When there's a chill in the air I'm always craving something warm, hearty, and in a bowl. Soups and stews generally take the place of salads and sandwiches. Herein lies the problem, though - Time. You can throw together a salad and sandwich in a few minutes, but your only quick soup and stew options are from a can, right? Wrong.

Soup From A Can Sucks

Where do I begin with the suckage that is soup from a can? How do they pack so much sodium and preservatives in canned soup yet it still tastes like dishwater? Flavorless and containing few quality ingredients, you're lucky to get the amount of veggies and meat inside the whole can that are floating in the picture on the label.

The cool days of Fall are now upon us and that means one thing to me - chili season. I love chili in all of it's traditional formats. Meat, beans, tomatoes, and strong flavors of cumin and dried chiles are what I consider to be key for a delicious bowl of red. Lately however, I've been leaving out the meat to make the dish lighter and I really haven't missed it.

The dog days of summer are officially over and I'm not missing the heat at all. I will, however, be missing all of the fresh local produce at our farmers market on Sundays. It's such a great experience to go buy locally grown and produced products from small farms and purveyers of goods and it's become a staple of our spring and summer. Aside from the excellent prices, quality, and sustainable methods, it's great to meet the actual people that are producing your food and who take pride in bringing you their best. To read further about our love of buying local, check out our recent blog post.

I think most of us can agree on one thing - pizza is delicious. It's the perfect marriage of crispy crust, tangy tomato sauce, and creamy melted cheese. Often times it can be topped with other tasty toppings that add to this trifecta of flavor, however why is pizza often targeted as an unhealthy food that is the downfall of every diet? Why is it any different than a sandwich that has bread, cheese, meat and veggies?

Nudge knows that sometimes it can be difficult to eat healthy. Not only can it be time consuming to make a nutritious meal from scratch, it can be expensive too. That's why it's great to have a fallback recipe when you don't have the time or money for a fancy meal.

Meatless Monday is a trend that’s getting a lot of mention lately. The idea is to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat alternatives. By avoiding meat once a week, it’s been shown that you may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. It can also reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.