A rose is a rose is a rose ... but NOT when it comes to "commercial" squash, the ones you pop in the microwave for six minutes. What comes out is NOT squash but ... yuck. First let me be clear: what I'm talking about in this post is a 'commercial' squash that's been specially processed for cooking in the microwave. And please, before concluding I have some romantic attachment to "fresh only" vegetables, it's just not true. I support this product on its face. I like the idea that a whole acorn squash can be on the table in about 10 minutes. I like the fact that it's easy to cut the squash in half to serve. I like the fact that it might actually help more people enjoy healthful winter squash. I promote cooking vegetables in the microwave . I don't even mind that the price is 4 times one that requires oven roasting. What I DO object to is the flavor : NONE. Watery. Wimpy. Like, um, water, wimpy flavorless squash. What I DO obj

OH MY. May I just say that there are far too few sandwiches in this household? Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that on the rare occasion that bread, bacon, cheese and tomatoes were on hand at the same time, there was no deciding whether to make a grilled cheese or a BLT -- and so I combined them. Thank you, Sandwich Gods, thank you. MAKE IT A MEAL Nothing like soup and a sandwich for lunch, perhaps the light, fresh-tomato Summer's Tomato Soup ? FROM THE VEGETABLE RECIPE ARCHIVES Hmm. I do have bread and tomatoes. Maybe it's time to 'update the photos' (always a good excuse ...) for 2005's luscious Eggplant, Tomato & Mozzarella Sandwiches and Artichoke & Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwiches . TWO YEARS AGO Tomato & Rice Salad , a tasty combination that I re-made this summer, still tastes great. Grilled Cheese BLT Hands-on time: 10 minutes Time to table: 15 minutes Serves 1 (easily multiplied) 2 slices bacon 2 slices bread Thin slather of mayonnaise Sprinkl

Power Rangers and broccoli salad: who knew they would meet on the dinner table? They do, in this week's Kitchen Parade column for Power Food Broccoli Salad . SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features ' fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences '. Where A Veggie Venture is 'pure food blog', full of experimentation and exploration, Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are family and reader favorites. All recipes feature easy-to-find ingredients, clear instructions and because I believe so strongly in informed food choices, nutrition analysis and Weight Watchers points. Want to know more? Explore KitchenParade.com , including Kitchen Parade's Recipe

So it's kind of amazing to me that you can add so much Swiss chard, a soft and delicate leafy green, to what's otherwise a pretty traditional tuna salad recipe – and yet it's still completely tuna salad not some weird variation. Low Carb. High Protein. Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly with homemade mayonnaise. It's hard – for us, anyway and let me not just say "hard" but "really hard" – to eat enough greens. So I'm ever on the look-out for ways to incorporate greens into stuff that we're already eating. This easy tuna salad – it could be your favorite tuna salad recipe, even a tuna salad from the deli – was easily transformed. And I was quite surprised that even with the addition of three large Swiss chard leaves, this was still tuna salad , just a little greener – and very good, definitely worth a try. COMPLIMENTS! "Excellent savory tuna salad ...what a treat!." ~ belleplaine

Such a simple, tasty way to "dress" green beans in a quick toss of mayonnaise, soy sauce and if you like, hot sauce. The same sauce works with other vegetables too! ~recipe & photo updated 2015~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2007: At coffee with a new friend the other day, the conversation leaned to books and recipes. (Yoohoo, a new reading friend! Yay, a new foodie friend!) Marie shared a colleague's recipe from some 25 years ago. It's so simple, it's not even a "recipe" – just beans tossed in a sauce of mayonnaise and soy sauce. But I've made it twice now and it's amazing that something this easy can be this good. Would the same mayo-soy sauce work with steamed broccoli? cooked cabbage? Brussels sprouts? cauliflower? I think so. And frozen vegetables? For sure! 2015: I use this simple little sauce so often, one vegetable after another – that said, it remains a particular favorite for green beans, quick, cheap, approachable. The

It's a special day over at Kitchen Parade, an introduction to Iowa 'pioneers' who are raising pork for Niman Ranch with new-but-old practices. For me, it's been an emotional return to a place where I lived for 14 years. Today, for the first time in many years, I hear The Heartbeat of Iowa . SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features ' fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences '. Where A Veggie Venture is 'pure food blog', full of experimentation and exploration, Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are family and reader favorites. All recipes feature easy-to-find ingredients, clear instructions and because I believe so strongly in

