Today’s Tip of the Day is going to be with Blue Lake Beans.  I love Blue Lake Beans any time of the year.  I liked them sautéed.  I liked them steamed.  Ah, they’re just so great and they’re so versatile.  You can eat them hot after you cook with them. You can eat them cold, medium, the next day with some olive oil, you just can’t beat it.  But you’ve got to select them and store them right, otherwise you can forget about it. Right now from Florida and even from Mexico, they’re coming in; they look beautiful.  They have a light mint color all the way around which is what you should look for, nice and silky feel to them.  Free from any rust colors and any shriveling whatsoever, that’s the perfect way to select them, and when you bring them, what you want to do is simply store them in the refrigerator and open up the bag a little bit, so they can breathe.  Because beans not only taste good, these Blue Lake Beans, but they’re great for you; loaded with nutritional value.

 We’re going to do a tip on another squash. We’re going to a tip on the Acorn Squash.  The Acorn Squash has got this flavor to it that’s absolutely amazing. You don’t have to mix it with anything.  You can make soup of course with it even dessert.  You can cut them up and put them in the oven and you put a little bit brown sugar in there for and you bake it for about 40 minutes, the flavor is incredible and they’re loaded with nutritional value.  Now when you select these you want to make sure they have a little orange color and green color all the way around and the bigger ones are the better ones and make sure they’re heavy for their size that means they’ll have a smaller cavity inside there which means it’s better when you bake it because there’s more there to bake.  When you bring them home, store them in a cool dry place.

Today’s Tip of the Day is going to be with Butternut Squash, probably the most popular of all the winter hard squashes that are out there right now and the color is beautiful and you make such a beautiful Butternut Squash soup and so many different other recipes, but you’ve got to select it right.  You don’t compromise; sure, it’s a hard squash and you don’t think you have to select it right just put it in the basket, but make sure you look at it carefully.  When you buy, it should have that beautiful Butternut color squash all the way around and you want to make sure it’s free from any decaying.  Because a lot of time a retailer will leave it on the counter for too long and it will start to bruise up and when that happens it goes right through and ruins the squash, so make sure it’s nice and clear from any blemishes also when you bring them home, store them in a cool dry place.