From navy, cannellini and lima beans to great Northerns and flageolets, adding white beans to your menu plan adds good nutrition, versatility and ease. Cooking beans at home is renowned as a simple way to save money and provide the base for many a healthy meal. It requires little effort and they’re easy to keep on hand in the fridge or freezer. Then you can quickly put together everything from basic beans and rice (seasoned differently in different cultures) to soups, salads, dips and spreads.

This basic recipe for White Beans makes about 7 cups, approximately 10 servings.

1 pound dried white beans (cannellini, navy or great northern)
1 yellow onion, quartered
2 dried bay leaves
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Spread beans in a single layer on a large sheet tray; pick through to remove and discard any small stones or debris and then rinse well.
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This January, we are focusing on stocking your pantry for healthier meals and a healthier budget. If you haven’t entered to Win Pantry Staples for a Year, head over to that blog post now and then come right back.

When you pick up the items on our $50 Pantry Stock Up list (see below), you’ll be ready to add a few fresh ingredients, herbs and spices to be able to cook 14 of our favorite recipes. We’ll feature all of these recipes individually in these “From Our Pantry” posts throughout this month. This time we’re talking brown rice. (You can see our earlier posts on Oats and on Soup, Stew and Chili.) Read the rest of this entry »

Hard winter squash can be intimidating, but they are actually very simple to prepare as well as satisfying, nutritious and affordable! Butternut squash, for example, delivers healthy carbohydrates, vitamins A and C plus potassium. We’ll share two recipes here to get you started with winter squash.

Roasted Butternut Squash

This basic recipe brings out the best in winter squash: little bites delightfully caramelized outside and creamy inside. Serve straight from the oven as a side dish or use in soup, tacos, enchiladas, pasta and salad.

1 medium butternut squash (about 2 pounds)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Halve the squash lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out and discard seeds.

If desired, peel with a vegetable peeler or cut into big chunks and keep steady on the cutting board while cutting off the peel with a knife. You can also place a damp kitchen towel under your cutting board to help stabilize when cutting the squash.

Cut into 1-inch cubes. Transfer to a large, rimmed baking sheet. Toss with oil, salt and pepper and spread out in a single layer. Roast, tossing occasionally, until just tender and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

This January, we are focusing on stocking your pantry for healthier meals and a healthier budget. If you haven’t entered to Win Pantry Staples for a Year, head over to that blog post now and then come right back.

When you pick up the items on our $50 Pantry Stock Up list (see below), you’ll be ready to add a few fresh ingredients, herbs and spices to be able to cook 14 of our favorite recipes. We’ll feature all of these recipes individually in these “From Our Pantry” posts throughout this month. This time we’re talking Oats. (You can see our earlier post on Soup, Chili and Stew here.)

With oats in your pantry, breakfast is just a pot away. These days, it would be hard to find someone who hasn’t heard about the benefits of whole grains, especially oats! They are an especially comforting, nourishing way to start the day, providing stick-to-your-ribs good taste along with good nutrition.

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Are you familiar with the Martha Stewart Living Daily Giveaway? Each day visitors to their site can enter to win some great stuff. This month, the daily prize is a $50 Whole Foods Market Pantry Staples Stock Up. Yeah!

Awarded as a $50 Whole Foods Market gift card, winners can stock their pantries with our list of staples to keep on hand for healthier meals and a healthier budget. Running the gamut from beans, grains and oats to broths, diced tomatoes and pasta sauce, you’ll be fully stocked and prepared to drive past that drive thru in favor of healthy meals at home. Just add some fresh ingredients and spices and you’ll have everything you need to cook 14 of our favorite recipes.

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What’s not to love about this dairy (and non-dairy!) favorite? In our stores, you can choose from the largest variety of yogurt in a wide selection of flavors, from Greek yogurt to Icelandic skyr. And here’s an added bonus: All of our 365 Everyday Value® yogurts, organic or not, are made from the milk of cows never given artificial growth hormones (rBGH/rBST). This is true for many of the other brands we offer, too. None contain high fructose corn syrup or artificial colors, flavors or preservatives either. We’ve got a slew of alternatives made from coconut, almond, rice or soybeans that can be used in much the same way as the dairy versions.

There’s wisdom in ancient traditions. Our ancestors have been preserving food by natural fermentation and culture for millennia. By some accounts, there’s evidence that cultured milk dates back as far as 2000 BCE. Roman author, philosopher and naturalist Piney the Elder once made mention of certain tribes of people who knew the way “to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity.”