So if we need any more signs of the globalization of our planet, check out the Des Moines Farmers Market smack dab in the middle of the corn and bean fields of central Iowa. What a fabulous farmers market - the best I've seen, bar none. And mine is no solo act singing the market's praises. At least one of the chefs for the Niman Ranch annual hog producers appreciation dinner weekend before last agrees. "The farmers market is spectacular," he told me just as I was heading there, "way better than anything in Chicago." The market is huge, as much a street festival with booth after booth of locally raised produce, meat, honey and fresh flowers along with artisan cheese and bread -- plus food stalls (have you had a pupusa , yet? delicious! or what about homemade biscuits and sausage gravy? swoon!) and market-appropriate crafts like bird houses made from gourds and t-shirts that read, "I'm an Iowa Girl". We were especially lucky to get the gra

Question : What are Chocolate & Zucchini and Gastropoda ? Answer : Food blogs, of course, as many food-blog enthusiasts will recognize! What's new , however, is the source of the Q&A, the great new trivia game for food lovers called Foodie Fight . (Yes, my fellow food bloggers, we have indeed all arrived when even two of our number are mentioned in a food trivia game!) The game comes with 168 trivia cards (each with questions in six food-fun categories) plus game boards (for individuals or teams) and playing tokens. Use the boards and tokens or just fly through the question cards. The questions are a perfect mix of the obscure (Q. How many bubbles in a bottle of champagne, anyone?) and the familiar (Q. What vegetable is some times referred to as "Swiss", after a 16th-century botanist?) -- so you'll be stumped often enough to learn something but not so often as to feel stupid. And when you know the answers -- and you will, I promise -- you'll

Oatmeal cookies with a banana twist! Okay, I've got your complete attention now, right? I thought so -- check out this week's Kitchen Parade column for a great home-style cookie recipe Banana Oatmeal Cookies — plus two quick banana desserts, too! SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features ' fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences '. Where A Veggie Venture is 'pure food blog', full of experimentation and exploration, Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are family and reader favorites. All recipes feature easy-to-find ingredients, clear instructions and because I believe so strongly in informed food choices, nutrition analysis and Weight Watche

Yes, it's THAT time of year again. ( "What? Time of year? What time of year is it?" I just know you're wondering.) But this is a most pivotal time of year, the few weeks at the cusp of summer and autumn when we must-must-must slow-roast tomatoes so that for the rest of the year , we're able to pull the taste of sweet summer from our freezers on mere whim or sheer inspiration. (My apologies to regular readers, you know this story. But new readers? Slow-roased tomatoes bear repeating!) In 2005, I became curious about -- okay, obsessed with -- slow-roasted tomatoes. I roasted, well, 15 batches . No wonder I've collected so many recipes for using slow-roasted tomatoes ! And don't let anyone lead you astray thinking that a mere four hours or so will 'slow-roast' tomatoes. Nope. You see, I've tested. From much trial, much error, I know that it takes 10 - 12 hours, yes hours! at 200F to create the real essence of slow-roasting. So if you're wonde

When I became the unexpected owner of a Camerons stovetop smoker last spring, naturally, I wondered about the potential of smoked vegetables. What would emerge? First up, lovely woody nutty smoked potatoes. "Tastes like bacon," remarked one taste tester -- thus proving that bacon tastes like smoke, not bacon , yes? And just like smoking trout, shrimp and scallops (my favorites on the smoker and the real reason to buy a smoker if considering one), smoked potatoes are easy-easy cooking. Just slice and season, arrange in the smoker, then walk away. In fact, the recipe I followed specified smoking the potatoes for 45 minutes. But I forgot to set the timer and so these cooked for almost twice that: no problem. (I do recommend paying attention to the timer, however.) NUTRITION NOTES These were smoked with zero fat -- but still were absolutely delicious, especially smeared with good mustard. That said, my chef friend tells me that slathered in duck fat beforehand (since it won

On Saturday, I had the great pleasure of sharing a table and an evening's worth of conversation with Niman Ranch pork producers Richard and Delores Blackford whose central-Iowa farm is only a tractor's ride from where my great-grandparents once were townies raising strawberries on a corner lot. And when an Iowa farmwife shares the technique she uses to put up 120 quarts of corn every summer, you just know this Veggie Evangelist is grabbing a pen to take furious notes – not that notes are required, the technique is dead simple. So on the drive back to St. Louis, I picked up a 'farmers dozen' ears of corn whose fourteen ears yielded only a scant six cups of corn – about 1 percent of what Mrs. Blackford puts up – but I promise to enjoy every single kernel. Here's her recipe – farm-tested, farm-loved, farm-sweet.

