Category Archives: Lifestyle

What’s for Dinner? Nourish Menu Plans!

If that question bounces off the walls in your kitchen like it does in mine, then today is your lucky day!

My team and I have been busy for MONTHS creating something incredibly special for you. We’ve been plotting and planning and testing and typing and tasting and I’m so excited I can hardly stand it because today, I’m unveiling the newest service from Nourish…a weekly Menu Plan Subscription.

This video is short and sweet but you’ll hear my enthusiasm for this truly transformational, time-saving service that you’ve been so patiently asking me to offer. We’re ready to help you solve your “What’s for Dinner” conundrum once and for all!

This page will give you all the details about Nourish Menu Plans including answers to your burning questions about how the service works and how you can subscribe. We’re making it super simple for you to plan fresh, varied, healthy meals for you and your family.

You can even download a free week of plans to try it out!

So before I get too far ahead of myself, let me tell you all about it…
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Pretty cool, isn’t it? I sure hope you agree!

Our testers have been SO THRILLED by how much this service has simplified their lives. They’re DELIGHTED by how much their families love the food. They’re RELIEVED that they finally know what’s for dinner.

And now that can be you! So hurry on over to that webpage, download a sample week, and give it a whirl! Or better yet, if you already KNOW this is for you, we’ve made it easy to subscribe with online ordering. Just choose one of the subscription plans on the Menu Plans Page and you’ll get instant access to our Members Only Site where you can download this week’s plan and start connecting with other subscribers (and with me!).

I hope you’ll join us as a Nourish Menu Plan Subscriber! We’re making dinner a piece of cake.

Top Shelf Cookbooks

I collect cookbooks – there are shelves and shelves of them in my home. I love to flip through their shiny pages seeing the ways the authors have combined familiar ingredients in new and exciting ways. I pore over the ingredient lists and examine the photographs; I envision the finished dishes and can almost taste the food just by reading the descriptions. I’m such a food nerd.

Cookbooks are losing ground to internet searches and while I can fully appreciate the speed of Googling “easy chicken dinner recipe,” there’s still something I love about holding a well-edited collection of recipes in my hands.

I thought I’d save you some time in the bookstore by sharing some of my absolute favorites here. These are the books I turn to again and again to the point where my copies of them are dog-eared and food splattered. If you’re interested in fresh, flavorful, healthy cooking and these aren’t already in your collection, they should be. I’ll even include the Amazon links so you can find them quickly… now let’s get cooking!

The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook– This one is published by the staff at Cook’s Illustrated, an authority on a scientific approach to cooking that produces perfect results every time. Love that they gathered their healthy recipes in one place!

The All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookbook– A great comprehensive volume from the top cooking magazine for health conscious cooks. They publish an annual guide as well with all the recipes from that year’s magazine! My mom’s been giving me one for Christmas for years.

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook– Ina Garten’s recipes aren’t always the lightest but I have good results lightening them up without compromising the flavor. I love her style! I credit Ina with luring me out of corporate America and into the food world – I even made a trip to the Hamptons to her original shop before it closed!

Everyday Italian– Giada De Laurentiis is one of my favorite TV chefs and this volume is packed with great recipes. You must try the turkey meatballs – amazing.

Jamie’s Food Revolution– Jamie Oliver is convinced that anyone can cook and he’s on a mission to spread the word. His book is filled with fresh, fast, easy dishes that you really CAN make, even if you don’t consider yourself a cook!

Cat Cora: Classics with a Twist– I’ve had a lot of success with this book, but one of my favorites is her easy chicken curry with peas. Amazing.

What’s your favorite cookbook? Post it in the comments below or on our Facebook wall and join the conversation!

Your Scale is Not an Instant Read Thermometer

That brownie you ate last night is not what caused the extra two pounds on the scale this morning. I promise you that the brownie did not actually WEIGH two pounds, nor did it transform its calorie load into two pounds of fat in some sort of marathon fat-creating session overnight. Nope. Those two pounds could have come from a whole host of things, but the brownie was not one of them.

If I had a dollar for every client who said to me, “Well, I was up a pound this morning but if I hadn’t had that candy bar last night I’m sure I would be fine,” I’d be a wealthy, wealthy woman. For some reason, our girl brains want to create a direct cause and effect between what we ate an hour ago and what the scale says right now. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Gaining a pound of fat requires you to consume 3500 calories more than you’ve burned. That’s about ten brownies, for perspective. I generally tell people to weigh themselves no more than once a week…and to look for trends in their body weight. A very normal week to week fluctuation might be +1, -2, +2, -1. Note this pattern actually maintains your weight over the course of the month. Conversely, if you start to see plus signs on your chart for too many weeks in a row, it’s time to examine what you are eating and make some changes. What the scale says the morning after an indulgence is far less important that the pattern you observe over time.

So please, don’t jump on the scale each morning looking for your reward or punishment for yesterday’s food choices – you won’t really see the effects show up for about 3 days when those calories have either been burned or converted into stored fat. It’s a scale, not an instant-read thermometer. And remember that what scales like most of all is balance…so look for yours!