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A slice of warm pumpkin bread with lots of fat raisins and pecans, slathered in cream cheese.

Everything bagels with peanut butter and thinly sliced cucumber - yummmm!

I originally saw the recipe in an article by Mark Bittman in the New York Times and have made the bread half a dozen times at least. It always comes out great - crunchy crust and great elastic crumb on the inside. I use oat bran rather than flour or cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to the tea towel and use the ceramic insert from my crock pot to bake the bread. Yum!

Recipe: No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

I've never used a le creuset, but I love my Lodge 8-quart dutch oven. Just in the last week, I've used it to make really awesome beef stew and field peas with pork neckbones. Much, much better than a crock pot for long, low temp cooking.

I crave fresh fruit - especially melon and fuji apples - when I am trying to eat healthy.

I've never used a Le Creuset or Kitchenaid dutch oven, but my husband gave me a Lodge enamel-over-cast-iron dutch oven for my birthday this year and I love it! It is wonderful for soups and stews on top of the stove or for making falling-apart pot roast in the oven. And you get a great upper body workout - these suckers are heavy!

The youngest kids in our family get to split the wishbone.

I looove my pressure cooker! I use it mostly to make soup stocks - you can get a pretty concentrated stock that will set when cooled without babysitting a simmering pot all afternoon. I also like to cook dried beans (no soaking required!) and even pot roast.

One of our favorite things to do in the pressure cooker is carrots - quarter lengthwise and cook them for three minutes at full pressure, then drain and sautee with just a small amount of brown sugar, butter and salt and pepper.

Half the fun is in the experimentation - enjoy!