TIP OF THE DAY: Diet Baked Apples

Diet baked apples: Make them in the oven or microwave, eat them warm or chilled. Photo © J. Volodina | IST.   When you’re trying to cut back, dessert is the trickiest course to navigate. Personally, we avoid all “reduced calorie” versions of fattening desserts. It’s better to have a small piece of the good…
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RECIPE: Pandoro Tiramisu

Use pandoro instead of ladyfingers or sponge cake to make tiramisu. Photos courtesy Bauli.   If you received a pandoro for Christmas, or see them marked down after Christmas, don’t let them sit: Turn them into dessert. Pandoro is a lighter version of sponge cake, sometimes accented with lemon zest. You slice it and eat…
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Cranberry Mimosa Cocktail Recipe For Christmas & Valentine’s Day

Make Cranberry Mimosa cocktails or mocktails. Photo courtesy Ocean Spray.   There’s still time to create a signature drink for Christmas: a Cranberry Mimosa cocktail or mocktail. It combines cranberry juice with sparkling wine (or ginger ale), instead of the orange juice of a traditional Mimosa. Or use cranberry liqueur for a Cranberry Kir Royale,…
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Make A Figgy Pudding (a.k.a. Christmas Pudding, Plum Pudding)

“Oh, bring us figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer,” goes the carol, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” Don’t know the carol? Sing with the bouncing ball. If you start now, you can have a homemade figgy pudding at Christmas.     WHAT’S A FIGGY PUDDING? A distant cousin of the fruit cake,…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Winter Fruit Compote

First: What’s a compote? A popular medieval European dessert that faded out of style in the mid-20th century, compote (COM-poat), also referred to as poached or stewed fruit, is mix of fruits cooked in a syrup. Although a single fruit can be cooked in the same manner, a variety is more interesting. In fact, the…
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