Lightly-sweetened jams make delicious
cheese garnishes. Photo courtesy
Artisanal Cheese.

Portuguese pumpkin jam is a delicate, autumn-spiced cheese condiment. It’s a colorful addition to any cheese platter and pairs especially well with aged sheep’s milk cheeses.

Artisanal Cheese sells an artisanally-produced pumpkin jam, made in small batches using a generations-old family recipe. The jars are $9.00 each at ArtisanalCheese.com.

• See more cheese condiments and a pairing guide.
• Learn all about cheese in our Cheese Section.

One option is to wrap it and stick it in the freezer. But bread easily picks up freezer odors; and even half a loaf takes up a decent amount of room.

To the rescue: Bread Armor artisan bread bags that are reusable and recyclable. These FDA approved, high-performance storage bags keep your artisan loaves fresh longer. They’re sized to fit baguettes and other French breads, ciabatta, rustic loaves and more.

In addition to preserving leftover bread for a week or more, it also keeps your fresh bread from drying between the time you purchase it in the morning or afternoon, until dinnertime.

Bread Armor keeps bread fresh for a week
or more. Photo courtesy Bread Armor.

You can order the bags at BreadArmor.com. They’re $2.99 each, with discounts for quantities.

While plastic bread bags may seem an unexciting house gift or stocking stuffer, anyone who receives a set will be grateful to you.

[1] Sunsweet Ones make it easy to tote healthy, individually wrapped prunes. (photo © Sunsweet).

October 17th is Four Prunes Day. It may sound like a funny name for a food celebration. But four prunes are the minimum of what people who want more “digestive regularity” should take per day (up to a maximum of 9 prunes a day).

The year’s prune holidays:

 
We love prunes and prune juice. But many Americans steer clear of them, perhaps because of their association with regularity, which goes back to before great-grandmother’s day. A campaign several years back tried to change the name of prunes to “dried plums” (which is what prunes are) to make them more appealing.

But as anyone who has ever made a pork or chicken roast with stuffed prunes knows, the dried fruits are delicious on their own. One of our favorite hors d’oeuvre is prunes stuffed with chicken liver mousse (you can marinate the prunes in Cognac overnight before stuffing).

The 21st-century view of healthy prunes should be as a high-antioxidant* fruit full of fiber†, potassium‡ and magnesium. A clinical study currently underway indicates that prunes may have the ability to reduce bone loss in post-menopausal women and may help fight osteoporosis.
 
 
PERFECT FOR SNACKING

While dried fruits such as prunes are easy to tote around for a healthy snack, Sunsweet Growers has made it even easier with Sunsweet Ones, which are individually wrapped. Four prunes have approximately 100 calories.

Some say that prunes are a good remedy for a sore throat. With cold season approaching, we’ll have to try that!
 
> The history of prunes and their nutrition values.

> Delicious was to serve prunes at every meal.

*Prunes’ high betacarotene content can help prevent cancer and help slow aging of the brain and body.

†Prunes are a good source of whole fruit fiber, and this may help keep hunger pangs at bay.

‡Studies suggest that potassium may help prevent hypertension and stroke. It may also play a role in helping support cell energy by regulating fluid balance, nerve impulses and muscle contraction to increase energy. Source: Sunsweet.
 

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