Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

By Matthew Thompson, Associate Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine

When New Year's Eve rolls around, you won't find me on the couch waiting for a ball to drop. I love a good New Year's Eve party. What's not to love? Close friends, a few celebratory toasts, all the optimism of a new year and the promise of the new, better self you resolve to be.

But you don't need a white-tie gala ball to celebrate! All it takes is a few friends, a living room and, of course, some tasty snacks to serve as you ring in the new year. And you don't have to get too fancy-you can make delicious, elegant appetizers from ingredients you probably have sitting in your pantry. Even better: you can make them without turning on your stove.

Need proof? Here are 5 delicious appetizers to try this New Year's:

Marinated Olives & Feta
Olives and feta marinated with rosemary, lemon and garlic are great served on crisp flatbread-style crackers or warm slices of crusty baguette.
Get the Recipe:

By Jessie Price, Deputy Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine and Cassidy Tawse-Garcia

One telling sign that a career in food was a good fit for me was that I've always loved grocery shopping. I can happily spend hours browsing the aisles just to see if I might discover something I haven't noticed before. Lucky for me, I'm the food editor of EatingWell Magazine and I get to talk with our team of cooks in the EatingWell Test Kitchen about their daily supermarket shopping trips and the new things they've noticed during their trips up and down the aisles.

All that shopping and talking helped us come up with this list of trendy foods for 2012. Whether a food has become ubiquitous in the stores, something that's generating media coverage or simply something that our readers and fans are buzzing about, each of the foods on our list of the top 15 trendy, healthy foods is having a moment.

Don't Miss: Top Food Trends of 2011
Top 5 Food News Stories of 2011

Agave-Derived from the

By Matthew Thompson, Associate Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine

My wife and I are just stunned by what happens to our bank account in December. Like an odometer in reverse, you can almost count the miles (and dollars!) rolling off our debit card. There are gifts, of course, but then add in the travel, the special meals and decorations and, well, all that holiday cheer can put the hurt on your pocketbook.

But even as we try to figure out just how much yuletide treasure we can afford, there's one thing I'm confident about: Christmas dinner. No matter how frugal we have to make our festivity, it's always possible to cook a delicious, filling feast for a reasonable price.

Need proof? Check out this Christmas dinner menu. It comes out to less than $5 per serving and even includes a sumptuous dessert. Don't worry about being a Scrooge: this is a true celebratory dinner!

A few quick caveats: When I say $5 per serving, I mean that this is the cost of the actual

By Hilary Meyer, Associate Food Editor, EatingWell Magazine

I love everything about cheesecake-the sweet taste with just a hint of saltiness, the creamy texture and the sweet graham cracker crust. What's not to love? Well, I can think of one thing: how I feel after I've eaten only a small slice. That would be guilt mixed with the sensation that I just swallowed a brick. Cheesecake may have the reputation of being tasty, but being healthy has never been one of its virtues.
Recipes to Try: 10 Light and Healthy Cheesecake Recipes

As an associate food editor at EatingWell Magazine and a recipe developer in our test kitchen I'm always looking for a way to have my cake and eat it too. And I think I've found it with EatingWell's Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap-Walnut Crust, developed by Katie Webster. How does it stack up nutritionally? It's got 307 calories and only 5 grams of saturated fat. Compare that to a slice of pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, which

By Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D. Associate Nutrition Editor for EatingWell Magazine

Embracing the flavors and produce of each season is not only more delicious (out-of-season fruits and vegetables tend to be mealy shadows of their in-season selves), it also helps me to get a more varied diet throughout the year. Although there are fewer foods that are in-season in winter than summer, there are some surprising health superstars. Here are 5 of the healthiest winter foods you should be eating.
Find out: The #1 Food You Should Eat (and Probably Aren't)

1. Pomegranates-Chances are you've tasted pomegranates in their newly popular juice form. And from a heart-health perspective, that's probably a good thing. Pomegranate juice is rich in antioxidants (more so than other fruit juices)-just a cup daily might help to keep free radicals from oxidizing "bad" LDL cholesterol, according to a preliminary study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Oxidized LDL contributes to

By Nicci Micco, M.S., editor-at-large for EatingWell Magazine

It's the holidays and you're supposed to be enjoying yourself! Problem is, you're reading all these blogs about how fattening eggnog is, so you'll have to borrow Santa's pants after the string of holiday soirees you've got lined up.
Related: Which Is Healthier: Hot Chocolate or Eggnog?

Today, I'd like to bring you a little good cheer, to tell you about three holiday foods that might actually help you lose weight. Cue: Little Drummer Boy… Drumroll, please.

Holiday Weight-Loss Wonder #1: Pistachios. Various studies show that people who eat nuts tend to be leaner than those who don't, and a recent Harvard study revealed that nuts are a top food for driving weight loss. Read the full list: Top 5 Foods for Weight Loss (and 5 That Make You Gain). Pistachios, in particular, are a great choice: a 1-ounce serving (157 calories) contains a generous 49 nuts. The ones you have to shell yourself are even better, as

By Hilary Meyer, Associate Food Editor, EatingWell Magazine

No holiday cookie platter is complete without gingerbread cookies. I love them because they're simple, delicious and fun to make. But not every gingerbread cookie is created equal. Of course you want to offer your friends and family the best possible cookie. So here are a few tips to help you create the perfect gingerbread cookies:

Don't Miss:
Our Top Prize-Winning Holiday Cookies
Irresistible Cookies for 100 Calories or Less

1) Lighten Them Up-It's easy to make gingerbread cookies healthier thanks to the bold flavor they get from molasses and spices. Cinnamon, ginger and cloves can easily mask the flavor of whole-wheat flour (which we use plenty of in our cookie recipes without a noticeable change in the result). And the rich flavor of molasses makes it easier to cut back on butter-a source of saturated fat. Since you do need some fat in cookies, we replace the butter with a little canola oil, which is mild in

By Matthew Thompson, Associate Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine

It's been a big year in food news. Here's a look, in no particular order, at 5 of the food trends of 2011, the stories that propelled them to the top and what you can learn from them:

1. The USDA's Food Pyramid Turned Into MyPlate
After years of helping us make healthy eating decisions with its famous Food Pyramid, the USDA changed its favored icon of healthy eating in June to… (drumroll please) a dinner plate. Intended to help Americans visualize the right balance of fruits, grains, vegetables, meat and dairy, the new design did away with the counting of servings that was central to their old model-will future generations even know what it means to "get your 5 a day" of vegetables? Though the emphasis on balance is a fantastic step in the right direction, the USDA's icon certainly had some holes in it. Get the inside scoop on MyPlate's pros and cons from our Nutrition Editor.

2. A Deadly Listeria Outbreak