Today, I reinforced, for myself, a very important part of life. I think it’s worth talking about — how important it is to Just Show Up.

Whether you want to or not, if invited or asked, always, just show up. It’s that simple. Let me give you two examples, and I’ll show you how they tie together.

A few weeks ago, after Expo West 2015, I was suppose to go to Palm Springs to meet with an amazing man named Dr. Gundry. He’s a doctor that I’ve worked with on trends, issues and products, as well as some personal health issues. I was exhausted from the show, and the last thing I wanted to do was drive to Palm Springs.  All morning, I was thinking, I’m just going to cancel. My head was overwhelmed, and I was, I’ll admit, a bit overstimulated.

Then, at the last minute, I said to myself, “I’m going.” I just got in my car and took off. Two hours later, I’m at a restaurant with Dr. Gundry, who was already sitting at a table waiting for me. But, fortunately for me, the guests I’d invited where an hour late (They didn’t get off the golf course in time!)

Anyway, at first, I felt a bit irritated. But I sucked it up, sat down at the table and ordered a glass of wine with Dr. Gundry.

He started telling me about his most recent work, and I was amazed — lost in the conversation — and I completely forgot that our guests where late. I looked up and poof… they where there!

Then, of course, the conversation switched and became more social and engaging. Nothing like the discussion that took place before they got there.  At that moment though,I was just so glad I showed up.

Fast forward, three days later, and I was faced with the same deal, I had to drive to L.A. for a meeting. I really didn’t want to drive four hours in stop and go traffic, and truthfully, I could’ve done the meeting by phone. But, again, last minute and feeling guilty, I jumped in the car and went. Yes, at 5-in-the-a.m., I was on the road to L.A. for a 9 a.m. meeting.

Whoa, Nelly! I walked into that meeting with absolutely nothing to offer but a smile, and the CEO of the company said,  “Anthony, the reason we want to meet with you is we have changed our distribution strategy and we need a more sophisticated product. What do you think?”

Immediately, I said, “Well, I was just at a dinner on Sunday with Dr. Gundry and he was talking about this. So, what if we did this as a product?”

Yup, you can’t make it up! Everyone was high-fiving — so excited. And the four hour drive back? I  was rockin’ out with loud music. I got home and I said — OMG — this is a classic example, Just Show Up!

Summer, to me, means simplifying the dinner hour so that I can spend as much time as possible enjoying the warm sunshine and time with my family.  The easiest way I have found to create a dinner our whole family loves is to prepare a salad bar of choices for our evening meals and today I wanted to share with you an easy recipe for baked pecan chicken tenders that your whole family will enjoy!

Hi, my name is Amy and I am a new contributor to the Wild Oats team. I am so excited to share a little bit of my kitchen with you through my blog posts. I am a mom of two incredible kids and my biggest challenge is creating dishes that my kids will eat and that also happen to be gluten-free.

Finding out I needed to switch my diet, a little less than two years ago, was one of the hardest challenges I have ever tackled in my kitchen. After I got over mourning for food I couldn’t eat (yes, I have cried about pizza), I discovered that I could be more creative than I ever gave myself credit for. Replicating the things I always loved for our family, but in a way that I could enjoy them, has been a really rewarding process. Since so many families face the same challenges, it has brought me so much joy to share these ideas with others and I am going to be doing that with you here.

Take fried chicken. I loved it. Sadly, it did not love me. Thankfully, this recipe showcases that you can still enjoy that crispy crunchy chicken you always loved, but with healthier choices like a pecan crust spiced up with a generous shake of Wild Oats Paprika. This crisp pecan crust is actually two layers of nutty deliciousness. Not only are the pecans ground into a flour to incorporate in your gluten-free mixture, but it also has a coarse layering of pecans that adhere to the chicken to create that crunch we are after.

The best part about these though is that you can make them and FREEZE THEM for later. I don’t know about you, but those are magical words to this mama’s ears. How great would it be to have these on hand not only for salad topping this summer? You could also turn these into a delicious main dish with a side of rice and veggies or they can be wrapped up with lettuce, dried cranberries, and a little Wild Oats Balsamic Vinaigrette in a tortilla. The possibilities with this fast recipe are endless!

I hope you can give this recipe a spin in the kitchen and let me know what you think! I look forward to sharing more with you in the upcoming months!

Baked Pecan Chicken Tenders

For most folks, their first contact with the mulberry came via a child’s rhyme. However, mulberry trees, not bushes, have long been a serious player on the folk medicine and natural nutrition fronts, along with a mainstay of the Far East silk industry.

Indigenous to China, the leaves of the fast-growing mulberry plant were an essential food for silkworms and the related industry.

One of the first mass plantings of mulberry trees in North America took place in 1733, when Englishman James Oglethorpe imported 500 white mulberry trees into Georgia in hopes of encouraging silk production in the then-British colony of Georgia.

