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Fun Facts About Avocado Trees (I Pretty Much Need 4 or 5, If We’re Being Honest)

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Avocado Tree Tnail

See: Avocado Trees for Sale!

I would challenge you to find a bigger avocado lover in the world but I like you too much to set you up for such an impossible mission. My mom never mentioned it, but I’m fairly certain I was born loving avocados and have, with each passing year, grown to love them more.

I make and devour guacamole religiously, and love to use them in my smoothies (another obsession), salad dressings, pasta salads, taco salads, and… quite honestly….  I love to enjoy an avocado all by its glorious self – cut into small chunks, doused with lime juice, and sprinkled with sea salt.

Delicious! They’re absolutely healthy, too, but my favorite thing about them is the creamy, wonderful taste.

When I was sent the infographic, below, I couldn’t wait to see what regions avocado trees could successfully grow in. I mean, as you’d imagine, I spend a lot of money on avocados each year (the little beauties do not come cheap), so an investment in a tree or two or twenty would be very sound for someone like me!

Tip: If you aren’t an old pro with avocados, please be extra careful when cutting into them. I’ve read that many people end up in the ER from kitchen knife injuries each year and a few come when trying to cut an avocado or trying to get the pit out. After thousands of avocado dealings, I have never once cut myself (and if you knew just how accident prone I am, you’d be amazed). The trick is… NEVER hold an avocado while cutting it. I mean, that should be obvious BUT when we’re busy in the kitchen, sometimes “obvious” is a complete stranger.

Investing in a ridiculously safe and inexpensive Avocado Cutter (Amazon link) is the safest way to go – especially if you have children helping in the kitchen.

Avocados Trees Infographic

Source: Avocado Trees for Sale!

Below are a few really clever gift ideas for avocado lovers, but it occurs to me that an avocado tree may just be the best gift of all!


Edible Landscaping 101: Great Time to Start Planning Next Year’s Garden!

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Roasted Tomatoes with Pasolivo Rosemary Olive Oil

Roasted Tomatoes Straight from the Vine

Each year for as long as I can remember, I have planted herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. Sometimes I’ll also plant pumpkins or cucumbers (love both of these!). This year we went all out and planted tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, corn, pumpkins, squash, okra, peppers of every conceivable kind.

It has been an absolute joy to go outside and “grocery shop.” So much so that we’re planning on planting even more next year and have mapped out a few choice spots to have not one, but two gardens. We got an extra freezer to store our produce in and I have a strong feeling we’ll be thanking ourselves for our efforts all winter long.

Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

  • It’s healthier! Fruits and vegetables are outrageously healthy and growing them, yourself, means you control the pesticides used and know EXACTLY what all has been involved from getting them from the garden to your plate.
  • Convenient. Even when we weren’t living inside of a pandemic, the convenience of being able to step outside your back door and grab what you need to complete your meal was crazy convenient. These days, however, it’s even more so. Anything we can do to keep from having to go to the store is a win.
  • Economical. If you shop for fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices in stores I don’t have to explain this one to you at all! Growing your own produce and herbs saves you money during the summer as well as during the winter if you freeze or can your harvest.
  • Fun and Enriching Hobby! Any time we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and learn how to do new things, it’s SO good for our minds. Not only that, new hobbies are great for your emotional health as well. Gaining confidence through growing your own produce is a great payoff and one you won’t even realize has happened until you proudly walk into the kitchen with your colorful bounty.
  • Excellent Exercise, Sunshine, and Fresh Air. Having vegetables and herbs in addition to my beloved flower beds has given me more reasons than ever to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. The extra (enjoyable) work of watering, weeding, planting, picking, etc.. has been wonderful exercise, too.
  • Get the Kids Involved! My oldest grandbabies (3 and 1) have LOVED watching the veggies grow, watering them, picking them, and even tasting them! It’s a great way to get kids involved in a wonderful and useful hobby AND encourage them to eat more fruit and vegetables.
  • Perfect for Those with Restrictive Diets. I have to eat gluten-free and have to say, it’s always extra comforting to KNOW something is completely free from gluten or wheat and hasn’t been cross-contaminated. Anyone who has to avoid gluten, peanuts, soy, wheat, or other problematic ingredients will appreciate the full control growing your own food gives you.

Below is a wonderful infographic about “Edible Landscaping” from an outstanding article titled The 12 Best Edible Landscape Plants. After clicking on the infographic below and seeing the wonderful information, I hope you’ll click through the link above to learn more. If you live in here in the states, more likely than not you’re like me – looking at the end of the gardening season. But, truly, what better time to start planning than now?! Gather your information, arm yourself with facts, accumulate the tools and seeds you’ll need, and map out your garden.

