The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl – When I first discovered the popular Black Heels to Tractor Wheels on-line love story last spring I was instantly hooked.  I sat at my computer for the next 3-hours and I didn’t move. I devoured Ree Drummand’s (aka Pioneer Woman’s) true story about how she met her husband, fell in love and lived happily ever after.

Apparently I’m not the only one, as I’m editing this post tonight I saw on Twitter, via the LA Times, that 2 million people visit Pioneer Woman’s blog monthly.  Wow!

I am also partial to Pioneer Women because she and I have lived a similar life – only in reverse order.  For the first 18 years of my life I grew up on the farm that has been in our family for over 120 years; then I moved to live life in the city (London, Los Angeles, Orlando, Denver).

Pioneer Woman, on the other hand, grew up in the city, attended USC and was on her way to become a young professional in Chicago when a handsome cowboy unexpectedly came into her life and whisked her off to the country.

I now read Pioneer Woman’s weekly accounts of life on the ranch.  She talks about hearding cattle, annual pasture burns, and the isolated life on the ranch.  I often think, “oh, better you than me, as I’ve been there done that, and it’s not exactly my cup of tea.”  Yet her adventures on the ranch are so fun to read.

Pioneer Woman makes home-cooked meals for her four kids and husband every day.  She recently put her favorite recipes into her first cookbook and she is gearing up for a national book tour. Here is her promotional video about the cookbook.  It’s very cute.  I’m excited for this down-home-farm-style-cookbook to arrive in bookstores October 27, 2009.

BabyCakes: Vegan, (Mostly) Gluten-Free, and (Mostly) Sugar-Free Recipes from New York’s Most Talked-About Bakery – Once upon a time not very long ago I tossed around the idea of starting a side business making gluten-free muffins.  I quickly discovered that manufacturing, packaging, delivering and running a food company is not easy. This is why I have admiration and appreciation for what  Erin McKenna, owner of BabyCakes has accomplished.  She makes gluten-free, vegan, low sugar baked goods in her New York City bakery and her products are wildly popular.  In May she released her first gluten-free cookbook.  Here is Erin’s promotional video about her cookbook – this video is way cute!

Healthiest Meals on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What Meals to Eat and Why – Okay the first two are fun, speciality cookbooks but if you’re looking for healthy, super food cooking, this is my favorite cookbook. Author Jonny Bowden is my nutritional hero!  His cookbook is dedicated to healthy, easy meals that taste great. Love that!

Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking – I loved Stephanie O’Dea’s 365 days of crock pot cooking blog last year.  This year she put those recipes into a book and it will be in bookstores on October 13, 2009.  I’m adding this one to my Christmas wish list.

And finally, if you haven’t seen the movie, Julie & Julia it is worth seeing.  Blogger Julie Powell made every recipe in Julia Child’s, Mastering The  Art of French Cooking Cookbook in 2002.  She blogged about it, wrote a book about it and then Hollywood made a movie about it this year.

It will inspire you to live your dreams (Julia Child didn’t start cooking until she was in her 50′s), create beautiful partnerships, both Julie and Julia (like Pioneer Woman) have amazingly supportive husbands.  And most of all, it will remind you to laugh at yourself and have fun along the way!

Bon Appetit!

Three Healthy Discoveries have come across my desk this week and I wanted to pass them onto you.

• The Fourth Annual Gluten-Free Culinary Summit – I attended the Gluten-Free Baking Invitational in Denver last spring.  I wrote about that event here.  This year The Gluten-Free Summit and Baking Invitationals will be in Hyde Park, NY September 12-13, 2009 and Denver, CO October 3-4, 2009.

• Beauty Mark – Is now available on DVD for the public to purchase.  I saw this film about exercise addiction at the Estes Park Film Festival.  It is excellent!   Here is my review, or if you’re tired of reading watch this two-minute trailer.

• Vitamin D and Swine Flu – One of my favorite medical doctors, Michael Eades, posted a very interesting article about Vitamin D and influenza on his blog.  Click here to read, seriously, READ IT!   This is good stuff.

And finally, my interview with Kathleen Adams on her radio show, Journaling For A Better Life , will air again on May 21st at 5:00 PM EST.

On Monday I went to The Organic Dish in Boulder.  This is such a cool “Healthy Discovery”! I am giddy about this find, but let me back up and tell you how I ended up there in the first place.

