Festive Winter Fruit Salad with Chia Seed Dressing

Celebrate the holiday season in sweet style or add more merry to an everyday winter meal with this Festive Winter Fruit Salad with Chia Seed Dressing. Seems like fruit salad often takes a backseat in the colder-weather months, but no need to keep Mother Nature’s beautiful bounty a side dish for just summer dinners and events.

Featuring the best picks of winter fruits, including a few year-round staples (bananas to the rescue!), this winter fruit salad is dressed up with a lightly sweet-tangy poppyseed dressing. It’s a lovely addition to any holiday or Christmas brunch and or even to liven up packed lunches for work or school. Continue reading

DIY Homemade Gingerbread Spice & 12 Yummy Ways to Use it

What do you think of when you smell and taste gingerbread spices? For me, it conjures up memories of Christmas, winter holidays, giddy anticipation, spicy-sweet comfort and heading through the woods and over the hills to grandmother’s house.

DIY Homemade Gingerbread Spice

Gingerbread spices, typically cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves and a pinch of pepper, aren’t reserved just for gingerbread men, gingerbread houses and the soft gingerbread cakes my relatives loved to make during the holidays.  My DIY Homemade Gingerbread Spice recipe is simple to make, keeps all year to spice up all sorts of your favorite and even unexpected foods. Read on to get the Homemade Gingerbread Spice recipe and all the yummy ideas:  Continue reading

Salted Honey Butter Brussels Sprouts and Carrots 

When the making of a holiday meal has claimed every inch of conventional oven space (and possibly even stove-top burners), you may be scrambling to find ways to prepare side dishes.Salted Honey Butter Brussels Sprouts & Carrots

This simple, salty-sweet recipe for Salted Honey Butter Brussels Sprouts and Carrots can be prepared in the microwave, free up the precious oven space for a big turkey or roast . . .and pie!   Read on to get this easy microwave vegetable recipe: Continue reading

Affordable Holiday Gifts for Runners & Fitness Buffs | Under $30

Runners and fitness buffs can be hard to please, so discerning about their gear and gadgets and rightfully so with countless hours logged in the pursuit of these passions. Forget the awkward surprise of a random pair of running shoes or outfit that probably won’t fit or be “right,” and instead choose from this personally curated list of affordable gifts for runners and gym-goers – or really, any active person! Under $30 Affordable Gifts for Runners & Fitness Buffs

Everything’s under $30, making these affordable gifts for runners doable for all your run squad and team mates. Perfect stocking stuffers, and you’ll have money left over to treat them to a race registration! Read on to get the Affordable Holiday Gift List for Runners & Fitness Buffs – Under $30: Continue reading

Hasselback Baked Pears with Gingerbread Streusel and Easy Gingerbread Latte

This post is sponsored by McCormick® but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Ahh, childhood memories of gingerbread are some of the sweetest in my life – both the taste and aroma evokes those holiday “feels” of comfort, togetherness and well-being . . . with a pinch of anticipatory excitement. I’m also a sucker for any type of warm fruit dessert. So, with a twist on tradition, I’ve created a holiday dessert offering it all — Hasselback Baked Pears with Gingerbread Streusel. It’s also gluten-free and Paleo, if those are dietary concerns. Baked Hasselback Pears with Gingerbread Streusel

The yummy blend of McCormick® spices used to create the gingerbread streusel topping also upgrades any morning coffee routine with festive flair – I’ve also included the how-to for a quickie Gingerbread Latte, read on to get the holiday recipes: Continue reading