Hoisin-Glazed Salmon

February is Love Your Heart Month
Heart Healthy Recipe: Hoisin-Glazed Salmon
4 Servings

Ingredients:
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dark sesame oil
4 salmon fillets
Directions:
In a bowl, combine  all ingredients. Pat fish dry and coat with sauce,let the fish set in sauce for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Grill fish for about 5 minutes per side or bake at 425* oven for 10 minutes.

Inspiration For Exercise: Running With Veronique

Exercise: This weeks inspiration for exercise is from my friend Veronique.

Veronique is a friend of mine who lives a very busy life, she owns has her own hair salon, in which she works on an average of 70 hours per week and she helps her father daily,  who now lives alone. One day she was telling me how she has never missed a day of running; she runs 3 miles EVERY day. I challenged her by asking her if she runs in the rain, she said yes, in the snow-yes, when she is exhausted from life-yes…

Most of us would have given up running if it rains. and snows, so I asked her how can you stay so committed to running and she said to me, I run because my mom asked me to. She went on to explain that her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago, and during her treatments Veronique took her mom to her chemo and radiation appointments, she made her dinner and cleaned her house, she did everything she could for her mother. Then her mom asked her to do one thing for her every day no matter what, she asked her to run.

Veronique’s mom used to be an avid runner, and when she began her treatments for cancer she didn’t have the strength to run anymore, so she asked her daughter to run for her because she could no longer run. Sadly, her mom passed away a few years ago, but to this day Veronique keeps her mom alive by running for her everyday.

5 Kitchen Products That Will Make Your Life Easier

The best kitchen appliances are the most useful ones, and these are some of
my favorites. These are time tested, useful kitchen appliances, that will make
your life easier. From saving time to saving energy, every cook needs help in the
kitchen, especially these days when everyone is busier than ever. All of these
items make cooking at home easier! Plus these items are great for your kids who
are living on their own.

1. Rice Cookers
If you like rice and you have varied results every time you make it, you need a rice cooker. There’s no guesswork involved at all. Simply add the suggested amount of rice, water, oil/butter and salt and off you go. These little time and dinner savers are so handy. Also, it allows you more stove top space for other foods so it’s extra helpful when you are having company over. Some rice makers are vegetable steamers too!

2. Slow Cookers
Slow cookers are simply fabulous. Load them up with all sorts of fresh
ingredients like potatoes, onions, carrots and meat and come home to a perfect
dinner. There’s nothing better than coming home to the wonderful smell of slow
cooked food. I recommend getting one with a timer in case you are late getting
home. For those who can’t stand the clean up, there are now liners available so
you just take the liner out, toss it in the trash, wash the slow cooker quickly and
you are free. Not only can you make stews and roasts, but chicken legs, thighs
and wings come out great. Hamilton Beach, Crock Pot and Cuisinart all make
nice programmable slow cookers.

3. Immersion Blenders
If you make soups and like to blend them, this is a must have kitchen appliance. Lentil soups, tomato or potato soups all come out fantastic with the help of an immersion blender. Instead of having to ladle hot liquids into a food processor, you put the blender directly into the soup. A good immersion blender can be good to mix so many other things as well. Use it to easily mix batters, whisk eggs or anything else you can think of. They don’t take up as much space as a food processor and they are extremely easy to clean.

4. Stand Mixers
There are so many things you can do with a stand mixer and KitchenAid makes
one of the best ones out there. It can be used to make batter, mix meats for
meatloaf or kebabs. It’s also useful for whipping egg whites and mayonnaise, not
to mention kneading breads or other doughs. For the person who loves to cook,
a good stand mixer is a must.

5. Knives and Chopping Boards
Having a good set of knives can save you a significant amount of time and energy. Instead of struggling through cutting tomatoes or even meat, having good sharp knives will literally cut your workload and speed up the cooking process. Protect your countertop and your knives by using a good cutting board. I recommend you buy a couple of different types of cutting boards. Bamboo is the choice of many environmentalists. As a hard grass, it is a sustainable, renewable resource that needs no chemicals to thrive or to be harvested. As far as we know, no independent studies have been done on how sanitary bamboo cutting boards are. However they do absorb less liquid than wooden boards, so many believe they are as sanitary or more sanitary than wood boards. Be aware that they are 19% harder than traditional maple cutting boards, so many also think that bamboo cutting boards are harder on knives than wood boards. Also, the small grooves may ever so slightly catch your knife, interrupting a smooth cutting action.

Just like mom used, a heavy wood board is kind to knives, and will not dull them quickly. A good maple or beech cutting board is somewhat self-healing, and thus won't scar as easily as a plastic board. Regularly oil your board with food-grade mineral oil to protect it from staining or warping, and please don't put it in the dishwasher. A well cared-for board will last you for years.

Should You Really R.S.V.P. These Days?

I am addressing this lesson to not only young adults but to some of my older adult friends as well. When you receive an invitation to a particular function and you see on the invitation the initials R.S.V.P., it stands for a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means to please reply.

The person sending the invitation would like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? For hosts who are planning an event it is very important to know how many guests will be coming to the function so they can plan the appropriate amount of food and beverages, it’s a cost and set up issue. If you have ever planned a party you know what I am talking about.

My feelings are that perhaps we should eliminate R.S.V.P. because not enough people follow the proper etiquette of an R.S.V.P. So maybe if we wrote “Please call me about the details of the party then you can tell me whether or not you are going to come.” This way we get our answer right away. Invitations can come by mail or online, but our response to an invitation should be to reply with either type of invitation.

Have you ever wondered why we use these initials? There have always been rules of courtesy to follow in civilization, many of the practices of Western etiquette, came from the French court of King Louis XIV in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. At Versailles, his palace, Louis XIV had the rules for court behavior written on what the French referred to as "tic-kets," or "étiquette." The tickets either were signs posted at Versailles or the invitations issued to court events with the rules of behavior printed on the back; experts give different versions of the origin. And French was the language of refinement and high society through the 19th century in the United States. But in time
most things change, today I see more frequently on invitations "regrets only" in the invitation, which means that the host will count on your being there unless you tell him or her otherwise.
So B4N. (Bye for now)
No need to R.S.V.P.