Planning ahead for meals is not my forte.  I don’t like to aimlessly wonder through a grocery store searching for ingredients at the last minute.  And honestly, I’d rather  just have someone else cook for me.  I’ll do the dishes!

I love to eat.  I love studying nutrition.  I love teaching nutrition classes.  I love how I look and feel when I eat healthy.  But who said meal preparation had to be my passion?

In my defense I can cook and I do cook.  I have cooked for many people in my life and I know they would tell you I make tasty, healthy meals.  But I live alone, I travel a lot, my schedule is erratic and making seven healthy dinners each week, just for myself, is not the highlight of my day!

I was whining about this nutritional paradox to my colleague Dr. Jay Wilson on Monday.  Jay offered up a profound suggestion:  Order some healthy pre-assembled meals.

I’ve heard about these prepare-and-freeze-your-meals-ahead-of-time places, but I never thought they were for me.  Oh my!  As soon as I walked into The Organic Dish I immediately changed my mind – why did I not do this a long time ago?

Customers get meals three  ways:

1) Walk in and buy directly out of the freezer.

2) Order online for pickup.

3) Order online for home or office delivery.  The Organic Dish ships to 48 states.  Orders must be placed online by Tuesday midnight to be picked up or delivered on Thursdays. Delivery is free in Denver (inside the 470 corridor) and Boulder for orders more than $200.  Orders less than $200 have a $10 delivery charge.  Shipping costs outside the Denver/Boulder area are $35 for six meals.  Orders go out on dry ice on Mondays via Fed Ex.  You can keep meals in your freezer up to six months.

The Organic Dish accommodates special dietary needs (low-sodium, gluten-free, dairy or casein-free, low fat, vegetarian). All of the meals are nutritionally analyzed by registered dietitian Natalie Murphy at Begin Nutrition.  The menus change every month and there are about 15-20 meals per month.  There are two sizes: a size that feeds 2-3 people and another size that feeds 4-6 people.  Their ingredients are 95% certified organic and any items not certified organic are listed in orange.  They also buy local produce and meats when available.

The Organic Dish is a zero waste facility which means they compost 100% of their food waste, practice sustainable purchasing options, and recycle cardboard, paper, aluminum, plastics, and hard to recycle plastics (Ziploc bags).

Isn’t that all amazing!  Good, healthy, pre-assembled meals and zero waste to boot.  Each meal is approximately $8.00, which I think is very reasonable considering the high nutritional value you receive and the shopping, prep time has been eliminated.

I met the owner, Becky Hemmerling on Monday.  She was extremely gracious.  I could not wait to go home and try some meals from The Organic Dish.

On Tuesday night I baked the Chicken Verde with Lima Beans and Red Quinoa:

I defrosted the chicken and the sauce and baked it in the oven.

I warmed the Lima Beans and cooked the Red Quinoa for 15 minutes

20 minutes later I had a tasty, healthy meal.

There was enough for one dinner and three lunches, I love that!

Yesterday I put the frozen Pork Ragout in my crock pot.

It smelled amazing as it was cooking.

I put the pork over the polenta (also provided by The Organic Dish) and I steamed some broccoli that I had in my refrigerator.

This made enough for my Thursday dinner and left-overs for this weekend.

Sorry, my pictures didn’t really do justice to the end products but both of these meals were really GOOD!

If you want healthy, time/preparation saving meals, with a lot of variety, go to The Organic Dish.  All you have to do is heat and serve.  They will ship anywhere in the U.S.

Becky from The Organic Dish is now graciously offering you, my lovely readers, 10% off your first purchase with the code “Healthy Discoveries“.  Limit one per household.  Expires 4/30/09, can not be combined with other offers.

Click here to order.  This is such an awesome Healthy Discovery, I am going back again next week!

I just returned to my hotel room after teaching all day and I checked my blog. My goodness, my site counter logged a lot of visits today. What happened? Oh yes, I forgot, I wrote a guest post for Cranky Fitness.com a couple weeks ago and they decided to publish my article today. Wow! It’s always fun to have a new surge of readers.

Check out my guest post on Weight Loss Plateaus and then have a look around the health and fitness blog that sent me so much traffic. Thanks Cranky Fitness!

Hey gluten-free readers, Emeril Lagasse from the Food Network cooked a gluten-free meal at a New Orleans Whole Foods this morning.