The best vegetable recipes of 2010, just one per month, all in one handy spot for easy reference.

Today's spring soup recipe: A bowlful of our favorite spring vegetables, especially artichokes and asparagus. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. The seductress that is Spring is toying with us here in St. Louis. For a few days, she taunted us with warm – hot, even – days, luring us into the impression that "Spring is really here!" For years, I've tracked the very day in my estimation when spring really arrived and 2011 (and again now, in 2016) was looking record early by some days. But no. The real spring has yet to arrive. As I write, there is new snow on the ground and tomorrow's outdoor birthday party is moving inside. Still, spring will come and it helps to bridge the seasons with what I think of as "bridge foods" – in this case, a big potful of soup that simmered on the stove. But this is no heavy stew or meaty soup of winter, instead, a potful of spring vegetables. I envisioned an all-green soup – thus the celery, asparagus, artichokes, peas a...

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday, the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from the experience of herself, her readers and other bloggers. And now for this week's tip:

Turning sushi inside out and upside down, all the familiar sushi ingredients, turned into a salad. A sushi salad, really? Who's ever heard of a sushi salad?!! But it's another concept recipe – have fun with this one! Tried and true is good and all. But just for fun, isn't it a kick to turn our favorite foods upside down? That's the premise of Sushi Salad, just a few familiar sushi ingredients but in salad form, not small bites. And to my taste, it really does taste like sushi! (Please know, I'm no expert. I have "real sushi" every so often but mostly, it's the packages from the supermarket ..) This Sushi Salad recipe calls for quinoa instead of rice and skips the nori (though there's no reason to not use some) – this was really fun, it's definitely a keeper, taste-wise, but also for ease of preparation and for flexibility.

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday, the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers. FIRST, MORE ABOUT SMOOTHIES Last week's tips came from two readers who are serious about their smoothies. In an e-mail exchange afterward, Kathleen H from New Mexico explained why smoothies are so very important to her health. I've updated the post, How to Eat More Vegetables Tip #5 . AND NOW For this week's tip:

Back to Basics: How to bake whole sweet potatoes in the oven. It's as easy as easy can be: just rub the sweet potatoes with a little oil and bake. (We're baking whole sweet potatoes here, no need for any knife work at all!) This is a great way to cook a lot of sweet potatoes at once, also my favorite way to cook just a couple of sweet potatoes for dinner or for later when the oven is already on. Wonderful for sweet potato meal prep. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". What To Do, What To Do Awhile back, I needed to cook a pile of sweet potatoes for a recipe calling for cooked sweet potatoes. So many choices! The cooking options were: STEAMING OR BOILING But all that added moisture would leave the sweet potatoes too wet, even soggy. MICROWAVE Cooking sweet potatoes in the microwave is a smart technique for one or two whole sweet potatoes, not so much for a lot of sweet potatoes. ROASTING But I didn't want the crispy caramelized edges that develop ...

We sure love our smoothies! We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday, the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers. And now for this week's tip, more submissions from readers, this time Kathleen H. from Gallup, NM and Shawna M. Thanks, guys! You so perfectly expressed our love for smoothies! UPDATE: After I posted these tips, Kathleen explained further exactly why smoothies are so important to her health. She wrote, "I really think that veggie smoothies have played a major role in my cancer survival. I ordered the Vita-Mix two days after my first lung cancer diagnosis in March of 1999. I've used it at almost every meal I've eaten at home since then -- fruit, seeds, whey protein powder for breakfast and veggies at lunch and di...

Vegan Done REAL, it's this easy. Quick and Easy and Vegan Too: An easy vegan main dish, no processed food required, just the kind of recipe that inspired Vegan Done Real. Weight Watchers, 3 or 5 points. Vegan Done Real Some times you have to act. What follows is the reason I've conceived Vegan Done Real , a collection of 52 whole-food vegan recipes from myself and nine other vegan and omnivore bloggers. I hope you'll share it with your friends, real life and Facebook, because we just cannot afford to let the commercial food product companies co-opt the concept of a plant-based diet all in the guise of 'healthy'. As my friend Karen, one of the contributors, wrote on Twitter: "Oprah went processed vegan; these bloggers are keeping it real: 52 recipes." [ Note to Vegetarians ] The Background I'm a glass half full kind of gal. When something looks off, looks plain wrong, I might feel frustrated or even angry for a moment, but then, well, I shrug i...

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday (oops, unless she's caught up in cooking for a Mardi Gras party, in which case, on Monday), the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers.

Polish Dill Pickle Soup: It'll grab you! Today's soup recipe: A potato soup like you've never imagined, completely potato-y but also pickle-y, dill pickle-y to be exact. The creamy-sharp combination takes you by surprise. "Oh that's good," you just might say. We did. So yes, today there's a fun recipe but first, the reason why it's especially fun: it's featured in the weekly column that I'm writing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the big local newspaper here in St. Louis. (Pinch me, yes, I'm really writing that!!! It's really true!) The column is called 'Special Request' and is the Post's popular restaurant recipe request column. On Wednesdays, it appears in print in the paper's food section and online at stltoday.com . Each week, a new restaurant and a new recipe is featured. (Pinch me again. Really. DO.) What does a proud home cook know about restaurant recipes? Well so far, the recipes that Post readers are ...