Tips And Ideas To Make A Vegetable Platter

Make a vegetable platter to please your guests. Apart from the usual, cheeses, dips, crackers and corn chips, a vegetable platter may be the best crowd pleaser at your party. You can purchase organic veggies from a food store or use your own vegetables from your garden.

If you know a number of your guests are vegans, then you may look at making a raw vegetable platter. I have seen people who are definitely not vegans, eat almost all the vegetable platter, nibbling all night until the platter is completely empty.

Apart from raw vegetables, you can also place another platter with pickled vegetables. I make my own pickles with cucumbers, green unripened tomatoes and peppers.

I even pickle some of my cabbages. I try to avoid the strong vinegar taste you get when you buy pickles from the store, by reducing the amount of vinegar in my pickles.

Knowing my guests love vegetables, I usually supply vegetables from my organic garden whenever I make a vegetable platter.

If you are looking for more ideas to please your guests, you may think about the expectations of your guests. You can find out, without the need to ask directly, what you will place on your platter. You may find out one of your guests loves cucumber, so do not forget to place pieces of cut cucumber and a cucumber dip nearby.

You may place a selection of crackers and corn chips near the dips, for your guests to use with their dips. Many people love cheese with their vegetables, so place a selection of low fat to normal fat cheeses with a little card nearby describing the type of cheese.

Of course, you do not have to place only vegetable and cheeses on your party platters. You can make another platter, with meat selections including sliced salami and small pieces of cooked meat.

The main aim of your party is to meet the needs of all your guests. Some guests are vegetarian, most are not. Even those who are not vegetarian, may gravitate to the vegetarian platter. Knowing the expectations of your guests can go a long way when you make a vegetable platter.

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Creative Party Planning Ideas For Halloween

Party planning ideas include the party theme, party decorations and enough food to feed all your guests. If you are holding a dinner party, where the food is the main event, then you need to consider the needs and requirements of your guests.

Good planning means you take into account allergy and dietary needs of your invited guests. There may be a number of vegetarians, people on low fat, low carb diets while other guests may have an allergy to certain food ingredients like nuts and wheat.

This is why you need to contact your guests, prior to the dinner party, to confirm their dietary requirements. Knowing how to please your guests, is one of the main ingredients of successful party planning ideas.

It may be your little princess is about to turn three years old and you want all her friends from her playgroup to come and celebrate her birthday. Childrens parties are usually held in the afternoon, so be prepared for parents bringing their children early, and be prepared to be ready with everything, early.

If the theme is a Halloween party, then you need to supply Halloween party themed decorations, games and food. Good ideas may include scary candy, painting their faces with Halloween monsters, reading ghost stories, hunting halloween treasures(Halloween candy) all over the house and scary childrens’ Halloween movies.

Be prepared for parents to be at the event, waiting to take their children home. They may be in a separate room where they can sit and discuss adult matters with other parents.

You can place platters full of crackers with a variety of savories, and adult drinks can be served as required. As the parents will be driving their children home, alcohol may not be served on this occasion, to ensure parents and children arrive home safely.

Of course, there may be some parents who will be surprised at your creative party planning ideas.

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Hot Coffee All Day With Insulated Coffee Mugs

Insulated coffee mugs are what I use to keep my coffee warm during the day. I make my coffee in the morning and then pour the coffee into insulated coffee mugs, to keep the coffee hot all day long.

It may be the icy cold breeze of winter, or the driving rain of the summer, but you can sit in your car, by the side of the road and take a break with your favourite hot coffee from an insulated coffee mug.

When I arrive home, I do not have to brew another cup of coffee, as I have an insulated cup of hot coffee waiting for me. Making my coffee in the morning, and drinking from several mugs throughout the day and night, helps me save money and time waiting at a regular coffee shop for a stale cup of coffee. By the time you get to your car, the coffee has gone cold.

This is why I have switched to insulated coffee mugs.

You can buy insulated coffee mugs online or at many retail stores. I buy mine from the specialty coffee shop, where I buy my coffee beans. So, if some of the coffee mugs are aged and overused, or broken while washing, then I can run to the specialty coffee shop and I can buy my mugs on demand. They always have them on the shelves.

Through the years, I have coffee gifts sets presented to me, where the coffee was delicious, but the mugs included with the gift set did not last long. Meanwhile, my insulated coffee mugs have lasted for years and I have bought custom coffee gift sets with insulated coffee mugs for my friends.

