It takes a lot of words to describe what is in fact a super-simple traditional Lebanese / Syrian / Middle Eastern salad. So instead, just learn this one word and repeat after me: Fattoush. Fattoush. Fattoush. (That's fuh-toosh, fuh-toosh, fuh-toosh.) Now? Go make one. You really don't want to miss this classic summer tomato salad while this year's tomatoes are so perfect! Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . ~recipe updated, first published way back in 2011~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ Dear St. Louis Post-Dispatch, A certain St. Louis food blogger is wild for the Fattoush Salad at Ranoush, the Syrian restaurants in University City and now in Kirkwood. Would you please see if the owners would share the recipe? Please, pretty please? That Certain Food Blogger Since February, I've been writing a weekly column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called "Special Request" – the one where St. Louisans write in to ask for recipes for their favorite dishes from...

Today's rich tomato soup, a creamy tomato bisque that starts off with the famous Tomato-Onion Sauce from the now-deceased Italian cook Marcella Hazan who introduced Italian cuisine to the U.S. and Britain in the way that Julia Child introduced French cuisine. I make Hazan's Tomato-Onion Sauce with fresh tomatoes instead of the usual canned tomatoes. It's stunning! Aren't tomatoes summer vegetables? (Yeah-yeah-yeah, tomatoes are really fruit not vegetables. But go with me, okay?) Last year, we harvested our first tomato in late June – and then not one more until late August! Most years here in Missouri and much of the Midwest, our best tomatoes are harvested in September and in good years, even well into October. That means that when the food blog world is humming Christmas carols obsessing over fall apples and all-things-pumpkin, our garden is still spitting out beautiful tomatoes. And yes, such bounty can be overwhelming. By mid September, we've had our fill ...

The traditional three-bean salad – or hey! a wonderful two-bean salad when yellow beans are nowhere to be found as in my recent photo update! The recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated, they did a "recipe makeover" with fresh green beans instead of canned green beans. Me? I took Cook's Illustrated's recipe and did an even bigger makeover, making it lighter with way-way less oil and way-way less sugar. The results? Fabulous. Low Carb. Weight Watchers Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. ~recipe updated, first published way back in 2007~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ How is it that so many great potluck dishes rely on canned vegetables? Maybe it's because they're dashed together before church or an afternoon gathering? No matter. Making a three-bean salad with fresh beans – when you can, with a mix of yellow and green beans, is especially pretty! – does take longer but the outcome is, well, praise-worthy. In fact, it wo...

Today's gorgeous summer salad: A colorful crunchy mix of fresh-fresh summer vegetables in a lemony dressing spiced with the delightful sourness of sumac plus cumin, smoked paprika and oregano. It makes a great supper salad or better yet, a salad for a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern meze platter. Weight Watchers Friendly, just 1 Freestyle point. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Paleo. Primal. Vegetarian. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". And naturally, completely delicious. So yeah, call me summer's broken record. Every year about this time I am surprised to experience the same thing: just how easy and fun it is to cook when tonight's tomatoes were picked from the garden this morning, when we've been waiting/watching patiently for just the right moment to pluck an expanding green pepper from the vine, not too big, not too small. Not that there's any cooking to throw together this little gem of a salad, just some quality time with a knife and cutting...