Category Archives: Food

Acorn Squash with Apple Walnut Topping

I am so excited to be dusting off my cool-weather recipes now that the temperature is finally dipping into the 60s around here. I have some perennial favorites that I simply won’t make until there’s a chill in the air, colored leaves visible from the kitchen window, and a football game playing on the TV in the next room. One of those is this acorn squash. 

For those of you not familiar with all of the squash varieties, an acorn squash is the smallish green one shaped like, well, an acorn!  They are super-easy to cook and are absolutely delicious. This particular recipe uses the microwave so it’s quick enough to make even for a weeknight meal – I love that!

While the squash is good prepared simply and topped with just a little butter and salt or grated parmesan, this version is sweet enough to stand in for dessert! Pair it with a roasted pork tenderloin or crispy baked chicken for a satisfying way to celebrate these first chilly fall days.

Acorn Squash with Apple Walnut Topping

serves 2

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
1 Macintosh apple, peeled and diced
1 Tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 acorn squash
3 Tbsp. chopped toasted walnuts


Directions:
1. Place apples and butter in a nonstick skillet and saute until tender. Add  brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and stir until sugar dissolves.
2. While apple is cooking, place whole acorn squash in microwave on HIGH for 4 minutes. Turn over and microwave 4 more minutes. Carefully remove squash from microwave and cut in half (from stem to tip) with a sharp knife. With a spoon, scoop out seeds and discard.

3. Fill each half of the squash with half of the cooked apple mixture and sprinkle with toasted walnuts. Serve immediately.
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Have you seen your family lately?

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Family Day – a Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children. This “holiday” (or movement, perhaps?) was created by CASA, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, because its studies show that the more often children eat with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Family dinners also have a direct impact on positive self-image, higher grades and parent-child communication. So CASA created a holiday to encourage people to eat family dinners.  Did you celebrate it by sitting down to dinner with your family?

It makes me sad that we need a holiday for this. Sad that we need need an annual reminder to sit down at the table together and share a meal and talk about our day. But since we apparently do need that reminder, I’m grateful that CASA has stepped up to provide it and that other companies who believe in the power of a family dinner have joined them to sponsor and publicize it.

As one example, Stouffer’s has partnered with Todd Parr, a children’s author who has penned a new book called “Let’s Fix Dinner”  in celebration of this day. It’s available for a limited time through the link I included here. (I just ordered mine!) Incidentally, Todd Parr also wrote “This is My Hair,” one of my daughter’s most favorite books when she was a toddler…love love love that silly book.)

I am a big believer in the importance of family dinners. My own family sat down to a meal together every night growing up, as did my husband’s family. Our growing family eats together every night now unless my husband is traveling for work. Sometimes that means we eat early or late to accommodate our schedules…but we do it.  We all look forward to that symbolic point in our day when we come together from our disparate activities – work, preschool, tumbling, kindergarten, errands, exercise, whatever – and reconnect in one place, at one time, around one table as a family.  I’m frankly a little anxious about how our ritual may need to adjust as our children grow older and begin to participate in activities that cut into the family dinner hour. My hope is that we’ll be so attached to this family tradition that we’ll do whatever we can to preserve it, as often as we possibly can.
Since I love to cook, these family dinners provide an opportunity to put home-cooked food on the table, but the data from CASA suggests that it’s not so much the food that matters. It’s the ritual. The connection. The conversation that unfolds. So please don’t pressure yourself to prepare a homemade feast if you can’t see your way there. Simply put food on the table and eat. Pick up takeout if that’s what works. Just eat. Together. You’ll be glad you did.
If you’re already having family meals, will you write a comment below this post and share why they’re important to you or how you make them fit into your schedule? And if you’re not having them as often as you’d like, can you try to have one family meal a week and let that be your ritual? It could be Sunday breakfast or Friday dinner or whatever works for your family. Just do what you can; you’ll create an opportunity for your children to open up and share about their day and for you to make memories you’ll always cherish. If the toddler runs laps around the table while everyone eats, so be it. If your teenager doesn’t talk at all, so be it. Do it anyhow. Routinely. And let the ritual do its work.

Perhaps if we all commit to eating as families as often as we can, we won’t need an annual holiday to remind us of why these dinners matter. We’ll be celebrating them all year.

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Healthy or Not? It’s not black and white…

My daughter likes to play a game she calls “Is it healthy or not?” She’s 5, so everything I do is still cool to her and apparently I spend quite a lot of time talking about this subject so it’s very very cool. The game goes something like this.


“Okay Mom – let’s play ‘Is it healthy?’  I’ll name a food and you tell me if it is healthy or not!”

You might think I’d be pretty darn good at this game. But I promise you that it is more difficult than it sounds! More often than not, my answer to her seemingly simple question is “It depends.”

Cereal? 
It depends.

Macaroni and cheese?
Depends.

French fries? Chicken? Milk?
Depends. Depends. Depends! 

Apples?
Healthy! Yes! Praise God – apples are unequivocally healthy! Whew..

Aaaaargh! I wish I could give her more straightforward answers, but I simply can’t because so much of the answer depends on the method of preparation used.

For example, a high-fiber, low-sugar, whole-grain breakfast cereal is pretty healthy! It may have a few too many additives, but I’d give it a passing grade. But Fruit Loops? Cocoa Puffs? Even Rice Krispies? Not so much.

Mac and cheese. If it’s made from scratch with a whole wheat pasta, skim milk, and a sensible amount of real cheddar it’s actually a pretty healthy food. But the kind in the box with white pasta and cheese flavored powder, maybe not so healthy.

We make homemade baked fries that are very healthy, and Ore-Ida even has a variety or two that would earn the “healthy” moniker…but any fast food or restaurant fries certainly would not.

Chicken can be grilled or baked or sauteed into a lean healthful entree. But if we’re talking about a chicken nugget, I just can’t call it healthy.

Even milk has been compromised. Organic, skim milk may well be part of a healthful diet. But sugar-laden chocolate or strawberry milk (organic or not – have you read the label on Horizon flavored milk boxes?!) just isn’t.


It’s no wonder that kids, and many adults, are confused about what exactly is healthy these days. As a way to simplify, I’m partial to Michael Pollan’s Food Rules approach. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Brilliant. In his book, he breaks down each of those principles into really simple guidelines. Things like “Avoid food products that contain ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce,” or “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car”.

The bottom line is that in today’s food environment, we need to be savvy food consumers who read labels in stores and ask servers in resataurants to get information about the nutritional profile of our food so that we can make good choices. 


All manufactured food is required to carry these labels, so it’s important to learn to read them! And restaurants are increasingly publishing nutrition information for their menus to help patrons make informed choices. If the nutrition info is not posted in the store, it’s often available upon request or online. 

McDonald’s, for example, has quite an elaborate system online in which you can “Bag a McMeal” and calculate its nutritional profile, making any customizations you’d like. And if you forgot to investigate in advance, the nutrition info for their menu is also printed on the backside of the paper tray liner. (Really! Check if you don’t believe me.) 


Earlier this year an Oregon-based chain, called Burgerville, began printing the nutrition profile of the ordered meal on their receipts….and making suggestions for how to order more healthfully! Here’s an article explaining that choice – I’ve never heard of anything else quite like it!

So while restaurants are making strides to assist us, and food manufacturers are putting info right in front of us, it’s ultimately up to us to take a moment to read the label before making an informed choice. Because in most cases, it’s just not black and white.

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