This month is a popular one for graduation celebrations, with high schools and colleges throughout the country concluding their academic years.

Whether you’re planning a graduation celebration for your favorite recent graduate or attending a potluck party, we have the perfect recipe for you – from finger foods to decadent desserts.

Finger Foods: Simple to prepare and easy to eat, finger foods are a fun and portable way for your guests to nosh while they mingle. These recipes don’t require forks or knives, but they might call for extra napkins.

Boneless Buffalo Strips

Low-Calorie Pigs in a Blanket

Rosemary Skewered Chicken with Orange Glaze

Antipasto Skewers from Mele Cotte

Cucumber Cups with Caramelized Onions & Bacon from Lemons & Anchovies

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North Carolina may be a red state politically, but many meat eaters are blue in the face crying foul over a state ban on rare burgers in restaurants. The state now requires restaurants to cook their hamburgers to a temperature of 155 degrees, which health officials say is enough to kill unhealthy bacteria such as E. coli.

While North Carolina’s citizens are still allowed to eat their hamburgers anyway they wish at home, restaurants can’t go any lower than medium on the cooking chart. Word has it that this legislation has created somewhat of an underground red meat-eating movement, a bit like the speakeasies of Prohibition days, I suppose.

North Carolina restaurants can still serve steaks rare to customers since they don’t pose the same threat as ground meat. If contaminants exist on a piece of steak they are usually on the outside and killed during the cooking process. However, when beef is ground up the bacteria is mixed inside.

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It’s that time of year – time to break out the barbecue and invite your friends and neighbors over for a cookout. Spring and summer are prime time for great food, good friends – and great food to celebrate the warm weather.

Of course, we all know that with summer on the horizon, bathing suit season is just around the corner. Don’t undo all of the hard work you’ve done at the gym this year.  To keep your diet balanced, celebrity nutritionist Carl Germano, RD, CDN, shared five simple swaps to keep you eating great tasting foods – and looking and feeling great.

Instead of: Beef Burger or Sliders with Cheese

Try: Turkey Sliders with sliced tomato

Ground turkey breast is leaner than most types of ground beef and sliced tomato will offer a powerful punch of lycopene – without the saturated fat in most cheeses. If you must have cheese, try a sprinkling of feta, which is lower in fat and calories than most varieties.

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Cinco de Mayo, which many Americans know as an excuse to drink Coronas and eat guacamole, is a day that has a great deal of significance in Mexican history. The holiday commemorates the Mexican army’s unexpected victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

In Mexico, the day calls for great celebration, and Americans have adopted Cinco de Mayo as a celebration of Mexican culture that often centers itself around food and beverage. We all know that it can be difficult to stick to a diet or healthy lifestyle on holidays that revolve around salty snacks, cheese-drenched main dishes and caloric alcoholic beverages, so we put together a round-up of our favorite Mexican-style recipes for your own celebrations that won’t break your calorie bank.

This year, you can celebrate Cinco de Mayo without forsaking any of your cravings – or expanding your waistline.

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Fast-Food chain Burger King is continuing the trend of launching ultra-fatty sandwiches in Japan with a new burger. First, McDonald’s launched its “Big America” campaign, which features a collection of burgers (yes, a collection–there are at least four of them) named for American locations and are loaded with a barrage of high-calorie items, from chips to chili. Now, Burger King has launched the Meat Monster burger.

As part of the “Have It Your Way” promotion, the Meat Monster is based on the All Heavy, a burger that has about one and a half times the amount of toppings as a regular Whopper. The Meat Monster then has two slices of cheese, three strips of bacon, an extra 3.3 ounce beef patty and a Tendergrill chicken patty. The burger sells for 820 yen, the equivalent of $9.70. Using the equivalent U.S. ingredients, The Consumerist estimates that the sandwich has 1160 calories, while SeriousEats used Burger King’s online meal builder to get an estimated value of 1310 calories.

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