Next year will be here before you know it… so get growing!

Edible Landscaping Infographic

Source


15 Best Free Apps for Eating Healthy on a Budget

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Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can definitely be a challenge at times. With fast-food chains like McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s on every corner, the temptation to stop and get a quick bite to eat is something that everyone has in common.

Fortunately, in life, while you can’t control everything, you can most definitely control the food you put into your body.

Of course, it’s okay to splurge every now and then, but if your diet mainly consists of processed foods this can and will be very detrimental to your health. Even though you may not see the effects right away, in the long run you will be more prone to various types of illnesses that can be a great threat to your general health. That being said, there is no better time to take control of your health by finding ways such as downloading healthy food apps to create a more balanced diet.

Due to the fact that the health and fitness lifestyle has become more popular than ever, it only makes sense that the number of health and fitness apps would skyrocket too. It’s 2019, and there seems to be an app for just about everything! So why not download an app that can transform your diet and help you live a healthier lifestyle? These apps can virtually do everything! Some can track your heart rate, the number of calories you eat, provide you with personalized meal plans and so much more. Having these apps is almost like having a personal trainer or nutritionist in your pocket. 

So instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a personal trainer or nutritionist, you can simply download apps that can basically do the same thing. Feel free to utilize or download the various apps that Wikiby has found to help you keep your general or specific diet on track and so that you can crush your fitness goals by the new year. 

15 Best Free Apps For Healthy Eating On A Budget

Infographic Credit: WikiBuy.com

Protein Sources for Vegans (Infographic)

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Vegan Protein Sources

Protein Sources for Vegans

When my beautiful middle daughter, Brittany, was 12, she decided she no longer wanted to eat meat. It actually began to nauseate her to even look at meat. I thought it was adorable when she announced that she never wanted to eat anything “…that once had a face.” I said, “Fair enough.” and launched into in-depth research of healthy eating for vegetarians and vegans (assuming that could be a future choice). My main concern was protein because, let’s face it, we all associate protein with meat and meat with protein.

I was delighted (then and now) that there are so many sources of protein that never had a face.

I began making and buying black bean burgers, nuts by the pound, and even more vegetables than I already did. Brittany’s vegetarianism, in my opinion, helped make me a better (and healthier) cook. What some may have viewed as a “problem” or “headache” was actually a positive for our family. She has stuck with her vegetarianism and I have stuck with a very healthy obsession with vegetables.

To be perfectly honest with you, I am incredibly proud of her. As a 12 year old, with an older sister and a younger sister, she made a personal (and HUGE) decisions on her own. She faced everything ranging from skepticism to ridicule from others (absolutely not from me, of course) and stood her ground. At 12! S

And some people think you can’t learn anything from kids. Hogwash!

As I said, my only concern was her health, which is why I researched all that I could. You can most certainly have a healthy diet if you are a vegetarian or even a vegan. You simply have to make certain you are as conscientious and passionate about what you INCLUDE as you are about what you EXCLUDE.

The wonderful infographic below, from Snap Kitchen, sums it up beautifully. It also has made me pretty darn hungry for a great salad with chickpeas and nuts… so I’ll just wrap things up…

Infographic Source: Snap Kitchen


How to Pick the Freshest Produce (Infographic)

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How to Pick Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
While I have often tried to focus on healthy eating on Get Cooking, I am really revitalizing my focus. Why? Because I’m revitalizing my focus on healthy eating in my own life and want only the best for you and your family as well!
Don’t worry, I have no intention of completely cutting out desserts and even less intention of completely cutting out carbs (they’d have to pull my potatoes out of my cold dead hands… whoever they are). But cutting back on less than healthy foods while increasing healthy foods only makes sense.
I’m lucky – I’ve always been a fiend for fruits and vegetables. Especially vegetables. I’m not sure if it’s because my parents always had gardens while I was growing up or if I simply enjoy the taste of just about every vegetable imaginable. Probably a little of both.
Below is a very useful infographic from Pounds to Pocket that’ll help you determine when a fruit or vegetable is the freshest.. as in ripe for the taking!
How to Pick Fresh Fruits and Vegetables in the Store

Infographic: 15 Easy Ways to Make Food Taste Better

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The infographic below (from British friends of the food blog… hence yoghurt instead of yogurt!) includes some great tips for making your food taste even better. I love these tips – several of which I personally swear by.

