Cooking 4 Life: 5 Minute Healthy Dessert

As I quickly realize this post is late (I know some of you are waiting breathlessly  for the weekly installment), it got me thinking: what do you do if you only have a few minutes to put together a delicious meal.  It’s great if you have hours to slowly braise something, but what happens when you only have a few minutes?

Many of you have seen, or heard, of the show “Chopped” in which they give chefs a set amount of time (usually 20 or 30 minutes) and a box of mystery (often odd) ingredients they must highlight in a dish.  Most of us aren’t going to attempt to put scallops, pickled lemons and sour gummy worms into a delicious 5-star meal.  But what about using simple ingredients to at least make a delicious healthy dessert (lets be honest, you’ve already picked up a pizza, that may have some sort of vegetable on it…maybe). Here's our 8th Cooking4Life recipe.

Delicious Fruit Salad

Depending on where you live, the variety of fruit available to you will vary greatly.  If you can get absolutely fresh delicious fruit, the simple thing to do is just to cut up the fruit into bite sized pieces, mix together and serve.  But, if it’s the last minute, and you’re digging into your fridge, you might need to kick this up a bit.

When using apples, bananas, strawberries and other fruits, some people add a few tablespoons of honey, a splash of lemon juice (which is great for keeping an apple looking fresh longer) and maybe even a few poppy or sesame seeds for crunch. 

What do you think?  Should fruit salad stand on its own without honey, or does the lemon and honey add a different dimension? 

What’s your favoritedessert? What’s your cooking horror story? Can you really burn fruit?Past Cooking4Life

Watch one of my favorite chefs prepare a twist on the traditional fruit salad: