Better Ingredients = A Better Meal

As a singleton, you have some leeway when buying groceries. Since you aren't buying for a family of four, and therefore needing to clip endless coupons for the same few products found at the larger box retailers (you know which ones I'm referring to), you sometimes have the luxury to peruse smaller, specialty retailers offering a higher quality product. After all, that's what the internet and online shopping initially started out as before the larger retailers joined in and well, that's another blog post...

Locating authentic ingredients should be a high priority for anyone. Getting back to the basics, cutting out the junk (chemicals, animal by-products, etc) and knowing where your food comes from are all important factors to maintaining a healthy self. For instance, buying sub-par pasta gets you exactly what you paid - a product that tastes like cardboard. Pasta isn't bad for you if you a) have just the right serving and b) have a high-quality pasta, such as corn pasta. Gluten-free and with the right ingredients, this type of pasta will wake up your palette and make you glad you didn't order take out again.

Add to the pasta a batch of fresh tomato sauce and aromatic porcini mushrooms, and you've got yourself quite a dish. Anything imported from Italy is wonderful, especially these mushrooms which are anything but the highest quality. This can't be stressed enough: buy high quality when you can. Don't throw your budget out of the window but at the same time, know what to spend your money on. And good food is definitely worth your money for many reasons; your health being one of them.

For dessert, I'm going to share a recipe with you that I have made several times and enjoy very much. It's guilt-free and oh so Italian although I think the recipe is part of the South Beach Diet. In any case, basically, you mix in a small dessert bowl: ricotta cheese, vanilla extract, a touch of Splenda and mix it together. And enjoy! Remember, when choosing extracts, buy only the pure kind! In fact, I would even substitute Splenda for something more natural, such as Stevia or just a few sprinkles of raw cane sugar. Or you could just leave that out altogether. Actually, maybe add a few mini chocolate chips - yum!