Below are a few quick tips from my own kitchen:

  1. When making a dish with multiple food components (stew, soup, salad…), chop the individual foods as small as possible. Sure, it’s more work (unless you use a food processor, Amazon link) but each bite will provide more flavor. After all, the more foods that can fit on a spoon or fork at once, the greater the flavor punch.
  2.  Ground Chuck simply tastes better than ground beef. There is no getting around it.
  3. In addition to Kosher salt and black pepper, a few seasonings I keep on hand at all times (as in I’m apt to run out of just about anything before I ever run out of them) are: Cumin, Montana Mex Chile Salt (as well as their Sweet Seasoning Blend), Garlic Powder, Cayenne Pepper, Red Pepper Flakes, Pink Himalayan Salt, Seasoned Salt, and McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning (All Amazon links). Experiment with seasonings – go bold! Just do so a little at a time, because you can always add more, you can’t add less.
  4. Use herbs often and use herbs generously. I love growing my own herbs – even though there is a Battle Royale between me and raccoons – and they’re winning. Good thing they’re so darn cute! Rosemary, chives, parsley, and cilantro are my favorites but Basil and Oregano are fast-becoming members of the “in crowd.” Add parsley to scrambled eggs, cilantro to any and all Mexican-inspired dishes, rosemary to soups, and chives to everything else. Well, almost. Chives snipped onto fresh from the oven baked potatoes make all the cares of the world slip away.
Courtesy of: Quid Corner


Infographic: Health Benefits and Healing Properties of Turmeric

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When it comes to superfoods, I’m reading more and more about turmeric. It’s fascinating just how much good this unassuming, colorful, and delicious spice can do for you. As the infographic below shows, when we use turmeric in our cooking – we aren’t just doing our taste buds a favor… we’re helping every other member of the team as well!

My favorite way to use turmeric is on rice, but I can’t wait to try the different ways mentioned here. After reading the infographic, click through the link beneath it for more great information.


Source: Fix.com Blog

How to Eat Healthy on a Budget: It’s Possible, if Not Always Easy

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I’m sure you’re as familiar with the high cost of groceries as I am. Each trip to the grocery store leaves me staring at prices, waiting for the punchline. Seriously? $5 for a tub of Crisco? Shouldn’t that come with a whole chicken or a pan to fry it in?

Since I’m not the proud owner of a money tree, I’ve always had to operate within a set budget when it comes to grocery shopping. I’ll let you in on a secret – if I didn’t have a budget for grocery shopping, I’d make a perfect fool of myself. I LOVE grocery shopping, cooking, eating… the whole shebang.. and I tend to get very carried away when planning meals, snacks, and desserts.

It’s been this way since I can remember, but it has been even more of a problem since I became a food blogger. Now, I want to cook all the things, test all the things, and enjoy all the things! Sadly, all the things cost money.  Some more so than others.

A set budget reigns me in, thereby ensuring that we are still able to have water, electricity, and silly things like that.

Oddly, enough, before I had to start eating gluten free, I honestly had no idea what a high grocery bill was. Everything is more expensive when you have to buy gluten free – it’s just something that we all come to expect. A part of the gluten free life, if you will.

It can also be pretty expensive to eat healthy. Grass fed beef, butter from cows who’ve been feeding on grass, organic vegetables and fruit, salmon, shrimp… the list goes on – right along with the dollar signs.

Below, I wanted to share a beautiful infographic with you – it has healthy eating on a budget on its mind, too. But before we get to the infographic, I’ll give you a few tricks I’ve picked up over the years – they’re applicable for saving money when you’re trying to eat healthy AND for when you have to eat gluten free.

  1. Check your grocery store’s circular and, if possible, plan your meals around what’s on sale that week. If there’s a great deal on chicken – chicken it is. Is cauliflower (finally!) on sale? Work in cauliflower rice, mashed cauliflower, or roasted cauliflower.
  2. Never allow leftovers to go to waste. If you have leftover chicken, use it for chicken tacos. Leftover ham? Omelets! Leftovers also come in handy when it comes to stews, salads, soups, and casseroles.
  3. When you get in the swing of using leftovers, you’ll find it helpful to always keeping taco shells, tomato juice, eggs, and broths on hand.
  4. Keep an eye on coupons in the Sunday paper. They aren’t always that great, but every now and then, you can find some real beauts.
  5. Check brands’ websites for coupons.
  6. If there’s a brand you use frequently (for me a few would be Bob’s Red Mill, Amy’s Kitchen, CedarLane, McCormick Spices….), subscribe to their website’s newsletter, if one is available. In addition to great recipes, they also include the occasional coupon.
  7. If Kroger has “some” things cheaper and Meijer’s has “some” things cheaper, take the extra time and hit both stores. Not only do I often divide my grocery shopping between two stores, I often throw Wal-Mart and Target into the mix as well. I will, literally, go the extra mile for a bargain.

Now, for the infographic…..

Clever Ways to Eat Healthy on a Tight Budget

Infographic Source: Positive Health Wellness