Lentils and More Winter Recipes

In the past hour, the weather has gone from mostly clear and sunny to about as dark and stormy as it's likely to get in Florida--and I love it! I know a lot of you would probably kill for some of my typical Florida weather right now, but one of my favorite things to do is cook a warm, comforting meal with the wind and rain rocking away outside.

I'm about to go do just that, but first I wanted to supply you with a slew of recipes perfect for stormy weather. An essay I wrote on the long history of the lentil was published on NPR.org today, along with three of my original recipes:

• Wine-Braised Lentils with Mustard-Glazed Salmon
• Curried Red Lentil Soup with Raita
• Brown Lentils with Chorizo and Orange Salsa

I hope you'll click over to the story and check them out! Though I cringe when tooting my own horn (I'm literally cringing right now), I also want to invite you to take a look at some recipes stories I have out in a few magazines this month. I wrote about healthy and immune-boosting recipes with citrus in the February issue of Shape (including a dessert that fits into your diet plans for the new year). I developed a handful of Italian recipes for the Jan./Feb. issue of Clean Eating that re-think some favorite dishes in a healthy way. And I came up with creative ways to eat in-season grapefruit for the Jan. issue of Vegetarian Times, as well as grain recipes with just 5 ingredients.

I don't think any of these are online yet (update: you can see the story on the "flip through the mag" feature on the Clean Eating site), but maybe you already subscribe to one or all of these mags! I don't usually see my work in so many different places at the same time (freelancing is all about "feast or famine"), so it's kind of fun to share a whole bunch at once. Most of these seasonal recipes were developed months ago in the midst of summer (and I'm currently working on a couple summer projects now!).

Thank you so much for all your kind comments and emails! It's a heck of a lot easier to share my work accomplishments with such an encouraging and friendly bunch of readers!