly dust a flat surface, and roll out the dough into two circles. Press one circle into the bottom if the pie plate. Peel and slice the apples, then mix with flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Place into the pie plate, then put second circle on top and seal. Slice slits in top of circle to release steam while baking. Bake 30-40 minutes, until apples are tender

Apple Strudel Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup white sugar

1 ½ cups diced apple

1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Beat sugar, eggs, and butter until smooth in a large mixing bowl. Add the vanilla, and then stir in apples. Gradually blend in the flour mixture. Spoon mixture into a greased muffin pan. In a small bowl, mix cinnamon, flour, and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until the mix becomes coarse, and crumby. Sprinkle over the muffins. Bake 20 minutes. Let cool before removing from muffin pan.

Dark Chocolate is made by adding fat and sugar to cocoa, and has no milk solids. The cocoa percentage can range from 30%, known as a Sweet Dark and often the dark chocolate most people consume, to 85%, the dark chocolate used more for baking, though some people like to eat it also, because the higher the cocoa content, the thicker and stronger the taste of the chocolate becomes.

Lindt Excellence Chili: Combining the aromatic dark chocolate of Lindt with a balanced hint of premium red chili is a taste that must be experienced.

Ghirardelli Intense Dark Twilight Delight 72%: Velvety smooth and highly aromatic with hints of mocha, blackberry, and dark cherry notes.

Milk Chocolate contains cocoa butter, and chocolate liquor. It begins as a solid chocolate, then either liquid milk, condensed milk, or milk powder is added. In the United States, milk chocolate has to have a minimum of 12% milk solids, causing milk chocolate to melt at a faster rate than dark chocolate.

Lindt Excellence Extra Creamy: Especially smooth and creamy, it takes the authentic taste of milk chocolate to a whole new level.

Lake Champlain Chocolates Signature Milk Chocolate Bar: Crafted with the best cocoa beans from different countries in small batches.

White Chocolate is based from sugar, milk, and cocoa butter fat without the cocoa solids. Due to a lack of cocoa solids, white chocolate really isn’t chocolate, this explains why white chocolate doesn’t have a chocolate taste, but rather a vanilla like flavor because vanilla is added for taste.

Lindt Excellence White Coconut: A smooth and creamy white chocolate with flakes of fine coconut.

Green & Black’s White Chocolate Bar: Super smooth, creamy, and made with pure Madagascaran vanilla.

Eat to Beat Bulges

Now that you’ve sweated your way to a tighter bod, make some tiny adjustments to your supermarket list. “Including specific foods that hydrate skin, build collagen and prevent fat storage in your healthy diet may help keep cellulite at bay,” says Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., a spokeswoman in Sarasota, Florida, for the American Dietetic Association. Follow these three food rules for smoother skin and a sleeker you.

Drink up!

“Anytime the skin is well hydrated, it will look suppler and healthier,” says Lona Sandon, R.D., a spokeswoman in Dallas for the American Dietetic Association. On your tush, thighs and other spots prone to cellulite, a thicker, plumper skin layer will better cover the fat cells underneath. Aim for about 8 1/2 cups of water per day, Sandon suggests. Count the water that’s in your glass, but focus as well on what you put on your plate. Don’t love to chug? Foods that contain large amounts of H2O can help you reach your daily goal. Not only can snacking on these hydrating eats help you look sleek, but you’ll trim down, too! Women who took in more fluid from water-rich foods, such as apples, grapes and cucumber, had a smaller waist and a lower body-mass index than those who took in fluids from beverages, a study in the journal Nutritionreports. Get snacking!

Pick bright bites

Colorful veggies are loaded with vitamin C, which is essential to preventing collagen breakdown, Sandon says. Collagen is the skin’s support structure; as shown in the diagram on page 145, strands of the tissue running through fat attach skin to the underlying muscle layer. When these strands weaken, skin loses elasticity and fat can pop up and bulge against the skin, rendering the bumpy layer underneath even more visible. (Beach bum alert: Excessive sun exposure also contributes to collagen breakdown.) Vitamin C is linked to collagen synthesis, Gerbstadt says. What’s more, research from Arizona State University at Mesa suggests the super vitamin can help you blast up to 30 percent more fat during exercise. Aim for at least 75 milligrams of C daily.

From Monday morning till Friday afternoon all waiting is for the weekend. Loads of chores to boring board meetings, all the struggles to pass the Chemistry quiz to football practice after school everything is worth it if you get to have an awesome weekend. To make it better nothing could work rather than great “Kick Off” on Friday night. If you get that desired snacks along with that, is like a cherry on the top. Everyone cares about different tastes, different preferences of others but everything goes right out the window when it comes to the moment of your own.

Watching the Friday night ball game, putting the game face on with a bowl full of chips and homemade salsa, that’s the first thing comes in my mind whenever I think of weekend. Couple of bags of Crunchy Tortilla Chips and my favorite homemade SALSA!! All you need is few ingredients and the courage to face the truth if it turns out bad. First of all need to get couple of large red ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded. Then add green peppers, corn, black beans and purple onions to give it color verity. To give it the actual salsa flavor, don’t forget to add cilantro and peeled garlic clove. Most important thing is, all the ingredients better be chopped nice and small so you can feel the melt inside your mouth. You can always go for additional stuff like adding olive oil or jalapeños. Mix it up well with salt and pepper to taste. There you go, you got your own made salsa. Now all you got to do is to wait for the Kick Off. It’s easy, try it and make it a wonderful start. And make sure you’ve got drinks available around you, they always come handy.

Chicken Nuggets: Ditch the frozen, pre-made fried nuggets you can buy in the grocery store, and make them yourself. You can still get that crispy, crunchy coating your kids love, and these will have much less fat and sodium.

