Bring something different to eat

Fitness, food, wine and travel: nothing wrong with that combo when you also make healthy choices as your video highlights! I like to bring something that is healthy, in season, and visually appealing when I bring a dish to a friend's for dinner. So in the spring when asparagus is abundant, I'll do al dente asparagus spears w/ vinaigrette dressing and throw a bit of color on top (a few strips of marinated red pepper). Tasty and nice to look at!

I took a snack to a book group gathering yesterday, it was veggies stuffed with homemade hummus. I used baby bell peppers, cut in half and cleaned, small cucumbers, made into "boats" and celery. I garnished the bites with small slices of olives and roasted peppers. Looked pretty and tasted good and kept me away from teh foods I wanted to avoid.

Sounds delicious, healthy, and attractive! I think it's important for food to be pleasing to the eye as well as the body. I do love hummus- so versatile. This is a great reminder as the holidays approach.

Salads are such an easy and healthy addition to any spread. Whether it be a watermelon and feta over bib lettuce in the summertime or a harvest salad with dried cherries, orange segments, pecans, mixed greens and red onion with a raspberry vinaigrette for Thanksgiving.

sounds really great... except for the cheese. I consider dairy to be THE UNHEALTHIEST food on the planet. I recommend reading THE CHINA STUDY to learn about the link between dairy and disease. When I gave up dairy my severe osteo-arthritis went into complete remission. Dairy is an inflammatory and is associated with many western diseases. It is also linked to breast cancer and the countries that consume the MOST dairy have the HIGHEST incidence of osteoporosis, not the lowest... Just saying... you can't put cheese on a salad and still call it healthy. There is a documentary film scheduled to be released in 2011 called "Got the Facts on Milk?" This will hopefully get the message out that dairy is not what the ad man wants us to think it is...

I brought a vegan pate to Thanksgiving and it was a great hit. Sauteed onions and garlic, cooked green beans, walnuts and processed all. Salt and pepper finished it. Looked like chopped liver, but tasted fresh, 'cause there wasn't any meat in there.

Interesting combo- I was trying to picture what it would look like when pureed, so your description helped!

I had some carrots to use recently and was looking for different recipes. I found the site below that organized things in a different way- brings up a whole list that helps with ideas. No pictures which I always like to see, but could easily visualize the possibilities by ingredient.

http://www.justvegetablerecipes.com/index.html