Today's vegetable soup recipe: A riff on a Julia Child’s master soup recipe, thickened with a starch like rice (or here, farro) instead of flour. ~recipe & photo updated 2013~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2007 Original Post: Would Julia Child be pleased? Will StephenCooks be pleased? Yes and yes, I think. You see, this soup is a variation on on last month's Cream of Zucchini Soup , a 'master recipe' from Julia Child's The Way to Cook but is also inspired by Stephen's Summer Squash & Fresh Corn Soup . I especially like Stephen's idea that some times we cook with our 'left hands', almost without thought while cooking something else, because it's that simple or flexible or forgiving. So rather than use rice and sour cream like before, I used farro and coconut milk. And instead of the blender (or Stephen's faster food processor) to process, I used the Braun immersion blender , saving space in the dishwasher. And I used bacon g

How to make green smoothies, including Fourteen Tips and Five Sample Recipes so you can create your own delicious, healthy smoothies. Just pick some fruit, grab some fresh greens (spinach or Swiss chard or kale or other greens), add a few pantry ingredients of your own choice, then set your blender to a good whirl. You've got a Green Smoothie! Real Food, Fresh & Flexible. Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Great for Meal Prep. Low Fat. Vegetarian. Easily Vegan. Naturally Gluten Free. Great for Meal Prep.

Spaghetti Squash - do they have their own flavor or simply deliver other flavors? So far, my vote's on 'delivery'. This particular spaghetti squash was home-grown, just-picked and small (maybe a pound versus the typical three-pound footballs from the grocery) so I figured if ever there were flavor to be found, this was it. Nope. But nonetheless, this salad - which 'delivers' fresh tomato, basil and feta - was quite good and easy to pull together. Spaghetti squash does have its compensations. It has virtually no calories and cooks in a flash (here, in the microwave). So -- as long as we expect no flavor from the squash itself, it's a perfect delivery vehicle. NEXT TIME I'll be tempted to put the salad into a casserole dish and warm through to serve hot. I'm quite sure that the inspiring recipe intended this to be a warm side dish, but spaghetti squash doesn't hold heat so it just didn't turn out that way. I'll also use all tomatoes versus a

I like this dressing! It's made from dried New Mexico chiles (or something called guajillo chiles which I've never seen before), which impart depth and smokiness, not heat. And by itself, it made up in just 10 minutes, a quick and easy job. It would be a great alternate dressing for last year's Warm Root Salad with Horseradish Vinaigrette . NEXT TIME Since the sweet potatoes take much longer to skillet sauté, I've re-arranged the recipe to shorten your time requirements. But another time, I'd be tempted then roast or steam the sweet potatoes, then toss lightly in some dressing -- or maybe grill slices of sweet potato brushed with the dressing. Did I mention I really like this dressing?! NUTRITION Cooking the potatoes this way took a whole lot more oil than I'm comfortable with -- and the nutrition analysis (see below) definitely shows this. After cooking and then eating, my skin even felt oily. As much as I like the dressing, I'd like it more if less were u

Vegetables for Breakfast! Easy lazy-morning fare, a Spanish-style breakfast with warm summer tomatoes baked with eggs and if you like, draped with anchovies or in my case, good bacon! So good! Weight Watchers Friendly, just 4 points. Low Carb, gluten free and paleo. ~recipe & photo updated 2014~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ Original Post 2007: Yes, those are fishy little anchovy guys draped amid the tomatoes and eggs. I love their salty contribution but for anyone who's anchovy skittish, the eggs and tomatoes are entirely gorgeous, all on their own. This is an easy breakfast recipe, one to make spur of the moment some lazy weekend while the tomatoes are still luscious. I used thick slices of fresh San Marzano tomatoes: beautiful. No tomatoes? Then how about Baked Eggs in Cream with Spinach ? Not excited about eggs? Then how about more recipes for perfect summer tomatoes ? Update 2014: Careful recipe hunters will note that this time, I draped bacon across the baked eg