By Dagmar Alayash, e-Management

Tired of rice or stuffing? Try a delicious quinoa salad this Holiday Season. Quinoa is high in fiber, protein-rich, and packed with nutrients.

The holiday season is upon us, and for many the focus is on the upcoming festivities: Family and friends getting together, food choices to make, and how to balance things out with healthy options.  Here at e-Management, the foodie team is taking a moment to reflect on the food trends of the past year. We’ve pulled together a list of new and exciting foods that emerged recently.

Let’s jump right in…

1. Cronuts Anyone? Introduced in mid-May of this year by a bakery in New York, you may have heard of this hybrid between a croissant and part cream-filled doughnut. The first day the Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York sold Cronuts, customers started lining up at 5:30am in the morning and the bakery was sold out by 9:00am. The store continues to sell out quickly every morning. Re-creations of Cronuts have popped up all over the nation, and are even found in some grocery chain stores in the Washington DC area, and in as many as 11 other countries. Try doing a web search to see if there is a bakery that provides “Cronuts” style desserts in your area. Could be a great addition for your holiday breakfasts!
2. The 21st Century Doughnut. Warm, comforting, and increasingly popular in 2013…new flavors of doughnuts continue to be developed, and amongst the most popular are apple cider; maple bacon; peanut butter and bacon; vanilla custard; and crème brûlée. Did you know you can bake doughnuts as well as fry them? Healthier doughnuts? Maybe just a little bit, and they taste equally delicious as fried doughnuts.  If you want to try baking some, doughnut pans are easy to find. The following are some baked doughnut recipes.
3. Not exactly Cronuts or Doughnuts. Moving on to more nutritious items, kale continues to shine in the vegetable world.  Known for its high antioxidant content, kale has been described as one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, due to its tough fibrous leaves, kale can be chopped and transformed into a smooth lettuce-like texture, combined with other ingredients and flavorings it would be a perfect side for holiday meals. Check out this excellent recipe courtesy of The Food Network.
4. Tired of rice or stuffing? Try quinoa. Quinoa also gets a mention here. Continuing to abound in a never-ending popularity, it’s a great healthy alternative for rice. Known as an ancient superfood, native to Peru and Bolivia, we usually think of quinoa as a grain, but it is actually the seed of a plant related to beets, chard, and spinach.  Try out quinoa with your holiday lunches or suppers. Not sure what to do with quinoa? Check out grab-and-go meals in a jar or try this great tasting quinoa recipe. Great for holiday breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Holiday Feast 2013
These are just a few foods that got our attention, managed to stir our taste buds, filled us with excitement and anticipation at the thought of trying something new, and perhaps in some cases even made us re-think the way we eat and changed the course of our eating habits.  As we make our way into the holiday season, we’d love to hear your thoughts on food trends in 2013. (1) What new food trends are likely to make on your holiday menu? (2) What are your favorite holiday foods?  (3) Do you have any food trend prediction for 2014?