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Easy To Make Iced Coffee

Make iced coffee for your family to enjoy over the summer months. You can continue to enjoy iced coffee over the colder months too. Look, it may be cold outside and everything is covered with snow, but you can still enjoy your favourite choice of coffee, whenever you are on a break, to help you relax during the day and night.

Although some people avoid coffee at night, if you are staying up to do some work or watching a late night movie with your family, then you may need coffee to help you stay awake. If you are having an early night, then you avoid coffee for the night.

During summer time, it is always relaxing to sit in a comfortable chair on the patio with your family and enjoy an iced coffee.

It is now the time to experiment with different flavours and different brews of coffee, so you can enjoy the best tasting iced coffee over the next summer. In our family we like to brew our coffee in the morning and enjoy a number of cups throughout the day.

We buy our coffee, from the specialist coffee shop, where we can buy our syrups and cinnamon to increase the flavour in the coffee. Making the coffee ice cubes, is a delight among the younger members of the family, who cannot believe you can make ice cubes with coffee.

They think we place a bag of coffee in the freezer and voila! Out come the ice cubes. One day, I decided to show them how I make the coffee ice cubes and they were amazed at the easy procedure involved.

Now the family knows how to make coffee ice cubes, when summer comes around, we can again enjoy to make iced coffee.

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Parents Managing Food Portions For Their Children

Food portions for your children are always problematic. You do not want to feed your child more than you are feeding yourself, maybe, the food on the plate should be about half the size on your plate. You do not want to let your child go hungry, but you do not want to overfeed and see your child become another statistic in the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Just like every parent, you want your child to grow up and be a healthy adult. You need a plan of action to ensure your child does not eat the wrong foods. Your first step will be to avoid giving him junk food, as you want him to learn to eat healthy food.

If your child is overweight, there may be a medical reason. To confirm any medical conditions you should take your child to a medical doctor who will arrange tests to confirm a medical diagnosis. If your child is obese, the doctor may arrange a visit to a dietitian who will devise a nutrition plan to help change the eating habits of your child.

If you child adheres to the nutrition plan, then your child may grow to be healthy and never be obese again. There may be times when the child may stray from the nutrition plan, but your dietitian will advise you how to manage the situation.

For example, you may think of a reward system, where if your child sticks to the nutritional plan then he will be rewarded with a trip to the beach or a new toy.

The promise of a reward will help motivate your child to stick to the nutritional ideas and limit his food portion sizes.

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Entertaining Friends With Your 12 Cup Coffee Maker

12 cup coffee maker is ideal for meetings and where a group of people gather to enjoy a cup of fresh coffee. It may be a social club meeting in your home or an afternoon gathering on the patio, enjoying the view of your yard and feeling the cool breeze against your face. There is always an excuse to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee.

You may have a small capacity coffee maker, for your own use, when you need only one or two cups of coffee. It may be early in the morning, and you want to clear your mind, before you are off to work. You can turn on your coffee maker and a few minutes later, you have a cup of delicious, hot coffee. This may be the quietest part of the day, before you join the noise outside your door.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you are thinking about the great week you have had and do not want to know about the problems of the world, you can have a small gathering of your friends and enjoy drinking fresh cups of coffee, from your 12 cup coffee maker.

You can search online for the different type of coffee makers available. You can also visit your favourite department store and coffee specialty shops that sell your favourite coffee and coffee makers. It is better to know and see as much as possible, rather than make a rash decision and buy a coffee machine you may not like.

If you are a member of a book reading club, then a 12 cup coffee maker may be ideal. You can all have a cup of coffee while you are discussing the book you have read in the last week. You may also need to cater to different tastes of memebrs.

If you know some members like freshly ground coffee, then you may need to get a coffee grinder. Other members may not like coffee and would rather have tea instead, so you may need to find out the type of tea they like and ensure it is available at the next meeting.

Knowing the needs of your guests and members of your book reading club, will make you a popular host when you have a 12 cup coffee maker.

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Improving Your Digestion With Good Bacteria And Yogurt

Bacteria and yogurt are the perfect combination to assist your digestion. There are plenty of food products we eat and cannot digest without the assistance of good bacteria. Bad bacteria may give you infections and make you ill, but if there is a predominance of good bacteria, then the bad bacteria will lose out.

The next time you go to the food store, walk past all the fruity yogurts and look for the live culture or plain yogurts to select the yogurt most beneficial to your health.

Some of the smaller food stores may not stock these yogurts, as many people would rather eat the fruity yogurts. Your option is to go to a larger food store, or head for a health food store, where you will find organic yogurt and live culture yogurt.