Start by cutting up a chicken breast into cubes, roughly the size of a nugget.

Pour enough whole wheat flour into a bowl, and coat each cube completely with flour.

Then, instead of dipping in an egg wash, dip the cubes in a low fat yogurt. It’s much healthier than an egg wash, and your kids won’t be able to taste the difference.

Now toss the cubes in whole wheat panko bread crumbs. These bread crumbs will give the crispy, crunchy taste your kids will love.

Place the cubes on a greased cookie sheet, and bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until crispy and cooked thoroughly.

Macaroni and Cheese: The boxed versions are loaded with calories, fat, and artificial ingredients. Macaroni and cheese should have just that, macaroni and cheese! Here’s a simple recipe for this should be simple idea.

½ pound whole wheat macaroni

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 ½ cups skim milk

½ cup grated reduced fat sharp cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Cook the macaroni until tender, then drain. While cooking the macaroni, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour until smooth, then slowly whisk in the milk. Stir in the cheddar cheese and 1 tablespoon of the parmesan at a time. Then whisk until both cheeses melt, and the sauce is smooth.

You can serve the macaroni and cheese as is when finished, as you would if using the boxed version. Or, you could put the macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish and bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Cool off this Summer, and even all year round with these simple, healthy, delicious drinks the entire family will enjoy!

Watermelon Agua Fresca

8 cups cubed seeded watermelon, divided
1 cup water, divided
1/3 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 club soda chilled
Lime slices for garnish

Combine half the watermelon, half the water and half the sugar in a blender and puree. Pour through a strainer into a large container. Repeat with the remaining watermelon, water and sugar. Stir in lime juice. Refrigerate until well chilled.
To serve, stir in club soda and garnish with lime.

Lemon Berry Slush

1/3 cup lemon juice
1 cup water
1 cup frozen strawberries, thawed
1/4 cup sugar
1 tray ice cubes

In a blender, blend the lemon juice, water, strawberries, sugar, and ice cubes until slushy. Serve immediately.

Mint Mango Tea

1 cup chopped mango slices
1 cup pineapple juice
8 green tea bags
2 mint sprigs
4 cups boiling water
1 – 2 tablespoons sugar
Ice Cubes

Place the chopped mango and pineapple juice in a blender. Cover and blend until smooth, then refrigerate.
In a large glass bowl, pour boiling water over the tea bags and mint sprigs. Cover and let steep 5 minutes. Remove and discard the tea bags and mint sprigs. Chill for 2 hours. Transfer the chilled tea to a 2-quart pitcher and add the pureed mango mixture and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

To serve, pour the tea mixture into ice-filled glasses. Garnish each glass with an additional mango slice and a pineapple star.

Apricot Fizz

3 cups unsweetened apricot juice
3 cups ginger ale
1 tbsp lemon juice

Chill apricot juice and ginger ale. To serve, combine apricot juice, ginger ale, and lemon juice; stir well.

Melon Lime Cooler
4 1/2 cups cubed honeydew melon
1 1/2 cups lime sherbet
2 tablespoons lime juice

Cut and cube the honeydew melon. Cover and freeze until firm, about ½ an hour.
Put the frozen melon in a blender with the sherbet and lime juice. Puree until smooth. Serve immediately.

Burgers are the staple of any cookout, but who says they absolutely have to be beef? Ground chicken or ground turkey is a great alternative because they are much lower in fat, and still have the same look and taste of a burger. Plus, you can add almost any spice or herbs to kick up the flavor. Serve them on whole wheat buns instead of white, and add the same toppings as you would on a beef burger.

Just like burgers, chicken is always at any cookout. Unfortunately it’s usually deep fried, leaving a trail of fat and grease on anything it touches. Try throwing some chicken on the grill and basking it in some barbecue sauce. It’s significantly lower in fat, and has much, much more flavor than something fried in a pool of fatty oil.

A cookout wouldn’t be a cookout without the side dishes. Potato salad, macaroni salad, and coleslaw are heavy in mayonnaise, but can be made healthier in a snap. Miracle Whip or low fat mayonnaise is an excellent substitute because it has more than half the fat, but has the same consistency and look of regular mayonnaise. If you want to try something very different, use olive oil on the macaroni or potato salad, and try using vinegar or canola oil on the coleslaw.

See how easy it is to take the traditional foods of summer and make them healthier and tastier by changing just a few ingredients? Your family, friends, and waist line will love these simple changes for summers to come!

Summer Berry Parfait with Granola and Yogurt

Ingredients

1 Container Vanilla Yogurt (6 ounces
1 Tablespoon Wheat Germ
1/3 Cup Granola
3/4 Cup Raspberries
3/4 Cup Strawberries
3/4 Cup Blueberries

Layer 1/4 cup of the strawberries, 1/4 cup of the blueberries, 1/3 of the yogurt, 1/3 of the wheat germ, 1/3 of the raspberries, and 2 tablespoons of the granola in a large bowl. Continue repeating the process to build the parfait until all ingredients have been used completely.

Raspberry Strawberry Sundaes

Ingredients

½ Cup Raspberries
1 Cup Strawberries
2 Cups Non Fat Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
2 Tablespoons Sugar
½ Teaspoon Lemon Juice
Puree the raspberries and strawberries with the lemon juice and the sugar in a blender, and then serve over the frozen yogurt.

Watermelon and Fruit Chunk Popsicles

Ingredients

2 ½ Cups of Seedless, Diced Watermelon
6 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
Fruits of choice (Grapes, Kiwi, Cherry, etc)

Puree the watermelon, then add the sugar and the lemon juice and blend until mixed. Pour the mixture into Popsicle molds. Drop the chunks of fruit into the Popsicle molds. Place in freezer. Serve only when frozen.