It's a pumpkin season! Pumpkins and squashes are abundant in stores, and prices are low. Great time to try some new squash recipes, don't you think? I thought so, and I have added the whole Squash cookbook to my free resources on www.choose-healthy-food.com. Go ahead, download it now. Surely, you can find something to your liking among its 263 recipes.

Here is one of the book's many recipes, a healthy* squash dip, great appetizer that can be prepared very fast... if you use my squash-cooking tricks. Here are my tips how to make cooking squash quicker and easier:

• Instead of halving and seeding that raw squash as recipes usually require, put a whole squash in the oven every time you bake something else. It saves time and effort on cutting and washing baking sheets.
• Scoop it out, seed it, and store part of it in the fridge, and part in the freezer.
• Pull it out when the time comes, add whatever else the recipe calls for, and impress your family and guests with your healthy meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 1 tsp olive oil ( instead of 3 tbsp as in the original recipe)
• 1 whole head garlic
• 1 (11 ounce) log goat cheese
• 1 lemon, juiced ( I found 1/2 lemon better. Add portion by portion to find what tastes better for you)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees, bake a whole squash for about 45 minutes, until it can be easily pearsed with a fork.
• Cut the top of the garlic head, sprinkle it with olive oil, wrap in the aluminum foil, and bake.
• Cut the squash, remove seeds, scoop it out of its skin, and place in the bowl.
• Squeeze garlic out of their skins into the bowl with squash.
• Mash until smooth.
• Stir in goat cheese and lemon until well blended. Serve warm or at room temperature with walnuts sprinkled on the top.

Enjoy!

Olga.

P.S. In the next newsletter, I will share my new findings about correct use of cooking oils. This may be especially important for you if you suffer from asthma, allergic reactions of any sorts, or weakened immune system. Some of this information is already available here, but there is many more interesting findings that I intend to publish in the near future.

P.P.S. If you find this message helpful, please forward it to your friends and family and let them know that they, too, can subscribe to Healthy Bits and get access to free reports and cookbooks. Everyone deserves great health!

P.P.P.S. If you are clicking on links and receiving "Page not found" message, this is because your mail client may not interpret them right, underlining only a part of it. I don't know at the moment how to correct this issue, except by asking you to copy and paste the whole link into the new window of the internet browser of your choice. You can also e-mail me and I can send you the link to a cookbook. Sorry for the inconvenience!