To celebrate the end (almost) of the Tour de France bicycle race, get on your bike today.

• Take a family bike ride – kids on their own bikes or in a trailer.
• Ride to a park and have a picnic.
• Ride around the neighborhood.
• Use your bike as primary transportation – use it for today’s errands.
• Find an empty school parking lot and compete in sprints with your friends.
• Get on a bike trail and take a long, leisurely ride.

Don’t have a bike? Rent one or borrow one. See how you like it. You may find that it’s just the exercise you’ve been looking for.

Photo by toadsith

If you’re feeling down, then take a hike.

Young women who walk at least 4 miles (about 7500 steps) a day are half as likely to experience depression as more sedentary women, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Break the distance into smaller segments if you need to – walk to the next bus or subway stop, walk at lunch or on a break, take the stairs, walk after work, walk in the evening.

So get your mental health in order, and take a walk.

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Streamline (or is that “steamline?”) your laundry process so that ironing never gets out of hand.

I made a New Year’s Resolution back in ‘08 that my bedroom would no longer have two baskets of laundry waiting to be folded.

I bought a small square basket for about $4.00 at Home Goods. It has a pretty liner to match my laundry room. I now fold everything when it comes out of the dryer and any ironing goes in that basket. It holds enough ironing to keep me busy for a good hour.

When I watch my favorite one hour show (or an hour-and-a-half DVD if I let the basket overflow), I get all my ironing done!

~ Coach Mary Beth

VegNews is doing their annual Veggie Awards, and there are categories for favorite restaurants, products, authors, and websites. Write-in votes are encouraged!

So vote for Marilu in categories like favorite celebrity, cookbook author, and website. When you vote, you’re entered in a prize drawing, too.

Vote here!

According to VegNews, ballots must include identifying information and be at least 50% complete to qualify for prizes. Entries must be received between July 1 and July 31, 2009 at midnight. Nominees are based on the companies receiving the most votes in the 2008 Veggie Awards, and you are encouraged to submit write-in votes.

Happy voting!

Thanks to member Bev Topeka for the information!

Find ways to make your idle time useful. Wasted time is wasted opportunity.

• While you’re waiting in line, exercise. No one will know if you’re doing kegels. Or stand on one leg and rotate the ankle of your other foot (clockwise and counterclockwise) – or point and flex your feet. Rotate your wrists. Stretch your neck. Roll your shoulders. Correct your posture. If you think you can disguise squats by dropping something and picking it up (repeatedly), go for it.
• While you’re stuck in a waiting room, organize your life. Check your email and calendar. Listen to phone messages. Draft a memo you’re supposed to write. Clean out the garbage from your purse or wallet. Plan your menus. Write a shopping list.
• While you’re trapped in the car, educate yourself. Listen to a cd that will boost your career or personal skills. Tune into a radio program that expresses different views from your own, and try to see the other side – or find ways to refute it. Learn a new language. Listen to music that’s new to you (get cd’s free from your library).

Photo by Jasper Greek Golangco

Are you getting a full body check from your dermatologist each year?

It’s a good idea. You can’t see every place you need to check for changes in your skin – changes that could be early signs of melanoma.

But you’re not off the hook. Once a month, get naked in front of a full-length mirror. Check everyplace you can see, and don’t forget oddball places – like under your fingernails, your scalp, behind your ears, between your toes, and on your genitals. Yes, you can get melanoma even where the sun doesn’t shine.

Things to look for:

• a mole that changes size, shape, or color
• a spot that crusts or scabs
• a pimple-like lesion that won’t heal
• a scaly, rough patch

If caught early, melanoma can be easy to manage. Don’t let it get past that point.

Buy something today for you and your partner (and/or best friend) that you both can enjoy.

Whether it’s theater tickets, a sporting event, a gallery show, a concert, or a gift card to Victoria’s Secret, you’re bound to put a smile on a loved one’s face.

What to do with all those veggies you planted? Here are a couple of ideas.

What a Tomato Salad
from Marilu’s Healthy Life Kitchen
Purple * serves 4

2 Italian plum tomatoes, cut in half
2 garden beefsteak tomatoes, sliced
8 small yellow pear tomatoes, sliced or whole
Fresh basil
Fresh marjoram
Fresh black pepper

Have fun arranging the tomatoes. Cut them into slices, wedges, or halves. Arrange basil leaves in between and put a stem of marjoram lying over the top. Season with pepper. Serve plain or with a good herb-infused olive oil.

Photo by Steve Woods

Spicy Cucumber Salad
Purple * serves 2

2 cucumbers
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon white vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
Salt and pepper

Peel cucumbers and cut them lengthwise. Scrape out seeds with small spoon leaving hollow shells. Cut cucumbers cross-wise into 1/4 inch strips. Combine soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, hot sauce, and salt and pepper in a small bowl and mix well. Add cucumber slices and toss to coat each slice. Chill before serving. Makes a great side dish, or good served on a bed of mixed greens.

Photo by Pontus Edenberg

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We started this topic here – today’s topic is freezer storage. After all, if you don’t store frozen foods properly, all you really have is a really cold ready-to-compost pile.

To maintain top quality, store frozen fruits and vegetables at 0F (that’s zero degrees Fahrenheit) or lower.

• Temps higher than 0F increase the rate of deterioration and shorten the shelf life of foods.
• Fluctuating freezer temperatures causes the ice in the foods to thaw slightly and then refreeze. Every time this happens, the smaller ice crystals form larger ones, further damaging cells and creating a mushier product.

Foods for the freezer must have proper packaging materials to protect their flavor, color, moisture content, and nutritive value. Freezer burn comes from moisture loss, or ice crystals evaporating from the surface of a product. Freezer-burned food is likely to develop “off” flavors, but it will not cause illness.

Suitable packaging materials include rigid plastic containers with straight sides, glass jars made for freezing and canning, heavy-duty aluminum foil, moisture-vapor resistant plastic bags (such as freezer-weight zipper bags), and freezer paper with freezer tape.

Many foods benefit from doubling up on packaging for long-term freezer storage. For example, quick breads benefit from being wrapped in waxed paper, and then in heavy-duty foil – and perhaps even put in a freezer-weight zipper bag after that. Anything with tomatoes should have something between it and foil.

When you prepare a casserole (such as lasagna) to freeze, line the baking dish with foil (or in this case, with parchment, since it’s tomato-based), with lots hanging over, before filling it. Fill and bake as usual. Freeze it in the baking dish overnight, using the excess wrap to cover the whole dish. The next morning, pull the whole thing out of the baking dish, wrap the package in another layer of foil or freezer paper, and label it. When you unwrap it, it will fit back in the baking dish you used.

Containers intended for short-term storage, such as bread wrap; take-out cartons, deli containers; regular aluminum foil; waxed paper; or the ubiquitous recycled whipped topping container do not provide effective protection against flavor and moisture loss or freezer burn during long-term storage.

Label what you freeze. Seriously. If you write on a container with a sharpie, it won’t come off, but maybe that’s okay with you. Try mailing labels and a sharpie. Include the date (at least the month and year), what it is, and any quick reheating instructions. If all you need to know is “bake 350F covered for 45 min,” why make yourself look up the recipe again?

If you’re totally organized, keep a list on your freezer door of what’s in there. When you add something to the freezer, add it to the list. When you take something out, cross it off.

More to come!

Oh yes you can!

This one has a great beat, so whatever movement you choose, do it to the beat, baby!

Now get up. Right now. And move.

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