me + funnel cake = love. or fear. tricky.

Ah, the new year. A time for celebration with friends, a time of remembrance of things past and a time to look forward to what the future holds. A time to make resolutions and promises and (hopefully!) not break them.

Normally, I’m not one to follow the trend of making New Year’s resolutions. This is mostly because I’m not so good at keeping them. There was that one year when I vowed never to procrastinate — then I procrastinated on my resolution to stop procrastinating.

Then there was the year I promised myself I’d keep a daily journal — my last entry was on January 21.

There also have been, of course, many years when I’ve written in permanent ink, on multiple sheets of paper, Word documents and all over my hands, that I WILL exercise more this year. And, more importantly, I WILL eat healthier. You can guess how well that resolution also has gone.


I’ve noticed a lot of other people have made the same resolution — it’s undoubtedly a common one after the (oh so delicious) gluttony of the holidays. In keeping with their “healthy eating” resolutions, I’ve noticed a few other bloggers are giving up, among sweets and processed foods, bread. Egads! As a bread baker and fellow blogger, you can imagine how this makes me feel.

For those of you out there who think you need to give up bread to be healthier this year, I’m here to tell you, you don’t. And though I am a teensy bit biased, I also am trying to eat healthier this year, and I won’t be giving up on bread. Instead, I’ll be focusing on healthier bread recipes, such as:

cheddar squash muffin.

Cheddar Squash Muffins, a.k.a. a delicious, savory (and of course, healthy) muffin, perfect with a big salad for dinner.

organic beer bread.

Organic Beer Bread. Because anything with beer that’s also healthy is worth making.

deli style rye.

Deli Style Rye. What it lacks in calories and fat, it makes up for in flavor.

wheat naan.

And finally (but certainly not limited to) Wheat Naan. Indian food carries enough of a caloric punch that its bread sidekick doesn’t need to contribute.

Though I’m all for cutting down on candy, chocolate (sigh) and processed foods, bread is the one food I cannot (and don’t need to) give up on in my resolution to be healthier in 2011. And with these healthy bread recipes under your belt, well, neither do you.