Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

About 15 years ago I was at a small café in Rome with my sister. I ordered a sandwich with prosciutto, cheese and tomatoes. They pressed it. It was my first panini. I needed more. I was in love. Thankfully, since then the panini has made it big here in the U.S. You can get them at local delis, the airport and if they're not there already, they'll certainly make it to your favorite donut shop soon.

They're also super-easy to do at home. I make them for a quick dinner. The Southwestern Cheese Panini in this picture is one of my favorite combinations. It includes shredded carrots, zucchini, salsa, cheese and the crowning touch….pickled jalapeños. And I always have tuna on hand so I often make our Mediterranean Tuna Panini and serve it with my favorite green salad on the side. And if I'm feeling ambitious I slice up some potatoes (with the skin on to get the fiber and potassium) for oven fries.

Get more yummy panini recipes »

Of course if you love panini as much as I do, you

Chilaquiles CasseroleAre you a vegetable-phobe? Or maybe you have a kid who won't eat anything but iceberg lettuce in a salad or your husband (like mine!) swears that parsnips are only good for the compost bin. Let me offer you a glimmer of hope: it can take as many as 10 to 15 tastes before a person will learn to appreciate a new flavor, so don't give up just yet. Use April Fools' Day as an opportunity to add some vegetables to your picky eater's diet. Here are a few ways to sneak some vegetables into meals so good they will ask for seconds (don't miss our video that shows you how to make Baked Mac & Cheese healthy). And in case you were wondering, I've been stealthily adding parsnips to a blend of roasted vegetables and Dan has no clue!

1. When cooking pasta: Near the end of the cooking time, add your favorite vegetable to the boiling water, drain and combine it with the sauce.
Try this: No-Bake Macaroni & Cheese

2. Finely shred zucchini or summer squash and add it to casseroles. The mild

When I'm feeling a little under the weather, nothing makes me feel better than a cup of tea, lightened with milk and sweetened with honey. I've always assumed this "cure" works because of some sort of placebo effect: drinking tea when you're sick is supposed to make you feel better.

But many people would argue that it's the honey in my tea that's helping to get me healthy. To believe the theories about honey's healing powers, I needed to see bona fide science supporting them. And when I dug into the research on honey's health boons, I was happy to discover that while some may be too-good-to-be-true, others are just plain true. Here's what I found:

Can honey help you lose weight? In a 2008 study in the Journal of Food Science, scientists reported that rats fed a diet sweetened with honey gained 23 percent less weight than those who ate refined sugar. The researchers suggested that antioxidants in the honey might have made the rats burn more calories. But not all honey is rich

Green Goddess SaladI'm really into salads. I don't mean I like to eat them a lot. I mean I'm totally salad-crazed to the point where it's a little embarrassing. Most days I bring a salad for lunch. I toss it with dressing in a big bowl and then I try and put it on a plate. But inevitably my salad is so large that it's hanging off the plate and I'm losing lettuce off the side as I go sit down to eat.

Around the EatingWell Test Kitchen, when we decide on serving sizes for our salad recipes, we often judge them on whether they're a "Jessie-sized portion" (falling-off-the-plate) or a normal portion. We usually come up with a reasonable compromise that's plenty generous and will fill you up. To me the fact that you can have a big delicious serving of salad without going overboard in terms of calories is awesome. I don't like to feel I have to eat a skimpy, wimpy little serving in order to watch my weight. And salads are perfect for that. (Check out the video I did with Nicci, our nutrition editor, on

Yummy chicken recipes are always good inspiration for creating a healthy dinner.When I was younger, I believed (or wanted to believe) that fad diets might actually work. I thought that if I could just stick to a strict regimen for two or three weeks, I'd drop the weight. Then, I could go back to eating whatever I wanted. Silly me. Luckily, with age comes wisdom and now I know that staying slim and healthy requires a long-term plan.

To keep lost pounds from creeping back, you need to sustain the same healthy habits that helped you to lose it in the first place. Follow these five steps and stay thin for life!

1. Plan your meals ahead of time. Be sure to include a source of lean protein-which helps you feel full longer-at every meal or snack. Yummy chicken recipes and fish recipes are always good inspiration for creating a healthy dinner-or try centering your meal around a tofu- or bean-based dish.

2. Keep a food diary to track your calories-and to make notes of which situations and foods help you to stick with your goals and which ones make staying on

Prosciutto-Wrapped AsparagusI love spring, but there are some things about spring I don't love so much. Being woken up in the middle of the night by the oh-so-loud chorus of peepers (aka cute little frogs), for instance. Or walking my dog through ankle-deep mud at the park so she doesn't destroy our apartment due to lack of exercise. But things start to look up a bit on those walks when I see the first bright red buds on maple trees and smell that iconic "spring" smell in the air. Then I see them: my neighbor's first stalks of asparagus poking through the ground. That's my signal to get to the farmers' market for the first local asparagus of the year.

Then it's time to get cooking. Though I love über-simple roasted asparagus (toss with oil, salt and pepper and roast at 450°F for 15-20 minutes), a little fanfare is fun too. I love wrapping thin slices of prosciutto around bundles of asparagus (recipe below) and tossing them on the grill for a bit to make delicious side dish for entertaining. And speaking of

Most Americans-me included-are looking for ways to lower their grocery bills. I don't bother trying to crunch numbers at the grocery store because I'm not very good at doing math in my head. (And I wouldn't want to be seen walking around with a calculator.) So, to stick to my food budget, I start with an affordable and nutritious main ingredient and use these recipes to build a budget-friendly meal around it.

Here are six nutritious money savers to toss in your shopping cart:

On the off chance that we run into each other at the grocery store, I guarantee you'll find me poring over the ingredient list on the back of a package. I love food shopping and often spend hours perusing the aisles in search of the healthiest-and cheapest-items on the shelves. Then I head home to make delicious budget-friendly meals. But when I go to the store with my fiancé (who hates to shop), it has to be a quick in-and-out. Only price comparisons allowed! There's no time to find the most nutritious cereal, pasta sauce, soup, etc. It's sooo frustrating!

My savior: The latest rating system to hit supermarkets awards points to foods based on how nutritious they are. This easy-to-use tool allows me to compare foods sitting side-by-side on the grocery shelf.

Here's how some common items in my grocery cart stack up:

Orange (100) vs. Apple (96)

An orange's high vitamin C, folate and potassium content give it a perfect score. Apples, high in fiber yet relatively