Hello from Portugal!  Hubs and I are taking a little vacay to celebrate this year’s big birthday (his was in May, mine is in October.)  We are already having the best time!  My older daughter will join us next week and then a few days after she meets us, we will go pick up Mr. Picky who has been studying in Spain for the last month.  🙂

In the meantime, I have a wonderful retreat to give you a little preview about.  I’ll send an email with more information to everyone on my subscriber list in a few days.  I will be one of the hosts of a wellness retreat September 26-29th, 2019 at Greenhorn Ranch in the Sierra Mountains.  It’s an all-inclusive weekend offering the space and serenity to reconnect, visit health goals, learn more about mindfulness, and cultivate a better sense of balance.  Go to www.greenhornranch.com or call 530.283.0930 with any questions.  Mention my name when you register and let me know if I’ll be seeing you there!

Here’s your dinner planner for the week:Continue reading

I hope you are in the midst of a fabulous holiday weekend.  I am taking my relaxing very seriously if you must know ;).  My older daughter came home from Dallas and accompanied my husband and me to our friends’ house in Montecito for a few days and other than writing this blog post, I have checked out!

For my cooking class students, I am not teaching in person July or August, only online.  I can teach a class by request, but I am out almost the entire month of July.  Please email Erika for August availability:  Continue reading

I was working on a another post for this week until I received an email from my editor with my manuscript attached.  She passed the baton to me, so to speak, and now it’s my turn to edit.  I need to work on edits pretty hard core in the short term because I am going away for July 4th weekend and then I am going on a big trip mid-July that I am super excited about.  Hubs and I are both celebrating big birthdays this year, so we are going to Portugal and Spain by ourselves for a little vacay and then two of our kids will join us at different points.  How great is that??  We haven’t been on a fun trip like this in a while.  Can’t wait.

In the meantime, I will be taping the July online class on Monday, so all my cooking class participants will be getting that one right after July 4th.  I have been recipe-testing like crazy and shooting food in preparation of being away for a few weeks.  I also shot a few more recipes to add to the Thanksgiving e-book I did last year.  I am going to update that one with some more recipes and tips.  Last year, I had some requests to have the ebook out in time for Canadian Thanksgiving which is in earlier October.  I will do my best!

Here’s your dinner planner for the week.  Happy 4th!!

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Happy Summer, officially! Today is the day I make lots of lists of things I want to accomplish over the next two months since my cooking class schedule is super light.  Two months from now, I will look back on said list and wonder where the time went and how is it possible that I got none of it done LOL?  Alas, what it really means is that I needed the summer to have a little down time.  I do have a round of edits coming up for my next book and I will continue filming cooking classes for my online platform.  If you normally take my classes in person, I doubt I will teach any this summer, so check out the online versions.  It’s the same class, same nutrition information, same tips and tricks, recipes, etc.

If you missed my segment on Home & Family this week, you can watch it here.  And if you don’t live in LA and couldn’t catch my segment on food waste with KABC’s Lori Corbin, here it is:

Here are some great ideas for dinners this week, but I’m not opposed to a few olives, tomatoes and hummus every now and again when I need a night off!

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Happy Weekend and Happy (almost) Summer!  I just landed in Pittsburgh to visit my younger daughter who has an internship here for the summer.  I’ve only been to Pittsburgh twice before, and very briefly, so I’m excited to spend a few days alone with her in the city.  Because I am here for Father’s Day, I totally blew it with last week’s dinner planner and forgot all about it.  See last year’s dinner planner for a few suggestions.

On Tuesday, I am heading over to the set of Home & Family where I will tape a cooking segment.  I love doing that show.  The hosts and crew have great energy and I always get a generous amount of time to talk and cook.  The episode will air on Wednesday on the Hallmark channel, so check your local listings for time.  I’ll be making the one-pot farro from last month’s cooking class.  It’s a winner!

I’ve been slowly seeing more summer produce trickle into our markets.  I still cook dinner most nights when school is out, but the meals tend to be simpler and lighter.  We can be happy with a giant salad with or without animal protein.  Sometimes just a little avocado and or some hemp seeds or almonds on top do the trick.  Desserts lean towards seasonal fruits, especially berries and stone fruit.  I love grilling, roasting or broiling stone fruit – so delicious!

Here’s your dinner planner for the week.  As always, almost any recipe can be adapted to suit your taste or eating style.  Let me know if I can offer suggestions in that regard.

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It’s Memorial Day weekend and I always feel very pensive and grateful during this holiday.  And I always feel a bit sad, too.  I know a lot of us are excited to have an extra day off, but I am taking some time to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice many of our servicemen and women made to allow us the freedoms that we enjoy and take for granted, quite frankly.  Freedom and safety are often part of my gratitude practice and more so this weekend.

I also would like to practice some mindfulness this weekend when I am socializing.  So often during holidays I eat things that deviate from what make me feel good and then I am annoyed with myself afterwards.  I’m going to try to make choices this weekend that won’t make me annoyed afterwards!

Here’s your dinner planner for the week:

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Memorial Day weekend is next weekend and I am stunned.  Stunned.  Oh this year is slipping between my fingers.  But the thought of summer being so close is beyond exciting to me!  

Someone asked me in my class the other day what is the first step I take when I sit down to make my dinner planner for the week.  My first step is looking at my calendar for the coming week, and I write down all the days I need to make dinner and I jot down who is eating or not eating at home that night and any other pertinent info (e.g. I am driving all over town until dinnertime.)  Then I look inside the fridge and pull things to the front that I need to use up and I think of ways to incorporate those ingredients into the meals.  I may or may not ask my family for suggestions for the remaining meals.  Sometimes I have to recipe test, like next week I will be recipe testing for the Thanksgiving issue of Clean Eating Magazine.  Anyone know where I can get a whole, fresh turkey???!!

Here’s your dinner planner for the week:

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