Are you looking for fun, easy recipes that your kids will love just in time for the back-to-school madness? We all need those go-to dinner meals that are quick and nutritious! Check out this simple, yet scrumptious take on a mix between pizza and spaghetti that integrates crunchy raw veggies and nutritious flax seed into the mix. Watch the video below to see what we did and then make the recipe your own! Variations include adding different veggies like you would to your pizza. Try experimenting with fresh basil, mushrooms, onions and green peppers. After you’re done, leave a comment below to share your ideas!

Watching your gluten, carbs,  sugar or processed food intake can make you feel healthy and great. But what happens when all you crave is a juicy burger? Well, I have a solution for you. A wonderful way to enjoy all that beefy goodness without gluten, added sugar or carb overload. I’m going to show you how to make an Ice Burger.

It’s called an Ice Burger because you wrap the whole shebang inside an iceberg lettuce leaf. Once you try it, you may like it so much that you never crave that bun again!

Many greens, and I mean almost every kind –from romaine to butter lettuce  and even cabbage, make a surprisingly good substitute for a slice of bread. The trick is to use large outer leaves, and wrap carefully around your filling. After you try an Ice Burger, try this same technique with almost any other sandwich filling. Think Ice Dog hotdogs, Ice Ham Sammy, or even BLT on L! And of course it goes without saying that a Veggie on Veggie is also great. Top with a spoon of fresh salsa or pico de gallo for a spicy treat.

How To Make An Ice Burger

For 1 Ice Burger you’ll need:

1 cooked hamburger patty

2-4 large, whole, completely dry leaves of iceberg lettuce (Outer leaves are best)

Any condiments you like such as sliced tomato, sliced pickles, sliced onion, ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc.

First, lay one whole leaf of the iceberg lettuce on a plate.

Next. add your hamburger patty and toppings. Add whatever you like on a traditional hamburger –even mustard, mayo, ketchup. Whatever you like. (I like tomato, pickle, onion, and mustard!) Place everything in the middle of the lettuce, so you have the core of the lettuce at the bottom and most of the leafy part at the top.

Now, for the finale. Wrap the leafy part of the lettuce toward the burger patty. Close the core ends of the lettuce over the remaining exposed part of the hamburger patty. If necessary or desired, take another leaf of lettuce, and wrap it around the entire burger, covering any exposed areas and making sure that our toppings are secured inside the lettuce.

Voila! You’ve made your first ice burger! Enjoy!

We’ve been known to top our eggs with Wild Oats Organic Ketchup from time to time, but we know there are stranger combinations out there.

Share with us your weirdest, yet most delicious ketchup/food combo on our Twitter or Facebook page and you’re automatically entered for a chance to win a Wild Oats prize pack!

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Summer is finally here! And although I am totally in love with summer activities like swimming, biking, picnicking and watching fireflies dance in the night, I am most certainly not in love with cooking in a hot kitchen and missing all the fun. So I like to think of summer as “salad days.”  You, know, the days when you can throw something delish together with a few fresh ingredients and call it a meal. If you would also rather skip KP duty in favor of other summer pleasures, here are 3 cool summer salad ideas for you to try. The best part? Each of these salad ideas is a snap to make.

Spicy Fresh Corn And Greens Salad: Did you know that you don’t need to cook corn to enjoy it?Add fresh corn, sliced right off the cob, to a salad of spinach, diced purple onion, fresh jalapeño, tomatoes and avocados. Add a few queso manchego crumbles, if desired. Dress with Wild Oats Marketplace Organic Ranch Dressing and a dollop of Wild Oats Marketplace Organic Hot Salsa. Serve in avocado halves, if desired.

Fruit And Couscous Grilled Salad: Summer is grillin’ time! So after you grill up some wonderful chicken or ribs and the grill is still hot, why not throw on some fruit and toss together a wonderful grilled fruit salad? You might not think it, but stone fruits like peaches and nectarines are wonderful when grilled. Grilling brings out the natural sweetness, and pairs beautifully with couscous. Brush pitted and halved fruit with a bit of olive oil and grill over medium, indirect heat, flesh slide down, 3-4 minutes or until slightly charred. Slice and add to cooked couscous, green onion, fresh cilantro and mint. Top with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and a drizzle of honey.

Quinoa And Blueberries Salad: Toss together cooked Wild Oats Marketplace Organic Traditional Quinoa, blueberries, cubed cantaloupe and chopped pecans, and what do you get? Summer deliciousness, that’s what! Throw on a bit of chopped fresh mint and dress with a poppy seed dressing for a hearty and healthy summer fruit salad.

So there you have it, 3 cool summer salad ideas to inspire you. Will these ideas encourage you to think in a new way about summer salads? Let me know! Or share your own favorite summer salads ideas.

Looking for a great lunch or dinner idea, a change of pace from a sandwich, pizza or a quick pick from your freezer?

Well, this is my favorite! It could be called a salad, but it’s more than that. And at the heart of it is a quick-cooking dish called quinoa.

If you’ve never tried quinoa, here’s what it’s all about.

First, it’s highly nutritious, containing all eight essential amino acids. Quinoa is really high in fiber, iron, phosphorous and magnesium. And it’s absolutely delicious – with a kind of nutty taste – not as “chewy” as brown rice, and much more yummy than that old standby white rice (and a lot healthier)!

But what seems to confuse people the most about quinoa is just how to cook it. It cooks up very similar to rice in that you use a two to one ratio of water to quinoa (two cups water to one cup quinoa, for example). And you can certainly make it in a pot just like rice. But here’s a much easier way.

Using a rice cooker set to “steam,” it takes me about 15 minutes for absolutely perfect quinoa. My rice cooker runs for 5 minutes on “steam,” so I do that three times. When done, all the water will be absorbed and the quinoa light and fluffy with a wonderful “nutty” aroma.

Now, you can certainly enjoy your quinoa right from the steamer, tossed with olive oil, spices and topped with some fish. But my new favorite way to have quinoa is when I’m using it from the fridge — as in “leftovers.”

It’s here that quinoa shines as the perfect, versatile dish that it is, tasting just as great cold as it did from the steamer.

And the best part about this recipe is that you can make it your own, adding your favorite ingredients and getting a highly nutritious meal in the process.

Best ever quinoa and kale recipe!

Must haves:

• Serving of cooled (or from the refrigerator) cooked Wild Oats organic quinoa, red or traditional (around a half cup), and
• A serving of fresh, raw kale “torn” into bite-size pieces. (I use around ¾ of a cup).

Add-ins to pick from:

• Fruit — Dried cranberries or dried blueberries;
• Nuts – Either chopped walnuts or pecans or slivered almond slices;
• Cheese – Crumbled goat cheese, around two tablespoons, or the same amount of fresh mozzarella (not the pizza kind) cut into small pieces:
• Spices – Ground black pepper and a sprinkle of sea salt are all I use. You don’t want to overwhelm the wonderful flavors with spices that are too “heavy”:
• Dressing – your favorite vinaigrette. You don’t want to use a creamy-type dressing on this dish.

Place the quinoa, kale and your add-in selections along with your dressing in a large bowl and toss well. That’s it!

Once you start cooking with quinoa, I think you’ll find it’s the most versatile and tasty grain (although technically a seed) you’ve ever tried.