The Chinese medicine realm saw far more than just leaves in the mulberry. According to the Institute for Traditional Medicine, the mulberry fruit became a medicinal agent to nourish the yin and blood, benefit the kidneys, and treat weakness, fatigue, anemia, and premature graying of hair. Other used in Far East medicine included the treatment of urinary incontinence, tinnitus, dizziness, and constipation in the elderly and the anemic.

As the mulberry plant was introduced worldwide, its silkworm-feeding assets rapidly gave way to the plant’s naturopathic merits, shade-tree qualities, and highly nutritious fruits.

In recent years, the mulberry fruit has acquired superfood status among many naturopaths. Its flavor has been described at nuts.com, as having a naturally sweet taste that is similar to goji berries and dried figs

While the fresh fruit is seldom marketed due to it delicate nature and short shelf-life, dried mulberries can now be commonly found on grocery shelves. Also, mulberry trees have become a big seller among tree nurseries. Mulberry trees not only grow rapidly but quickly produce copious amounts of fruit.

On the nutrient front, mulberries host impressive quantities of iron, calcium, Vitamin A, C, E and K, folate, thiamine, pyridoxine and niacin. The fruit is also rich in polynutrients like anthocyanin, flavonoids, lutein and zea-xanthin.

As a wellness bonus, mulberries are rich in resveratrol, an antioxidant linked to heart health. Resveratrol is also being touted as a possible anti-aging agent. According to a study being conducted by David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School, “Resveratrol appears to help increase the activity of mitochondria, which produces energy within cells, potentially extending their lives.”

Adding to the mulberry’s nutritional values is its unusually high protein content, something rarely found in fruits.

Some uses for dried mulberries, as suggested at this web site, include adding them into baked granola, oatmeal or the batter for scones, cookies and energy bars. (A mulberry-flavored cordial can also be created by infusing them in a bottle of vodka or gin,)

But my favorite way of eating dried mulberries is right out of the bag!

Applesauce Nutrition Tidbit:

Astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the Earth, brought pureed applesauce in squeezable tubes on his initial space flight, proving that applesauce is a food that’s nutritionally out of this world!

The Nutritional Benefits of Wild Oats Organic Applesauce:

Nutritionally Authentic:

USDA Certified Organic food product

Short, all-natural ingredient list

Nutritionally Affordable:

Fat-free

Made with organic apples and available at an affordable cost

Wild Oats Marketplace unsweetened applesauce has no added sugar; it’s just naturally sweet because it’s made with apples.

Wild Oats organic sweetened applesauce makes a delicious and nutritious dessert choice.

Can be used to replace oil in baking to cut down on fat in recipes and up the nutritionally quality of the baked good.

Nutritionally Accessible:

Grab-and-go packaging option, which fits easily into a purse, lunchbox, or backpack. Shelf-stable pantry solution.

Medical Nutrition Therapy Tips and Solutions:

Pregnancy: Add easily-digestible calories to the diet while being gentle on the stomach. It’s a quick grab-n-go food to address hunger pangs.

Infant: Introduce your infant (greater than 6 months old) to new fruits with this organic, healthy soft food.

Toddlers: Teach your toddler how to use a spoon with applesauce. There may be a mess but it’s easy to clean up.

Child/Adolescence Teenage: Add a fruit serving to a picky eater’s diet. Nourishing, quick grab-n-go food for kids on the run.

Athletes all of ages: Easily digestible fuel source for before or after exercise.

Adult/College: Easy way to add a fruit to your diet and meet your 5 a day quota.

Elderly: Pureed to soft texture; can be eaten without teeth.

Diabetes: Choose unsweetened to lower amount of added sugar in diet.

Heart Disease: Wild Oats Marketplace organic applesauces are fat-free.

High Blood Pressure: Wild Oats Marketplace organic applesauces are low-sodium.

If you’re not familiar with Mexican or Tex-Mex cooking, you may not have heard of Masa Harina. It’s a fine corn flour used in making traditional tortillas and tamales.

Masa Harina literally translates to mean “dough flour.” It is made from a specific variety of dried field corn that has been ground into a fine flour after being soaked in a lime and water solution. The lime solution loosens the corn hulls and softens the kernels.

The addition of lime to the corn acts to help niacin, one of the B vitamins, be absorbed in the digestive tract. Niacin is an important B vitamin that helps with proper nervous system functioning. Severe niacin deficiency, called Pellagra, can lead to death.

After the lime is applied, the corn is washed and ground into a fine dough, called masa. After the dough is allowed to dry, it is ground again into a fine powder which is called masa harina. Water is then added to the masa harina powder to make dough for tamales and tortillas.

You can find fresh masa in the refrigerated section of most markets, and masa harina is available with other flours and corn meal. Although you might be tempted to substitute traditional corn meal for masa marina, don’t. Traditional corn meal is made from a different variety of corn and processed in a different way, it will not yield a good result.

Below are a few good recipes using masa harina from around the web.

Pork Tamales

Tips For making homemade tamales

How To Make Corn Tortillas

Homemade Corn Tortilla Chips