Making a Heart-shaped Love Cake for your Loved Ones
Materials Needed:

1 strawberry cake mix
Paper Cupcake Liners
Muffin Tins
Marbles
Aluminum Foil
Pink Frosting
Fruit Leathers
Scissors
What you will need to do:

Place the paper liners in the muffin tins and mix the cake batter as the package directs. Pour the batter into the liners. With the marbles and the foil, place a small piece of foil around the marble and shape it into a triangle on one side. So that you have a round bottom and a pointy top to the marble. Place the marble-covered foil in between the liner and the muffin tin side and point the round end toward the muffin tin and the pointy end into the liner. This will help the cake bake into a heart as it bakes.

Bake the mini cakes according to how the package directs and while you are waiting, cut heart with your scissors out from the fruit leathers and set aside. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely, frost with the pink frosting and top with heart-shaped fruit leather.

Heart-Shaped Pretzel Valentine's for your Sweet Heart or Sweetie
Materials Needed:

1 cup water, heated, but not hot
2 tbs. sugar
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1 egg
3-1/2 cups of flour
Coarse Salt

Stir together the yeast, sugar and the warm water in a large bowl and stir until dissolved. Set aside for about 15 minutes or until foamy. Once the yeast has grown stir in the flour and keep adding till the mixture becomes stiff. Knead on a floured surface and form into a ball. Place it in a buttered bowl and cover with a towel to rise in a warm location. It will double in size and at the time it is ready.

Punch the dough down and roll into a rectangle with a rolling pin and cut strips from the dough. Place the strips on a lightly oiled baking sheet and shape each strip into a heart, then set aside. Meanwhile, beat and egg with a fork and brush onto the heart-shaped strips and Sprinkle the tops with the coarse salt. Bake at 400 degrees for about 12-15 minutes or until each one turns golden brown. Give these with your paper Valentine’s Day cards for a special treat for your child's friends.

If you exercise during the day it's nothing new that it can add years to your life and help you shed unwanted pounds, but did you know that it can also help you sleep better at night as well?

If you suffer from insomnia, exercising can help you get those much needed zzzs at night even. It's unclear as why exercising helps you sleep better but elevated levels of serotonin and endorphins could be the cause.

Exercising at least for 30 minutes to raise your heart level like walking or even bicycling can help everyone. And doing relaxing exercises such as yoga can also help bring out the much needed sleep that everyone needs no matter what you age.

Herbs like oregano and cinnamon have been shown to help fend off the E. coli infection in humans. Most of these bacteria fighting herbs can be found in the ready-to-eat style of greens sold in supermarkets worldwide.

The Oregon grape root and the Gold seal herb can help fight the E. Coli infection once it has been ingesting into the body. They can also help against other forms of pathogens as well. They all contain a compound called berberine and it helps to stimulate the walls of the intestine to cause it to produce more fluids that contain antibodies.

So the next time you travel to where you think E. coli maybe an issue, carry and bit of Oregon grape root and gold seal tincture with you and take it three times a day.

I think fresh ground black pepper is the king of spices, so that would make cardamom the queen right? In India, cardamom is used in almost every dish along side cumin. When spices were traded from east to west and still to this day as the trade continues, cardamom is asked for as much as pepper is.

Sir Lanka exchanged cardamom with the Greeks and Romans back during ancient days and it was used to make perfumes and even used for cooking delicate dishes. AS far as India’s relationship with cardamom, it has been among one of the earliest spices mentioned in Indian text and it has been apart of India's religious rituals and as a medicinal herb as well. I can help treat skin and urinary issues and help aid in digestion similar to that of peppermint and peppermint essential oil as well.

So add cardamom to your spice cabinet and start adding it to dishes that call for a bit of the spice. Here is one to help get you started in cooking with it right away.

Cardamom Spice Cookies
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 c. butter
1 egg
1 1/4 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt (optional)

Need a small mixing bowl, a medium mixing bowl, and a well greased pan. (I usually use vegetable or canola oil, but butter would probably be the best and healthiest.) In the medium mixing bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon together, and stir. In the smaller mixing bowl, put in brown sugar and butter, but be sure the butter is softened, not melted. Beat butter/sugar with beater or by hand (about 35 seconds). Add egg and vanilla in butter/sugar mixture. Beat again for about the same time. Add butter mixture with flour. If you are beating by hand, then beat as you pour into the flour mixture. Beat until all is evenly mixed.

Roll into balls and shape how you want. Put in pan about 1 1/2" apart. Cook on 325 for about 15-18 minutes.

For more recipes visit Epicurious.