Creative Takes on Classic Peanut Butter and Jelly for Adults

Do you love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but you’re worried about the strange looks you’ll get from your friends when you pull one out at a party? Don’t be! With these fun and fancy recipes for adult PB&Js, you can enjoy the treat in style.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie [cookingchanneltv.com]
This sweet and nutty pie is the ideal dessert for any social gathering. The classic flavor of fruit jelly perfectly mingles with a peanut butter and cream cheese filling, while a whipped cream topping is just the icing on the cake.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars [chow.com]
Guests of all ages will love these peanut butter and jelly dessert bars, which are made with a browned oat crust and thick strawberry jam for a hearty taste that’s the perfect grown-up version of your childhood favorite.

PB&J Cocktail [delish.com]
If you want to add a really adult twist to the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, this PB&J cocktail is a lively and exciting choice. Although the two flavors seem like an unlikely pairing with alcohol, once you taste them with aged rum you’ll certainly become a believer. Line the rim with salted peanuts for a truly authentic taste.

Three Healthy Grain Recipes

Grains can be found in the form of rice, polenta, quinoa or a number of other increasingly popular forms. Dieters are beginning to notice the boundless energy supplied by these nutritious and tasty foods, and there are a variety of unique ways to get your daily dose of grains. If you’re looking for new and exciting ways to incorporate grains into your diet, these simple recipes can help:

Couscous With Carrots, Walnuts and Raisins
In just 12 minutes, you can create this delicious and nutritious dish to eat for lunch or as a side dish with your dinner. Whole-wheat couscous is a healthy, low-fat grain, while carrots, raisins, walnuts and spices add sweet and savory flavor to this simple recipe.

Pesto Baked Polenta
Polenta is a spongy grain made from whole-grain cornmeal, and it can be flavored just about any way you like. In this dish, Parmesan cheese and pesto sauce add a bit of flavor without adding too many additional calories.

Savory Brown Rice
A healthier alternative to traditional white rice, savory brown rice pairs perfectly with just about any meat, vegetable or other main course. This one is seasoned with sodium-free chicken broth, black pepper and a few other simple seasonings, while mushrooms and onions add a little something extra.

For more great grain dishes, visit the NIH website.

Feel a Cold Coming On? Load Up on These Surprising Vitamin C-Rich Foods!

If you feel a cold coming on, there are few better natural remedies than to eat foods that are high in Vitamin C. Orange juice is a popular option, but you can also take advantage of the high levels of Vitamin C in a wide variety of other fruits and vegetables. Here are just a few of the best sources of Vitamin C for the next time you’re feeling a bit under the weather.

  1. Papaya. Papayas are just as sweet and refreshing as oranges, and they contain 95.6 milligrams of Vitamin C in just one small fruit. Papayas are also rich in Vitamin A and dietary fiber. To get even more of this valuable vitamin, mash enough papaya to fill one cup; it provides about 140 milligrams of Vitamin C.
  2. Broccoli. Whether you toss it into a stir fry or eat it raw as a snack, broccoli is another great source of beneficial Vitamin C. One 148-gram serving provides about 132 milligrams of C vitamins that boost your immune system and prevent illness.
  3. Kale. Kale isn’t just a trendy so-called “superfood,” it actually does provide a whole slew of health benefits. Just two cups of chopped kale offers 160.8 milligrams of Vitamin C, as well as large amounts of Vitamins A and K, phytonutrients, and fiber.

Surprising Sources of Vitamin C [Berkeley Wellness]
7 Surprising (and Delicious) Sources of Vitamin C [Care2]
7 Foods With More Vitamin C Than an Orange [Huffington Post]

Memorize These Cooking Terms Before Tackling That New Recipe

One of the first steps in becoming an expert in the kitchen is having a thorough understanding of each cooking term on a recipe. After knowing your ingredient, being able to read and follow a recipe correctly is important in how the dish turns out. Here are four must-know kitchen terms to help you out.

  1. Meuniere. This term refers to an ingredient, like poultry or fish, being dredged in flour, then sauteed in butter.
  2. Hull. When preparing a fruit salad, you may be asked to hull the berries, which means to remove the green stems and leaves.
  3. Macerate. Soften and sweeten fruits by macerating them, which means to cover them with lemon juice or liqueur until they have absorbed the flavor.
  4. Proof. Before baking bread, you may need to proof the yeast. This tests if the yeast is still active by dissolving it in warm water with sugar or honey for five minutes to see if it foams or bubbles.

The Basic Kitchen: Glossary of Cooking Terms [Le Petites Gourmettes]
Glossary of Cooking Terms [Better Homes and Gardens]
Cooking Terms [Recipe Goldmine]
Glossary of Cooking Terms [Cookery]
Culinary Terms: Food Dictionary and Glossary of Cooking Terms [Culinary Arts About.com]

Did You Know You Can Substitute These Foods for Butter?

