Photo: *SallyM*

Hope you’re enjoying the day and gearing up for a new DECADE! I’m still in PJs myself, hoping that our friends will make it over tonight (seems their 2-year-old might be under the weather). Either way, you’ll find me hanging with my boys, sipping wine and staying cozy this evening. Hope you’ll be doing something that makes you equally happy.

If you haven’t already, please check out my recent post of gratitude. It’s important that you know how much you mean to me. (Awwww!) I can’t wait for more good food and delicious conversation in 2010.

(I also can’t wait to start posting on a regular basis again! What can I say… I’m a schedule person. Hope you are, too, because I’m coming back at ya 3 times a week starting on Monday.)

With the onset of cooler weather and my (second!) ChowBaby’s arrival, I have kicked into bulk cooking mode. Big pots of warm comfort food that can last several meals (or stock my freezer with quickly re-heated dinners) are a welcome lifesaver. Lasagna, soups, beef stew and, of course, chili.
I’ve always wanted to have a go-to chili recipe, but have never found the right one. In fact, I got so tired of trying variations that I gave up on chili for a long time. But I had a hankering the other day after reading a review of The Pioneer Woman’s cookbook that specifically called out her Simple, Perfect Chili. The thing that struck me most was that her recipe did, indeed, look simple. I usually go for complicated “speciality” chili recipes.
Wait a minute!
As I scanned the Pioneer Woman’s short ingredients list, it dawned on me: I had been making chili too complicated!
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Graphic: Next Generation Food

Food News, Things We Crave, Green Your Eats, Tips, Tools & Techniques, and the Weekly Roundtable (a roundup of our most recent posts). For those of you celebrating Rosh Hashanah, Happy New Year! The rest of you—have a great weekend, too!
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Photo: LOLcatpics.com, in honor of Krispy Kreme’s Fan Fave contest (see below!)

Food News, Things We Crave, Green Your Eats, and Tips, Tools, & Techniques. Check out this week’s picks.
And, while you’re at it, our friend at fabulous family food blog FoodieTots.com (subscribe and follow @foodietot on twitter) has extended the deadline on her Farmer’s Market Photo Contest. All you have to do is submit a photo of your tot at the farmer’s market by August 31st for a chance to win a kid-sized reusable market tote filled with foodie goodies. How great is that?!
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Photo: The Kitchn

Food News, Things We Crave, Green Your Eats, and Tips, Tools, and Techniques. Check out this week’s picks.
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I almost didn’t write this post. We all know it–yogurt is super nutritious and already a staple of many families’ diets. Famed pediatrician Dr. Sears said, “Yogurt is one of the healthiest foods you can feed your family.” What more can I add? But something nagged at me.

Yogurt products are one of the most successfully marketed foods in the supermarket. I wonder if that’s because we know how nutritious yogurt is and are always hungry for more? Or because misinformation about yogurt makes it easy to spin the nutritional benefits of new products? Maybe it’s neither, but the question was compelling enough for me to dig in. 

So, what’s the scoop on yogurt?

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