candy

What's Valentine's Day without a sweet, decadent indulgence? We love it all, from delicately frosted sugar cookies with fancy pink icing to chocolate of all kinds. Whatever your passion is on this day of love, you don't want to overdo it and undo all the good you've achieved with your healthy diet and exercise.

The best way to prevent weight gain (and an awful sugar high) is to know the nutritional info of your favorite edible pleasures, so check out this handy chart below.

You're a month into carrying out those healthy New Year's resolutions, eating better, exercising, and seeing a difference in the mirror, and then boom — you're hit with one of the most chocolatey, candy-filled holidays. Of course you deserve to treat yourself, but don't let this day tempt you so much that it sends those resolutions packing. This handy poster offers a visual of 100-calorie portions of Valentine's Day treats, so you can indulge a little and then get back on that healthy wagon.

Like many, Peeps played an integral part in the Easter celebrations of my youth. Almost too cute to eat, and with a pleasantly spongy texture punctuated by a dense and crackly coating of sugar, they were the treat I yearned for year-round. So it was a touch bittersweet to discover a few years back that Just Born (the Peeps parent company) had decided to spawn seasonal sweets for nearly any occasion. Sure, I could get my fix at a moment's notice, but as with many treats with a limited season, when their availability escalated, their sparkle diminished.

Given my aforementioned feelings, I was a bit unsure how to feel about their latest offering, spiced gingerbread men. Would they be a welcome addition to the chubby chick and cheery bunny fold, or would they fall flat? Moreover, would Peeps translate well beyond the classic vanilla flavor?

I recently learned that making homemade hard candy isn't as easy as it looks. It's all about timing and temperature to make sure the candy reaches the proper consistency. To complicate matters further, it's stretched and pulled while still hundreds of degrees hot. Keep these three tips in mind for a smoother candy-making experience.

• Use a probe thermometer instead of a candy thermometer. The digital reading allows you to monitor the current temperature as well as set a desired temperature, so the thermometer will beep when the candy has reached the set temperature. Scorched pans, begone!
• Wear rubber welding gloves. It seems silly, but candy has the potential to seriously singe your fingertips. Since candy hardens so quickly, you really need to work with it while it's molten lava hot. Wearing thick gloves is the only way to make that happen safely.
• Keep the candy warm with a heating lamp or an electric stove. In my kitchen, I placed the candy atop a Silpat-lined metal cookie sheet, then placed the cookie sheet atop the electric stove. Set the temperature to the lowest setting ("1" or "Melt" on most stoves). It keeps the candy warmer and thus malleable longer, so the candy doesn't harden before you have a chance to stretch and cut all of the pieces.