With the creation of modern refrigeration, many of our traditional ways of fermenting and preserving food has largely been forgotten, but thankfully, the practice of eating yogurt, a popular fermented dairy food, still remains. Yogurt contains beneficial bacteria that support healthy digestion and promote beneficial intestinal flora. It’s been said that Francis I, King of France in the early 14^th century, suffered from a severe bout with diarrhea which no French doctor could cure until his ally Suleiman the Magnificent (what a name!) of the Ottoman Empire sent a doctor who cured King Francis with yogurt.

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Enjoying a salad bowl filled with winter lettuce, red onions, fresh herbs, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, peppers and more is a great way to kick off the New Year. But the veggies are only half the picture. The salad dressing on top can turn that healthy choice into a SAD one. (SAD = Standard American Diet, if you didn’t know.)

A quick trip down the salad dressing aisle at any conventional grocery store features an astounding array of bottled chemicals, sugars and high fructose corn syrup, overly processed oils and preservatives. On the other hand, a good salad dressing not only adds great flavor but nutritional value as well.

It’s actually quite simple to make your own dressing. Nuts and fruits can make for creamy, juicy and flavorful salad dressings without adding any extracted oils. Plus you get the health benefits of those nutrient-dense nuts and fruits. Save money by using your imagination and what’s in your pantry to come up with new flavor combinations.

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Happy New Year and welcome to 2012! Don’t worry, I’m not going to bring up the R word…you know the one. Instead I’d like to keep it Real. One thing I’ve discovered while talking to colleagues and friends alike is that being healthy can mean wildly different things to different people. To some it can mean nixing the usual fries with their burger. To others it can mean blending a fruit and veggie smoothie instead of a milkshake or choosing grilled fish over steak. Sprinkling a bit of flavorful cheese instead of smothering with cheese. Get my drift?

If you find it difficult to make one big iron-clad promise (though if you do, more power to you!), consider making simple choices that count.  Here are some basic healthy choices to keep in mind as you shop for food and prepare meals:

• At each meal, eat mostly vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes.
• Avoid highly processed, refined foods.
• Get healthy fats from nuts, seeds and avocados rather than refined oils.
• Satisfy a sweet tooth with fresh and dried fruits.
• Learn healthy cooking methods, such as blanching, marinating, grilling, poaching and steam frying.
• Eat well without spending all day in the kitchen — keep pre-cut vegetables or fruit in the fridge (don’t forget that you can buy them already cut in our produce department!), frozen veggies in the freezer and beans and whole grains in the pantry.
• Look for the Health Starts Here® logo to find healthy prepared foods and bakery options in our stores.

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Thanks to everyone who entered! Congratulations to our 31 winners of $50 gift cards, and our 5 grand prize winners: Emily P. of Austin, TX; Gina T. of Minnetonka, MN; Lavona Q. of Reno, NV; Kathy R. of Naperville, IL; and Janice C. of Reisterstown, MD!

To celebrate the New Year, we want to show you that eating healthy can be affordable. Make your choices count by picking up our list of pantry staples — that rings up at about 50 bucks — and you’ll be set for healthier meals and a healthier budget. Running the gamut from beans, grains and oats to broth, diced tomatoes and pasta sauce, you’ll be prepared to drive past that drive thru in favor of healthy meals at home. Just add fresh ingredients and spices to have everything you need to cook 14 of our favorite recipes (we’ve listed them below).

To get the party started, we’re giving stuff away! All you need to do is send an email to pantrycontest@wholefoods.com by January 31st telling us what healthy foods are “must haves” for your pantry. We’ll select random emails in February for our pantry-focused giveaway. You might win:

$50 Pantry Staples Stock Up – We’re giving away 31 stock ups. Winners will receive a $50 Whole Foods Market® gift card along with a list of suggested pantry staples needed to make 14 of our healthy recipes.

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Seems like kids are just as picky about eating as they were a couple of years ago when we first ran this blog. Enjoy this encore presentation!

We all know kids are picky eaters, right? Let’s teach them a new way to be picky. Pick whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies along with healthy proteins. Impossible? Not if you give them choices and very tasty food.

A good place to start is by talking to your kids. Anytime is good but natural launching pad activities are when you are grocery shopping or cooking dinner. Get their brains thinking about what food does for us – how it helps us grow, keeps us healthy, gives us energy for sports, helps our brains learn and keeps us feeling good. Those topics easily transition into why it’s important to eat healthy foods and not stuff that gunks up our bodies. Read the rest of this entry »