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has launched a set of flavored variety packs that pack a punch. If you love flavored coffee, and you love the idea of drinking some Pumpkin Vanilla Creme or Caramel Truffle Sundae coffee you're going to be pretty excited.

During one of the first forays into the garden center this spring, I spotted a long table covered with scented geraniums. These lovely Pelargoniums make for beautiful, easy-to-grow plants in the garden, and they're delicious, too. Just like other edible flowers, scented geraniums add more variety to the vegetable bed.

Tomatoes are probably the most popular crop for backyard gardeners, and for good reason. It is impossible for anyone selling tomatoes to replicate what you can get from your own plants. This includes flavor, texture, color, variety, size, and just about any other characteristic of the tomato that you care to measure. Depending on who you ask, you will find that there could be anywhere from 7,500 to 25,000 unique varieties of tomato in the world! If you want to experience some of this diversity, growing your own is a priority. Here are a few tips that may be helpful in getting going:

Rice and beans is an ultimate comfort dish. In Cuba, this dish is referred to as Moros y Cristianos, which translates to Moors and Christians. The traditional preparation requires cooking with a ham hock and white rice. I decided to make a healthier, vegetarian version, that uses dried black beans and brown rice. The complex flavors come from the addition of a jalepeno, tomato paste and red wine vinegar. This version is low in fat and sodium, and bursting with healthy protein and fiber. It makes a great dinner and leaves plenty of leftovers for lunch

Wonderfully cool and crunchy, watermelon is truly the perfect summer food. Refreshingly delicious, it keeps you hydrated while offering a good dose of potassium and lycopene. And while biting into a freshly cut slice on a hot day is one of those simple summer pleasures, it's also equally tasty paired with more savory flavors, making it a multitasking kind of fruit.

There are a lot of salads with tomatoes and cucumbers on this blog. That's partly because I love tomatoes and cucumbers and grow them in my garden every year. To me that combination just screams summer, but I also eat tomatoes and cucumbers all year (whenever I can get good flavorful tomatoes and Persian cucumbers from Costco.) So when a reader from Hawaii named Lisa sent me her recipe for "dumb salad" and said it was something she made often, I was interested. Lisa discovered this combination when she was going out of town and needed to use what

not kidding. These peanut butter quinoa bars are the real deal. They're packed with peanut butter flavor, sweetened naturally with coconut sugar, have no eggs or dairy or oil, AND they use quinoa flour which is packed with minerals and protein. So basically what I'm saying is…we all need to make them asap!

Today we are sharing another meatless recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. Salads are a staple in our home. I could eat a salad every day for dinner or lunch. In fact, I often do. Salad is a chance to let your inner child loose and explore new ingredients. The sky is the limit with greens and toppings. This Cabbage and Carrot Salad with Peanut Sauce is loaded with some really great flavor combinations

These Sweet Potato Glow Spirals are a yummy way to get the dreamy sweet potatoes you crave. The goods: tender garlic-infused bites of sweet potato deliciousness. Spicy meets sweet in this glowing spiral wrap. Creamy garlic hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers. Rich in antioxidants like vitamin A, fiber, healthy fats and flavor! Get my vegan recipe

Here is an interesting book that argues quite sensibly that canning and freezing are inefficient uses of energy and take many of the nutrients out of the food in the process. Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern "kitchen gardeners" will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. It's worthwhile investigating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.