It’s hard to escape the signs or flyers advertising Valentine’s Day cakes, candies, and cards. Most grocery stores have a display at the front door that practically barricades customers off from the rest of the store.

So, what if you’re not in a romantic relationship right now? Or you’re not interested in candy or junk food? Why not spend a little time in the kitchen preparing a heart-healthy meal? You could try something new, like a vegan or vegetarian recipe. Or buy prepared treats that are labeled as “heart healthy.” Valentine’s Day can be good for your heart in a whole new way!

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), “most vegetarian diets are low in or devoid of animal products. They’re also usually lower than non-vegetarian diets in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol. Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer.” You don’t need to go totally vegetarian or vegan, but lowering your intake of animal products can make a difference.

Whip up a fruit smoothie with soy or almond milk, hit a good salad bar near you, or try one of the Cooking With Heart recipes on the AHA website (the sweet potato nachos look amazing!). You can also find great recipes in the Falvey or Health Promotion collections. Our online catalog will show you where to find them. We also have access to e-book cookbooks!

If you really want chocolate for Valentine’s Day, try this vegan cookie recipe. It’s bound to satisfy your deepest, darkest chocolate cravings.

Chocolate chocolate chip cherry cookies

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2/3 cup canola oil
1 ½ cups organic cane sugar
4 tsp. ground flaxseeds
½ cup soy milk
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
¾ cup vegan chocolate chips
¾ cup dried cherries, chopped small

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate large bowl, mix together the oil and sugar. Add the flaxseeds, soy milk, and vanilla, and mix well.

Fold in the dry ingredients in batches. When the batter starts to get too stiff to mix with a fork, use hands until a ball of dough forms. Add the chocolate chips and cherries, and mix with your hands again. (I didn’t need to mix the dough with my hands. It seemed to hold together pretty well.)

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and flatten into disks about 1 ½ inches in diameter. Place about an inch apart on cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Demian Katz, a technology development specialist at Falvey, shared this recipe with me a few years ago and it’s still one of my favorites. I substituted some of the original ingredients according to my own preferences. The original recipe can be found in Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook.

More resources on heart health can be found at the Library and on the AHA website.

Before starting any new diet, consult your physician or a nutrition counselor. The Villanova University Office of Health Promotion has excellent resources on its website and offers private one-on-one nutrition counseling with a registered dietician.

Food blog written by Luisa Cywinski, writer on the Communication & Service Promotion team and team leader, Access Services.

You probably spend 90% of your time reading articles and books listed in your professors’ syllabi, right? Why not treat yourself to a book on your favorite subject or something from the Popular Reading section? Also, don’t forget to check the Free Books cart near the first floor elevator from time to time. Right now you’ll find some cool ‘cat jazz and classical music CDs on the cart.

Ah…soup. That warm, comforting, savory food that makes the cold winter days more bearable. Here at Villanova, we volunteer in soup kitchens, attend bread & soup luncheons and collect soup recipes from Dining Services, the College of Nursing and the Office of Health Promotion, just to name a few. And of course, you’ll find many resources on soup, both literal and figurative, at the library.

Don’t worry. I’m not here to talk about Darwin’s primeval (or primordial) soup or, heaven forbid, the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I won’t be delving into Grass Soup, eaten by prisoners in Mao Tse Chung’s China, or Calf’s Head Soup, apparently popular in 1759.

This recipe for Parmesan broth is easy. You can add just about anything to enhance its nutritional value. It can also be used as an ingredient in other recipes, including stuffings, casseroles and sauces.  You can ask for cheese rinds at a grocery store with a good full-service cheese counter.

Parmesan Broth:

½ lb. cheese rinds (parmesan or any hard, grating cheese)
6 cups water
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
A few sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp. kosher salt

Special Tools:

Cheesecloth keeps the cheese from floating around and sticking to your cookware.
A tall, preferably non-stick, sauce pan will ensure that water covers all the ingredients while the broth simmers.

Tie up the cheese rinds in cheesecloth with kitchen or butcher’s twine. Place all ingredients in the saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and keep at a low simmer for about an hour. Use a sieve or colander to strain out all solids. Let the broth cool for storage or use the optional list of ingredients below to make soup with the broth.

Optional Ingredients for Soup:

Cooked white beans (White, Great Northern, Cannelini, Navy, etc.)

Kale, spinach, collards, or any other dark green leafy vegetable

Sautéed mushrooms

Cooked pasta or rice

Cooked potatoes

After adding one or more of the optional ingredients, let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes before serving so that newly added ingredients are warmed and greens wilt and soften.

The recipes I loosely followed are provided as links below and are from some of my favorite food blogs. Embedded links above will take you to University and Library resources.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/parm-broth

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/01/parmesan-broth-with-kale-and-white-beans/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/food-52/how-to-make-parmesan-brot_b_5522405.html

I love HuffPost’s suggestion to use the broth to de-glaze a pan and create a flavorful sauce. And adding cream takes it up a notch.

