Here's a great, easy way to use tempeh, whether you're a tentative tempeh virgin or a seasoned tempeh veteran. (A reminder for the newbies: tempeh is made from fermented soybeans, and I swear, it's really quite good).

I whip this up a lot when I'm in a hurry and am in desperate need of protein. Just heat a little olive oil in a skillet and toss in cubed tempeh, mushrooms, red bell peppers, spinach, or whatever else you happen to have on hand. Sprinkle it with seasonings (I use some random herb and spice blend), and fry for about eight minutes, or until the tempeh gets brown.

Hint: tempeh tends to be an oil hog, and it soaks it up really quickly. To alleviate this, I usually add in some veggie stock and water, which works just as well as the oil and doesn't add any unwanted fat.

If you don't like the taste of straight tempeh, you can simply marinate it in balsamic vinegar, barbecue sauce, or soy sauce beforehand, or grill it instead of frying, which gives it an edge. Then, toss some shredded soy cheese and chunky salsa on top, wrap it in a tortilla (I use chile-flavored), and devour.

Want some additional ideas about how to feature tempeh in your meals? Check out the gallery.

After acquiring a really tasty bottle of dipping sauce from Trader Joe's this week, I realized that Asian wraps, rolls and other dipable items are found in takeout containers more often than they are made in the home kitchen. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course, especially if you know a good takeout place, but making the food is part of the fun of eating. This is especially true of finger (or chopstick) foods.

Asian Wraps & Rolls uses easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorials and techniques to walk you through the process of making these fun foods at home. The book spends a lot of time going over ingredients, some of which may be unfamiliar to you, as well as popular sauces and condiments, before getting into wrap construction. Recipes include Warm Mango and Shrimp Rolls, Wok Fried Wontons, Vegetable Spring Rolls and Pork and Betel-leaf Wraps, just to name a few. Once you have the basics, you can always use the methods used in this book to branch out and try your own flavor combinations.

As the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. The same sentiment holds true for kids, who can be quite stubborn where food is concerned. At home, parents can monitor what their child is - and is not - eating to make sure they learn to make healthy choices. Now that the school year has started, however, ensuring that the kids get a healthy lunch can be harder.

One thing you can do is, as we have mentioned before, get your child involved in preparing the lunch. S/he can pick out the fruits and snacks that look the tastiest from the healthy foods you have available (aiming for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein most of the time, of course). If it is hard to get your child going in the morning, however, you might not have time for this bonding activity. So, other tips include:

As Nicole already mentioned, you can get a lot of picnic mileage out of simply prepared fresh vegetables. Another way to get a salad to your picnic without the hassle of bowls, forks and dressings is just to wrap it up in a tortilla or other flat-bread. Lately I'm fond of making wraps with hummus or soft goat cheese topped with peeled carrot, cucumber, tomato, dill, spinach and lemon juice. The main thing to keep in mind is the water content of what you're wrapping. Seed things like tomatoes and cucumbers first, and if you plan on using a dressing, go easy. Bringing along a lemon to squeeze into the wraps at the last minute will help keep the tortillas dry.

A spa in San Francisco, CA (where else?) will treat you like a sushi roll. Spa Radiance offers a California Roll body treatment that involves sea salt, sesame seeds, seaweed, cucumbers and avocado oil, according to a post on Daily Candy. Besides rice, the only thing missing, mercifully, is the crab sticks. You'd think they could exfoliate your heels with crab claws or something. The sea salt and sesame seeds are used in a scrub; the cukes and seaweed are part of a body mask; and the avocado oil is used in a final massage. I couldn't find this treatment on Spa Radiance's menu, so perhaps it's only offered on a limited basis. They do offer a coffee and sugar scrub, however.

[Via Food Migration]

Colored sushi wraps may just be the next trend in dining, but flavored sushi wraps will surely be the one after that. Not only do they look good, but they taste good and improve the flavor of whatever they’re wrapped around. These patent-pending flavored sushi wraps are made by Origami Foods. They come in flavors ranging from the savory, like bell pepper, broccoli, Italian, Mexican and curry, to the sweet, like blueberry, strawberry and apple-cinnamon, so these wraps have dessert applications in addition to more traditional wrap uses.

All of the wraps are at least 75% fruit or vegetable and up to 100% and though the flavors are strong, the wraps are very low calorie. They are made using high-intensity drying techniques so that the final product is shelf-stable, which means that not only are these tasty and healthy additions to food, but they are convenient to keep around. If you visit the Origami Foods site, you can request a sample of the product.