(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)

By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate


As the weather cools and storms brew, has your own indoor forecast been one of frowns? If the kidlets in your realm (or you!) could use a rainbow instead, think about energizing both your food and smile supply with colorful offerings. Even psychologists say that color, whether you wear it through your clothes choices or stare at it on your dining room table in the form of food before you eat it, is sometimes all you need to do the trick for a slight pick-me-up.      

Of course, sweets can be an easy fix to the dilemma. Lemon bars would be like a ray of sunlight; lollipops from the health food store can be bright without the use of artificial ingredients and you could dip them quickly in some melted dark chocolate, which is full of antioxidants. Pure extracts, like adding peppermint extract to sugar-free dark hot chocolate, can even give the perk (by making imbibers think of colorful peppermint due to the scent and flavor) without even having the color of a peppermint drop or candy cane present. 
     
If you bake your own colorful treats, consider using a natural no-calorie sweetener, like the plant extract stevia. If you are not using pure liquid extract, look at the ingredients of packaged stevia to make sure there are no fillers. Even if you make candy, there are wholesome ways to go, like looking for products like lime oil or lemon oil to do the natural flavoring. 

Fortunately, good nutrition, only gets better if you follow the rainbow when it comes to fresh produce. The brightest colors (like red, blue and the darkest greens) have the highest levels of antioxidants. Bell peppers are a particularly cheery choice because they are often sold in multipacks with red, green, orange and yellow. Mix-and-match for slightly varying sweetness levels and a visual feast. For easy fun, consider the puff pastry produce prize of a suggestion below.

Fun fare like this also proves food preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun - and fast. They take just 10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties - or making the most of holiday leftovers - and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!           

Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you - or your kidlet helpers - choose to use can't help but draw "wows" from family members and guests.           

Puff Pastry Produce Prizes: Follow thawing and baking instructions on packaged puff pastry. Using bite-sized pieces, make tartlets by first topping them with halves of cherry or grape tomatoes and ringlets cut from multipacks of green, red, yellow and orange "mini" or "baby" bell peppers that are available in many supermarkets. Any finely diced colorful bell pepper can be substituted.           

Rainbow Soup: With a pastry bag, a frosting piper or plastic squirt containers (like bought mustard, ketchup or salad dressings), use pureed raw red bell pepper or pureed cooked beets to pipe designs onto cooked bright green pea soup. Sprinkle with a dice of raw yellow bell pepper or cooked butternut squash before serving.           

Do Some Catching Up with Ketchup and Mustard: Colorful mustard and ketchup are actually health foods (especially if you use sugar-free ketchup). Mustard is a zero-calorie addition from mustard seed and the lycopene that health researchers tout from tomato products  is activated fully only when tomatoes are heated to a certain temperature, as in products like ketchup and tomato paste. Consider cutting in half soft pretzels and topping with cooked sliced soy hotdogs drizzled with sugar-free ketchup and an exotic mustard.      
Licorice Love Notes: Have kids use rods of sugar-free red licorice dipped like a fountain pen in sugar-free chocolate frosting to write their initials on homemade of store-bought sugar-free cookies.           

Terrific Tea: Serve deep purple pomegranate or berry tea (there are lots of major brands of each now, which are not only colorful but full of antioxidants) with a plate of pomegranate seeds, blueberries and raspberries atop pound cake (which is one of the sweets that ranks lowest on the glycemic index of how our bodies react to sugars; oatmeal cookies are also a moderate choice on the glycemic index.)
     
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK:  If you're looking for a treat this holiday season that might just be a slight alteration from what you are used to, consider a pumpkin custard pie. Search for recipes with that title or check your local bakeries and pie restaurants. Its filling is lighter and fluffier than the denser, more traditional pumpkin puree-only-filled pies. The custard versions usually include eggs and cream or milk (or both). The richer ingredients fit with the special-occasion theme of holidays. 

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet(Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.