While looking through this month’s Quick & Easy recipe magazine, I came across a recipe for a pull apart bread with a surprise inside. This reminded of a similar one I made years ago, and I decided to make one for breakfast yesterday for my twins’ birthday.
Surprise Pull Apart Bread
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 (1 stick) melted butter
1/3 c maple syrup
1 tube (14 oz) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
Sprinkle pecans into a greased 10-inch bundt cake pan. In a small bowl, mix 2 Tb butter and maple syrup until well blended, pour over pecans …read more

Tree nuts (pecans, almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, pine nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts) have for some time been known to help reduce the risk of heart disease. Now there is evidence to suggest that they may reduce the risk of non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes. Researchers from the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto are presenting a paper at this week’s Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in New Orleans to support this theory.

According to Cyril Kendall, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, “This is the largest study done to date looking at the effect of tree nuts and …read more

Good news for my mother-in-law who loves nuts of all kinds. Recent research (funded by the California Walnut Commission) suggests that walnuts may help reduce inflammation and oxidation in heart arteries to a greater extent than olive oil.
In this small study of 24 adults, half of whom had normal cholesterol and half with moderately high cholesterol, a meal of high-fat salami and cheese (yum!) was supplemented with olive oil or walnuts. Both olive oil and walnuts helped to reduce the negative effects of the high fat meal. Walnuts, however, appear to be more effective because they contain:

Arginine, an amino …read more