Bizarro comic strip used with express permission of the creator, Dan Piraro.

Food blog by Luisa Cywinski, writer on Communication & Service Promotion team and team leader of Access Services.

According to The Villanovan website, students have been running the official school newspaper for 100 years, from 1916 – 2016. If you’re interested in the early years, you can find them in our Digital Library collection. More recent issues can be found on the Lexis-Nexis database, which is available to anyone with Villanova University login credentials. Find out what the Wildcats were up to in 1916, 1926, 1936, and more! What were the College Notes singing about? What were Villanova’s Thespians playing? Where was the Belle Air

‘Caturday post by Luisa Cywinski, writer on the Communication & Service Promotion team and team leader of Access Services.

(Left to right) Maleah Bradley, Christina Sebastiao, Cordesia Pope

Thanks to Fiona Chambers, a student leader on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service Committee, library staff did their part to draw attention to the MLK Day of Service by wearing t-shirts provided by the committee.

The Library also served as one of the MLK Day of Service Coat Drive locations on campus after being contacted by Rebecca Lin, another student leader on the MLK Day of Service Committee.

The Library will be closed on Monday, Jan. 18, to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to allow library staff and students to participate in MLK Day of Service events.

To give everyone a chance to prepare for the first week of classes, the library will be open from 12-5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, 1/9 and 1/10. It will also give us a chance to test out the new printers on the first floor. See you soon!

Have you noticed the small black boxes that replaced the traditional CPU’s in many areas of the library? These thin clients don’t have a hard drive and rely on the Villanova servers for all the “heavy lifting” that a CPU used to do. Users can save their work to a networked drive (usually the N drive), a flash drive or using cloud-based storage services like Dropbox, iCloud or Google Drive. Google gives you 15 gb; a larger cloud comes with a price tag.

The other new service on campus is vDesktop. According to Henry Heincer and Jill Morrison, UNIT Support Services, “vDesktop is UNIT’s virtual desktop technology that provides access to a high performing virtual machine through a variety of devices.  vDesktop allows users to access Windows and various software applications via any computer with an internet connection.  The operating system, apps, and data are streamed directly from Villanova’s data center. ”

In addition to the standard Microsoft Office Suite, users can also access:

• SPSS
• Maple
• Arc-GIS
• Cyberduck
• Fathom 2
• Minitab 16
• SigmaPlot 12.5
• Wolfram Mathematica 9
• Microsoft Publisher
• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Expression web 4
• Endnote X5

Engineering students and faculty have access to a tailored version of vDesktop with specialized applications.

There is an FAQ page on the UNIT website that can answer all your questions about vDesktop.

Article by Luisa Cywinski, writer, Communication and Service Promotion Team, and team leader, Access Services Team.

Two students who work on the Access Services team at Falvey Memorial Library agreed to tell us about their study abroad experiences last semester.

Last semester, Erin Johnson studied abroad in Galway, Ireland with fifteen other Villanova students. During her time at the National University of Ireland, Galway, she studied global economics and Irish history. Despite being hundreds of miles away from campus, Erin was still able to use Falvey’s online resources to help write a few papers!

Erin Johnson at the Cliffs of Moher.

(From left to right) Ginny Lee, Marielle Sauvigne, Erin Johnson, Emma Goetzman, and Laura McMahon at Kylemore Abbey.

Molly McGuinness studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark for 4 months. She participated in a neuroscience program and her class had the opportunity to travel to Munich, Germany for one week to tour labs and listen to researchers. In addition to traveling to Germany, Molly also traveled to eight other countries throughout the semester. This experience was her first time in Europe. She loved being able to see and learn so much about other places and cultures.

Molly took a side trip to Sweden for some abseiling!

This was an everyday sight for Molly while she stayed in Copenhagen.

Article by Luisa Cywinski, writer, Communication and Service Promotion team, and team leader, Access Services.

It’s hard to believe that only three short years ago, almost to the day, the Learning Commons in Falvey was officially dedicated. University President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, OSA, PhD, ’75 CLAS, presided over the event and recounted “the long process of inspiration that led to the Learning Commons project.”

Students heading into midterms can take advantage of librarians in the Research Center, homework help from Learning Support Services (LSS), a staffed lab environment in the Math Learning Resource Center (MLRC) and one-on-one writing tutorials in the Villanova Writing Center.

The Learning Commons is a great example of how ‘Cats came together to make amazing things happen for the “Greater Great!”

Father Donohue

Article by Luisa Cywinski, writer, Communication and Service Promotion Team, and team leader, Access Services Team.

Photograph by John Welsh, University Communication.