Posts

Showing posts from June, 2011

Mom's Potato Salad Recipe ♥

My mother's recipe for a traditional American-style homemade potato salad – it's the one potato salad I make again and again without needing a "recipe". And while not "diet food," the recipe calls for cooked eggs and cottage cheese so the potato salad contains a good measure of protein too. Fresh herbs really brighten the flavors! I make other potato salads on occasion but this is the one I come back to again and again, the one I make almost without thinking. WAY BACK IN 2006 A few weeks back, Michelle from the food blog "Je Mange la Ville" shared her Secrets to Amazing Potato Salad (scroll down, they're near the end). It got me to wondering why I'd yet to post my mother's potato salad "recipe" here on A Veggie Venture, despite making a big batch several times a summer. So. Without further ado, here are my Mom's tricks for a classic potato salad and now, as mothers pass important things to daughters, my own "reci

Sweet Potato Wedges with Rosemary & Lime Juice ♥

Finally, a summer-y way to cook sweet potatoes. You're going to love these, I think! Do you think of sweet potatoes as a summer vegetable? Me either. Growing season aside, sweet potatoes always seem just a little heavy for summer, don't they? But they're so good for us, so easy to find, so many people like them – I'm thrilled to have a good way to cook sweet potatoes in the summer – easy, quick, fresh and light. So good! Just cut sweet potatoes in half and rub the cut sides in a little oil and butter and snips of fresh rosemary, then toss them in the oven. I love how the flat sides get slightly crispy and caramelized, how leaving the jackets on during baking keeps the sweet potatoes moist and ever so sweet. You could serve them hot, I suppose, but it's summer. Just let them rest at room temperature and serve later – drizzled with a squeeze of lime juice. Heaven! How heavenly? Well I'm adding it to this small collection of My Favorite Sweet Potato Recipes .

Cauliflower "Potato" Salad ♥ Low-Carb, Low-Cal Light "Potato" Salad

Potato salad made not with potatoes, but with cauliflower so a great choice for low-carb for dieters and diabetics -- and anyone who just loves cauliflower! Weight Watchers? You are going to love this salad! When my friend Lyn from the poignant and inspiring weight loss blog "Escape from Obesity" posted a recipe for Low Carb "Potato" Salad last year, a light went on. Wow -- cauliflower just might be a dieter's best friend. Cauliflower has virtually no calories; it's easily available year-round; pound for pound, it's an inexpensive vegetable. But most of all, cooked cauliflower creates a creamy mouthfeel that's akin to both potatoes and rice, so can either substitute for potatoes or rice or supplement potatoes or rice for a lower-calorie, lower-carb dish. Without realizing, I've collected several of these "potato" and "rice" dishes that aren't made with either potato or rice but instead with cauliflower. There's th

Beet Smoothies ♥ Two Recipes

Today's new smoothie recipes, both starting with beets. The first is an unusual smoothie, just two-ingredients long, with cheek-pink color that would make a peacock blush. The second pairs mango with beets, with no added sugar, just plant-based sweetness. But stick with me here, okay? Give me 30 seconds to make the case for making a smoothie with beets. We know that beets have a natural sweetness – hence the garden beet's cousin, the sugar beet, accounts for a third of the world's sugar production. (Source: Wikipedia .) The first recipe starts with pickled beets – that means that there's sweetness but a welcome note of sharpness, too. This means that taste-wise, a beet smoothie isn't as outlandish as its admittedly outlandish pink color! Tastes differ but I gotta tell you, I love beet smoothies. I didn't set out to create a beet smoothie recipe but one day I was out of fruit and wanted a morning smoothie – the Quick Pickled Beets in the refrigerator ca

How to Eat More Vegetables: Tip #14

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? Most Saturdays, the 'veggie evangelist' shares a practical tip or idea from her own experience, from her readers' experience, from other bloggers. Today's image, of course, comes from the new logo unveiled by the USDA this week. It's the new "plate logo" that divides a plate in half for vegetables and fruit, the other half into protein and grains, with a glass for dairy. Check the new website, ChooseMyPlate.gov and click the five areas, see the easy lists of what fits into each one. So what's today's tip?