Homemade bagels are nothing short of a staple in our house. Beyond their obvious place as a breakfast anchor, they’re also great bookends for a variety of sandwiches. This BLT uses Applegate Farms Sunday bacon, a healthier, delicious alternative to heavily processed bacon. Rounding it out is tomato, romaine lettuce, and of course the fourth requirement in a great BLT: Mayo.

Most of us snack, so if you’re going to grab something between meals, make sure it’s a great choice. One of the best ways to get into the habit of grabbing something great is to make it easy and quick to grab something as you’re passing through. Few things will accomplish those goals as effortlessly as a fruit bowl on your kitchen table or island.

Beyond the aesthetic appeal of a fruit bowl in your house at all times of the year (it picks you up in winter and fits with the season in summer), keeping a bowl of some basic choices like apples and pears means that you’ll be more likely to grab something good for you rather than reaching into the cookie jar or driving through the fast food lane. Having the fruit bowl in the middle of your kitchen is also a convenient reminder of your daily fruit intake.

A thank you to our local farmer’s market and my brother-in-law for this sandwich. Thinly sliced chicken breast is topped with my brother-in-law’s homemade BBQ sauce (a concoction of real Maine maple syrup, ketchup, and more…recipe to come), then placed on fresh pesto bread (from the farmer’s market) and topped with farmer’s market goat cheese, sliced tomatoes, and farmer’s market mixed greens.

When visiting a local farmer’s market, you except to see greens, cheese, some meats, and bread- but the biggest surprise I found at our local Orono Farmer’s Market was the table of fresh hand-made Asian dishes like the veggie spring rolls above. The proprietor also had pork spring rolls, real crab rangoons, General Tsao’s chicken, and some other things. We tried these veggie spring rolls cold, and they were outstanding: Perhaps a little bit greasy, but overall a great mix of mildly spicy and crisp.

More photos below:

Who doesn’t love a good french fry? My three year old son is particularly fond of fries, but isn’t so fond of ones that aren’t loaded with fat. Imagine my surprise when he ate these without hesitation or wrinkly nose! These fries are low in fat, taste great and take about 25 minutes to bake in the oven. Figuring about 1 small/medium potato per person, rinse and peel potatoes. Cut into thin strips and lay flat onto a baking sheet covered in non-stick cooking spray. Make sure all fries are laying flat on the sheet. Spray fries with cooking spray and dust with salt and pepper. If you like other seasonings, rosemary and garlic powder taste great for example, go ahead and apply whatever you like. Pop into the oven at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, turning once halfway through.

I’d always wanted to try home-made pizza on the barbecue, so when I stumbled upon this recipe I talked Jason into helping me test it out. The recipe includes the dough, too, but I already had a favorite dough recipe of ours, so I skipped the first step and continued on with steps two and three. It can get a little bit tricky the first time around, so it’s helpful to have everything ready when you step out to the grill - sauce (and a spoon), cheese, toppings all in bowls, bowl of oil with garlic (and brush) and if you are grilling two pizzas at once it might benefit you to have another person there to help. It’s hard to enjoy cooking if you’re stressed out about things burning or just unsure of what you are doing! I guarantee that after you taste this pizza it will be difficult to eat it any other way. Good luck!

A lean ground turkey burger, with garlic, served on an organic bun courtesy of Barowski’s. With lettuce, provolone, relish, vegan mayo, and mustard. Organic fries on the side.

Our family loves bagels and when we started eating healthier, it was difficult to find any that didn’t have either enriched flour or high fructose corn syrup or both. Rather than give up a food that we all enjoy, I tried a home-made bagel recipe found on allrecipes.com.

Substituting half whole wheat flour and half white wheat flour in place of the bread flour was the only change I made to this recipe. The bagels are very easy and quick to make using a bread machine and taste delicious - almost a cross between toast and a bagel.

At a recent trip to the Orono farmer’s market, we picked up some amazing herb sourdough bread. Here it’s holding ham, goat cheese, lettuce, vegan mayo and mustard.

We recently paid a visit to the first of the year Farmer’s Market here in Orono. The Orono Farmer’s Market runs twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, from May until October. We happened to attend our first one the Saturday before Mother’s Day and received a free pansy in celebration of Moms!

This is a shot of homemade goat-milk soap. They come in a variety of colors and scents and goat milk adds a nice moisturizing element. Since this was an initial trip to scope out the market for future use, we didn’t purchase too much. We bought a loaf of homemade rosemary parmesan bread, which we used to make the California Grilled Veggie Sandwich and also some fresh vegetarian spring rolls (which we couldn’t wait until lunch to eat). We plan to purchase as many fresh vegetables, fruits, cheeses and meats as we can throughout the coming months. Though some of the things here are more expensive than their supermarket counterparts, you cannot put a price on quality.