You likely already know that butter isn’t the healthiest food out there, but it is a staple ingredient in many dishes. If you want to continue eating the foods that you love without adding the fat and calories of butter, there are a number of ways to cut back. Here are some of the best butter substitutes.

  1. Applesauce. Though they seem like two very different foods, butter and applesauce are actually interchangeable in many recipes. It works best in cake-like dishes, and all you need to do is replace half of the butter in the recipe with that much applesauce to cut the calories in half. You can also replace all of the butter with applesauce, provided that you don’t mind the moist, dense texture that it produces.
  2. Avocado. In both savory and sweet dishes, avocado makes a wonderful alternative to fattening butter. Replacing half of the butter with avocado makes your dish healthier and gives it a chewier taste.
  3. Greek yogurt. Reduce calories and saturated fat by replacing half of the butter in any recipe with full-fat Greek yogurt. You can also experiment with the ratio of Greek yogurt to butter to adjust the taste and consistency.

Substitutes for Butter [Fit Day]
5 Common Butter Substitutes [Recipes by Answers]
Surprising Butter Substitutes to Save Calories and Fat [FitSugar]

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Learn to Make Lasagna 3 Different Ways

Lasagna isn’t the easiest dish to prepare, but like most dinners, having a great recipe can make all the difference. These flavorful, cheesy lasagna recipes will appeal to all tastes and ages, and if you follow the steps, they’ll surely become favorites in your recipe book.

Best Lasagna Ever [Pioneer Woman]
This recipe is great for the home chef who doesn’t want to hunt down sophisticated ingredients at fancy grocers. Most of the ingredients are likely already right in your own refrigerator. Using simple ground beef, your morning breakfast sausage, cottage cheese and sliced mozzarella, you can create a decadent lasagna in under an hour.

Simply Recipes Lasagna [Simply Recipes]
This traditional lasagna recipe offers a bit of sweetness for a surprising boost of flavor. It uses the usual Italian seasonings and tomato sauces to appeal to lasagna lovers, but it also incorporates extra cheeses that just about anyone will appreciate.

The World’s Best Lasagna [Allrecipes]
If you want to make lasagna for a large group, this is the recipe to do it with. This meat and cheese-filled pasta dish takes a bit more time and effort than your usual lasagna, but it’s well worth the wait on special occasions such as dinner parties or holidays.

Simple Ways to Eat More Healthfully

It may seem difficult to change how you eat. But if you'd like to begin eating a more healthful diet, one of the best ways to do it is to start with some small, incremental changes. These tips from the NIH can help simplify the process of making positive changes to your daily diet.

Here's just some of the site's advice:

  • Make a grocery list before you shop. It may seem obvious, but planning meals in advance can prevent you from becoming frustrated and reaching for frozen meals.
  • Buy a new fruit every time you go to the grocery store. Have you ever tried papaya? If not, it can be a fun way to discover a new favorite fruit!
  • When you go out to eat, share entrees! Portion sizes have become increasingly larger in recent years, and sharing helps to cut calories and avoid overeating.
  • Change your cooking techniques. Often it’s not the foods you prepare that are unhealthy, but the ways you cook them. Instead of frying chicken, grill or bake it. Instead of using heavy oils, cook with olive or coconut oil instead. Seasoning with herbs and spices instead of heavy sauces also helps to reduce the fat in your meals.

To find more simple tips for eating more healthfully, visit the NIH website.

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3 Easy-to-Serve Brunch Recipes

When you’re planning a brunch for a large group of people, it can be difficult to make sure that everything is done at the same time. Creating large portions of each dish so that everyone can serve themselves makes things much more convenient, and it makes it so that you can sit down and enjoy the meal as well. Here are a few easy-to-serve brunch recipes to try this weekend:

Eggs with Tomato on Toast
To make this sophisticated brunch dish, simply bake the tomato sauce and the egg yolks in a large skillet. When you’re ready to serve, place the skillet on the table and allow guests to serve themselves onto a piece of warm toast.

Potato Chip Frittatas
A creative and accessible take on the beloved frittata, these delicious Spanish creations use potato chips instead of the usual toppings. Bake them in the oven and you’ll have enough frittatas to serve 6 people.

Grapefruit Buttermilk Donuts with Candied Zest
These homemade donuts are anything but your usual glazed dozen. Made with rich buttermilk and flavored with tart, refreshing grapefruit, they’re so delicious that all of your guests will love them, and the recipe is large enough to serve everyone.

Public Domain/Public Domain

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