The old “Five A Day” rule has been replaced, recognizing that age and activity level have a greater bearing on what you should consume. For example, women ages 19 to 50 who are moderately active should have two servings of fruit and three servings of veggies a day.

Here’s an informative site from the Produce For Better Health Foundation, that explains what a “portion” is and has charts for how many portions you need.

Put a calendar on your refrigerator door and write out what fruits and vegetables you’ll eat on a daily basis. You can print out blank calendar pages at Printable2012Calendar.com. (If you read this in a different year, just change the date from 2012l.)

Photo of spinach courtesy VegetablesGrowing.com.

And start the new year with a easy sautéed spinach recipe from one of the great American chefs, Chef Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar & Grill in New York City. The simple yet tasty ingredients include nutrition-rich, high-antioxidant spinach; heart-healthy olive oil; and garlic, another powerful antioxidant.

SPINACH IN GARLIC BUTTER/GARLIC OIL

Ingredients

A 70-calorie snack with 6 grams of protein.
Photo courtesy American Egg Board.

Snack on hard-cooked eggs. Most people call them hard-boiled eggs, but the proper term is hard-cooked: The eggs are not boiled. After the water comes to a boil, the eggs are removed from the stove to cook in the water.

But boiled or hard-cooked, January is National Egg Month. According to the American Egg Board, one large egg contains about 70 calories and 6 grams of protein, 12.6% of the Daily Reference Value (DRV) for protein.

Eggs are an all-natural food that are packed with nutrients. One egg has 13 essential vitamins, unsaturated fats, antioxidants and high-quality protein—all for 70 calories. Egg protein is the highest quality protein of any food. One egg, any size, is equal to one ounce of lean meat, poultry, fish or seafood.

Beyond weight management, egg nutrients help with muscle strength, brain function, eye health and a healthy pregnancy.

Convinced? Here’s an easy way to integrate hard-cooked eggs, a healthy snack, into your life:

• Every Sunday, hard-cook a dozen eggs. You can leave them in the shell or peel the entire dozen and keep them in an airtight container. If you leave them in the shell, you should still put the eggs in an airtight container (or in a bowl covered tightly with plastic wrap), since the shells are very porous and will absorb refrigerator odors.
• Here’s how to make perfect eggs.
• Enjoy an egg for a quick snack at home, or take one on the road. Cooked eggs are delicious as is, but you can bring packets of salt, pepper, mustard, soy sauce or other condiments. In the office, we enjoy our egg snack with a bit of Dijon mustard, fresh-cracked pepper, hot sauce or salsa.

Instead of grabbing a snack with empty carbs, too much fat, sugar and/or sodium, you’ll have made an eggcellent choice.

What about eggs and cholesterol? If you have high cholesterol, discuss how many you can eat with your healthcare provider. Everybody else: enjoy and read these egg cholesterol facts.

Say what?

Yes, indeed: Toasting dry, uncooked pasta in a dry pan over medium heat adds a nutty depth of flavor.

You can toast any dry shape, from elbows to bow ties to orzo to wagon wheels. Place the pasta in a dry heated pan over medium heat and use a wooden spoon to move the pasta around for a few minutes. The pasta will turn a browner shade and will give off a toasty aroma.

Then, simply cook the pasta as you normally would, in boiling salted water.

When everyone asks what’s “different” about the pasta, clue them in to toasting.

Before you boil or bake it, toast it! Photo
by Suzsanna Kilian | SXC.

• Find more tips and pasta recipes in our Gourmet Pasta Section.
• See all the types of pasta in our Pasta Glossary.

Exquisite warm chocolate “pudding,” or
steamed cake. Photo by Jody Horton | Sticky
Toffee Pudding Co. Garnishes not included.

These English “puddings” are steamed cakes. Steaming—instead of conventional baking—creates a super-dense and super-moist cakelike dessert that is simply irresistible. One can only wonder why steamed puddings haven’t replaced the ubiquitous chocolate lava cake on restaurant menus.

We love every product from the Sticky Toffee Pudding Company, which include English Lemon Pudding, Molten Chocolate Baby-Cake, Sticky Ginger Pudding and Sticky Toffee Pudding. The new Warm Chocolate and Almond Pudding is just as spectacular—even more so for chocolate lovers. It’s a celestial chocolate experience, worth going out of your way for. (Warning: THE NIBBLE is not responsible for any addiction that ensues—we’ve got our own to deal with.)

These desserts are the epitome of “rich and moist.” With its intensely fine chocolate flavor, Warm Chocolate And Almond Pudding is worthy of being our last indulgence of 2010. It is an ultimate chocolate experience. (The almond component is the rich and flavorful almond meal used instead of white flour.)

More good news: The desserts are shelf stable, although refrigerating upon arrival is recommended to extend the shelf life. The puddings can be refrigerated for four weeks, and freeze beautifully for up to 6 months. Plan ahead and you’ll always have a pudding in the fridge or freezer when you need a great dessert.

If you owe someone a belated holiday gift, he/she won’t complain that these arrived late.

• Six individual puddings are $30.00 at StickyToffeePuddingCompany.com.
• Read our review of the Sticky Toffee Pudding Company.
• Find more of our favorite desserts and recipes in our Gourmet Desserts Section.

All you need are cupcake liners, a muffin tin, chocolate wafer cookies, a quart of your favorite ice cream (we like a pint each of chocolate chip or mint chocolate chip, but any flavor is delicious) plus the chocolate whipped cream topping: heavy cream, cocoa powder and confectioners’ sugar.

While these “cupcakes” use cookie crumbs to simulate the cake, you can substitute actual cake or brownies, using a cookie cutter to cut rounds that fit into the cupcake wrappers.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

ICE CREAM CUPCAKES RECIPE

1. Leave ice cream on counter to soften slightly (or you can microwave a quart for 20 seconds).

Turn ice cream and cookie crumbs into an
Ice Cream Cupcake. Photo courtesy
Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

3. Insert 12 cupcake wrappers into a large muffin tin. Line each cupcake wrapper with cookie crumbs, 2 to 3 tablespoons per cupcake.

4. Scoop ice cream into large round balls and add a ball to each cupcake wrapper. (If you can’t make the scoops round enough, shape them with your hands.) Place muffin tin in freezer.

5. Make whipped cream topping: Sift 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar and 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa onto a sheet of waxed paper. Begin to whip 1 cup of cold, heavy cream, gradually adding in the sugar-cocoa mixture. Whip for approximately 4 minutes, until the whipped cream is the consistency of shaving cream.

6. Using a spatula, frost the ice cream cupcakes with the whipped cream and sprinkle the whipped cream with any remaining cookie crumbs. (You can use other garnishes you have at hand: chocolate chips, coconut flakes, nuts and so forth.) Return cupcakes to freezer until ready to serve.

Find more recipes in our Ice Cream Section.