You can eat yogurt as a snack, with a piece of fruit, helping to boost your metabolism and the good bacteria in the yogurt will assist your digestion. If you are looking for a dessert after a main meal, yogurt may be one of the better options, to help your digestive system digest your meal.

Now you know why the better combination for your digestion, is bacteria and yogurt.

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Unreliable Food Facts On Food Labels

Food facts on labels of food products, may not contain all the nutritional information you need, to make an informed decision. Some labels do not state all the ingredients and additives included in your food products. Some of these ingredients may be dangerous to your health and you may not know that these ingredients are included in the food products.

For example, you may be allergic to wheat. Your best option is to visit a dietitian who will inform you how to purchase products that do not include wheat and which foods to avoid. You may be given a list of wheat free food. So now you now how to buy wheat free food without a need to look at all the food facts on all your food products.

You may notice the range of healthy food in your average food store is rather limited and some of the labels do not contain all the food facts you need, to make an informed decision on your food purchases. Your best option is to go to a health food store and find the healthy food you need to maintain your health.

This is why you need to buy food from a reliable source as not all food facts are on the food labels of food products.

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Easy To See Everything With Open Kitchen Shelving

Kitchen shelving makes it easier to see all you need in your kitchen. If you need a slow cooker, then you can see it waiting for you on the open shelf. You do not have to open cupboards and search for it. It is much easier to see everything you need, with open shelves.

You may need to take precautions, to keep everything clean as open shelves may allow your kitchen tools and appliances to gather dust, grease and grime. But, if you know how to keep your kitchen clean, then you should be able to maintain a clean kitchen with open shelves.

Always take care when reaching for high places in your kitchen. Be conscious of avoiding possible accidents, like kitchen appliances falling on you or slipping and breaking your bones. Many people end up in hospital emergency departments due to accidents in the kitchen, and in other places around the home. You should always take precautions to avoid accidents in your kitchen.

Open shelves in the kitchen allow you to see your kitchen tools, your cooking ingredients and your cleaning tools. You do not have to search for hours for that tiny bottle of hot pepper you want to use in your cooking.

It is much easier to see everything in your kitchen with open kitchen shelving.

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Taking Action To Recover From Food Addiction

Food addiction may be the result of a need for an emotional escape or lifestyle challenges. For example, you may be addicted to a type of food and when you start eating that food you cannot stop. The food controls you, rather than you control how much you will eat.

One example, is a glass of wine with your dinner. Many medical experts agree, one glass of wine with your meal is good for your health. Drinking a bottle of whisky every morning is bad for your health and you need help.

Junk food is another form of addiction, where one may eat 3 or 4 burgers with lots of chips and a high sugar soft drink for their lunch. This meal is an example of bad nutrition and if you continue to have the same lunch every day with this amount of junk food, you will soon be overweight, have many health problems and may even become another statistic in the obese epidemic.

Taking another example, you may be addicted to eating 10 jam donuts a day. To many people, this may be an extreme example, but this happens when one is addicted to one type of food. Eating this much of one type of food, to the exclusion of vegetables and other healthy food, may lead to adverse health consequences.

Your first step is to visit your local medical doctor, who may refer you to a dietitian. The dietitian will help you change your food habits and widen the range of food you eat, so you do not eat too much of the same type of food. If the dietitian cannot solve your addiction then you may need to go back to your doctor and seek the help of a mental health expert, specializing in food problems.

There are many options for recovery from food addiction. But your first step, is to take action, to get your life back and do not let food control you.

To read more Taking Action To Recover From Food Addiction

Making A Light Meal With An Avocado Salad Recipe

Avocado salad recipe can be used to create a light meal. Many of the ingredients for this recipe can be found in most food stores and you can use alternative low calorie and low fat ingredients for a low calorie version.

For example, instead of a high calorie salad dressing, you can use low calorie salad dressing. You can reduce the fat in chicken, by taking off the skin, as most of the fat in chicken is with the skin. You can also swap the mozzarella cheese for a low fat version.

Preparing the salad for your family, may provide a surprise, as they may never have tasted such a delicious and filling salad. It can be eaten as a main meal, or as a small side salad. But be warned, once you start eating an avocado salad, you may not want to eat anything else, as the meal is so filling.

It is different to a regular salad and it can be eaten on its own, without a main meal. You can enjoy it as an afternoon light meal, especially when your family is sitting outside on the deck under the shade, as it may be too hot to eat a full course meal, under the hot summer sun.

Summer is a good time to enjoy a light meal made with an avocado salad recipe.

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