Friday Archives - 365Barrington

274. Barrington EATS: Something to be Thankful for at Heinen’s Fine Foods

Have you ever wished there was a Thanksgiving…

270. Barrington EATS: Perk Up Your Pork Chops

My company’s mission is to help anyone and everyone achieve more healthy cooking at home, with less stress time and money spent. At the simplest level, I get asked often for meal ideas you can just pop into the oven, with little prep time. There are so many, and they are not pre-packaged processed or ready-made foods. Trust me, with a little thinking ahead, this can be done with fresh ingredients right from your cabinets and refrigerator. Pork chops are one of those things that make a great pop-in-the-oven dinner.

Some people fear baking pork chops because they tend to be dry. And they are if you don’t add other ingredients. But following are three simple ways to perfectly top pork chops for tasty tender results, each with just a few minutes prepping time……

266. Barrington EATS: Lunch Lessons on “Tasty Tuesday”

Have you heard about Tasty Tuesday? Wondering what’s going on that tastes so good? It’s the latest initiative in Barrington School District 220’s effort to better educate our students on healthy eating. They’re turning lunchtime into a teaching opportunity by having fun with featured foods.
Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, Sodexho Food Service and our school PTOs are working to introduce one new healthy food to our students each month.
On the first Tuesday of the month, elementary school students will have an opportunity to sample a fruit or vegetable during lunch. Then, the same food item will be offered intermittently in the lunch menu for the remainder of the month.
The district is also getting students involved on the middle and high school levels, where they’ll offer the fruit or veggie of the month and display posters about “Tasty Tuesday” in the cafeterias. And, for early childhood students, a healthy snack of fruits or veggies will be offered twice a week.
The goal of the program is to provide elementary age students with increased opportunities to sample fruits and vegetables. Why? Because research shows that it takes five to twenty tastes before children begin to like a new food.
The district is also encouraging families to get involved by including the same fruit or vegetable in your menus at home throughout the month to increase opportunities for further taste testing.
October’s Tasty Tuesday food is Sweet Potatoes. You likely know that many studies point to the sweet potato as the number one healthiest vegetable.
One medium sweet potato contains only 130 calories, 2 grams of protein, less than one gram of fat, is low in sodium, contains a full day’s supply of vitamin C and provides 700% of the US RDA for Vitamin A. The antioxidants in the sweet potato may help to prevent heart disease and cancer, bolster the immune system and even slow aging by promoting good vision and healthy skin. Talk about a super food!

Below is one of my favorite, unique ways to use sweet potatoes, in the Sweet Potato Salad recipe from my 30 Spectacular Salads cookbook……

261. Barrington Eats: Feast Your Eyes on Heinen’s Fall Foods

The Prepared Foods section at Heinen’s provides extremely unique and exciting selections for you to take home, heat and eat. And while they have some good standard everyday fare such as Chicken Romano and roasted potatoes, they also offer higher-end options that are fabulous, well-thought-out and really above and beyond everyday dinner. But the best part is that Heinen’s reinvents their Prepared Foods menu for every season and is now offering a full selection of tailor-made fall options at their Barrington store.
We’re taking a look at Heinen’s Fall Foods today in Part Two of a three-part-series about some of the most exciting seasonal offerings to be explored at Barrington’s newest grocery store. To learn more about the new fall offerings in their Prepared Foods counter, we spoke with one of the company’s corporate chefs and learned that they truly think before they create, taking into account the demographics of their eating audience. They profiled our area and say they discovered that we like finer things but also happen to love good old-fashioned comfort food.
The results of their research equal creamy rich goodness paired with delicate seasonal ingredients and include items such as rich Pumpkin Bisque, delectable Truffle Macaroni and Cheese and multifaceted Risotto Cakes……

253. Barrington EATS: More Chick Peas, Please!

Do you think you know my cooking style by now? My number one goal is to help you find cooking success in your own kitchen. And probably my number one recommendation for this is to shop Smart. Find ingredients that, by always having them on hand, enable you make a great meal any night of the year. And if, like this week’s topic, it has a long shelf life and costs under a $1, it finds itself at the top of the Smart ingredients list.

Chick peas, also known as Garbanzo beans, are an extremely healthy, Smart ingredient. They have tons of iron and therefore make a great main course main ingredient……