Here’s an easy recipe that is healthy and delicious. Make sure to save some for later, it’s even better the next day! Serve it with as slice of rosemary bread.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup chopped onion
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1 lb. Italian style ground pork sausage
• 1 14oz. can ready-cut diced undrained tomatoes
• 1 14oz. can garbanzo beans, drained
• 3 cups beef broth
• ½ cup sliced yellow summer squash
• ½ cup sliced zucchini
• ¼ cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup uncooked rotini pasta
• Shredded parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top.
  

  Linda’s Minestrone Soup

Directions:
In a large stockpot, cook sausage, onion and minced garlic. Then add carrots, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, beef broth, basil, oregano, pepper and olive oil. Bring to a boil, then simmer 10-15 min. covered. Add zucchini, yellow summer squash, and uncooked rotini. Bring to a boil and then simmer 10-15 min. covered.

Serves 4

Every year, I become more and more aware of gifts from neighbors and friends. The gifts that seem to standout the most are always consumable food items that my family can eat, even after the holidays have ended.

So, I’ve changed my gift-giving focus to be more on the actual containers and wrappers that will hold the food I give. It’s all in the presentation—and it’s so much fun to find neat little jars, tins, cups and containers.

Two of my favorite containers this year include the paper bake pans. They are the perfect bakeware/gift wrap combo. We blogged about these bake pans earlier this season, but I had to bring them up again. They are the perfect size and they look great once finished. And the best part, no dishes to clean after baking!

The unzipped glass bowl is my favorite container this year. I bought up a bunch of these funky ziplock bag-shaped bowls to fill with goodies for friends and neighbors. These bowls are so unique that you’re almost guaranteed the recipient won’t already have one. The bowls are fun to layout on a coffee table or countertop year-round, so your gift will keep giving even after the holidays.

Good luck searching for your perfect containers for gift-giving season this year.
Solutions Creative Director —Lori Ann

It was a cool, rainy evening when I found this wonderful comfort food recipe for my husband Joe and I, “Risotto Butternut Squash With Cheese.” It was a perfect choice for fall, and we paired it with some skinless chicken breasts and a glass of Chardonnay. It turned out to be a delicious spontaneous meal—and a romantic evening!

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Give your fridge a makeover with this essential guide. Just download and print.

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While your refrigerator is empty, it’s the perfect time to keep your fridge organized with Fridge Binz. Check out these handy products at Solutions.com and see our customer reviews. 

Did you know that 12% of food bought for U.S. households is discarded? That amount of food waste adds up: $600+ per year, per home, in wasted food costs. On a national level, the U.S. throws away almost 50% of the food we produce. To put this into prospective, New York City alone has an annual food surplus of about 50 million pounds.

Here’s a few tips on food storage that could help bring that wasted food bill down in your home.

Refrigeration:
Your refrigerator is the first place to start. Do you know what temperature it is inside your fridge? Fridge thermometers are cheap and easy to use. The optimal fridge temperature is between 40° – 37° degrees. Anything above 40° is a step closer to a danger zone where food can easily grow bacteria.

Surprisingly, the refrigerator door is the area in your fridge where the temperature fluctuates the most. Make sure you aren’t storing any perishable items like eggs or milk inside the door.

The more open space you leave inside your fridge, the better it will do it’s job. Cramming food into your fridge creates poor air flow—limiting your fridge’s cooling power.

Make sure to cool hot food before refrigerating. It should reach the 40° or below mark within 3 hours after being cooked. Food that needs to be frozen, however, doesn’t need to be cooled before being placed in the freezer, where it should reach 0° for optimal storage temperature.

The longer you store food in the freezer, the more likely you are to loose quality in taste. But you don’t risk your food spoiling as long as it stays at 0°.  Packaging food that will be frozen in multiple smaller containers is good practice. It allows each container to cool faster and helps prevent waste (from thawing too much food at once).  Ideally food should freeze within 2 hours after being cooked.

Quick Tips

• Store meats on the bottom shelf and on a plate if there is concern of leakage
• Separate fruits and vegetables. Gases from fruits may spoil vegetables faster or give an “off” taste.
• Freeze fresh meats if they won’t be consumed within two days
• Freeze food in smaller portions so you don’t thaw too much at once, frozen food should only be thawed once
• If freezing soups or sauces, only fill the containers up 3/4 to leave room for expansion

If you want to keep bananas from ripening too quickly, seal them in plastic bag and store them in the fridge. This will turn the skin brown, but the fruit itself will remain unchanged. Recipe tip: 1 lb. bananas = 1-1/3 cup mashed.

While it wasn’t the ice cream we enjoy today, frozen desserts were around in ancient Rome. Slaves trekked to the mountains and carried back snow so it could be mixed with fruit and honey for Emperor Nero. There are even stories that Alexander the Great and Marco Polo enjoyed frozen concoctions.

Continue reading We All Scream for Ice Cream…

Easily capture berry flavor in a jar without cooking or canning! Freezer jam can be made in less than an hour, and you only need a few ingredients.
Continue Reading Strawberry Freezer Jam