If a picture paints a thousand words, what are you waiting for? Get on over to this week's Kitchen Parade column for my mother's recipe for baked apples . You know you've got to, you've just got to -- 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

If you are using IE (Internet Explorer) as your web browser and are seeing inappropriate ads on A Veggie Venture (and on Kitchen Parade and probably on many other websites you visit), please read this. A Veggie Venture is a member of Blogher, a top women's website, and participates in its ad network. This week, Blogher is receiving spotty reports that inappropriate ads are occasionally appearing in place of Blogher's legitimate ads from respected advertisers. (NOTE: I believe the inappropriate ads may also be appearing in advertisements provided by Google, whose ads are published on millions and millions of websites.) I have seen copies of the inappropriate ads that are hijacking the legitimate ads. They are not 'pure porn' but show scantily clad women in suggestive poses. They are completely unseemly for websites like mine. Blogher is helping publishers like me make our readers aware of the issue by providing this information: "Blogher believes this issue

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

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

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

If you're a low-carb dieter, you're going to love A Veggie Venture's brand-new home for low-carb vegetable recipes . It's been re-organized but you'll find all your favorite low-carb vegetable recipes from before. Plus -- especially good news for regular visitors -- it's completely up-to-date so there are dozens and dozens of new recipes easily accessible for the first time! The new page is also easy to find - see it there? right at the top of every page! Regular visitors know that there are so many vegetable recipes on A Veggie Venture, without organization, it would be hard to find 'the' recipe, you know, the quick one for supper or the perfect one for a special meal. To make all my vegetable recipes easy to find in a flash (I always imagine someone ready to leave work, planning a grocery stop and wondering what quick vegetable to make for supper), in the last while, I've also created special sections for microwave vegetable recipes

Enter Year Three of my dedication (um, obsession?) of capturing the taste of summer for winter in the form of slow-roasted tomatoes. The secret combination of time (slow) and temperature (low) were discovered two years ago here on A Veggie Venture but are revealed to Kitchen Parade's print readers for the first time in this week's column all about how to make slow-roasted tomatoes ! 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-

Just a little back-to-school silliness, playing along with Freddie and his mum, who are in the middle of their very own Great Big Vegetable Challenge . Want to play along? They want your vegetable faces ! How to eat more vegetables? A Veggie Venture is the home of Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and the award-winning source of free vegetable recipes with 800 quick and easy favorite vegetable recipes, the Alphabet of Vegetables , Weight Watchers low-point recipes and microwave vegetable recipes .

Who collects great brunch recipes, especially ones that can be completely or partially prepared the night before? This tomato basil quiche, from a 2003 Kitchen Parade column that's published online for the first time, is a real favorite, one I've served summer and winter for many years. Here's the recipe for tomato basil quiche . And if you're looking for still more ideas, here's my collection of great brunch recipes from Kitchen Parade columns. 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

Call it my Personal Peach Protest. You see, if ever there's a lesson on the tension between reward and risk when relying on local food sources, for me it's the peach, the glorious orbs of summer that emerge -- most years, but not in 2007 -- from the peach orchards of Missouri and Illinois, completely within the oh-so-chic 100-mile-diet locavore radius of my home in St. Louis. Although perfect fruit from elsewhere is piled high in the grocery, this year I'm putting my peach dollars into another local product, cottage cheese. Read about it in this week's Kitchen Parade column . Oh! And this is Kitchen Parade's first recipe in the brand-new 'kitchen' -- so worth an extra gander! SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE? 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 occ

For all who follow my food column, Kitchen Parade -- well, it's got a brand-new 'kitchen'! Check out the new digs, finally, over at KitchenParade.com ! 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 the brand-new Kitchen Parade , including Kitchen Parad

From this week's Kitchen Parade column, a great summer appetizer. 'Got milk? We all recognize the slogan from the dairy industry’s ads featuring celebrities with milk-mustached upper lips. But here’s a new version. “Got milk? Got ricotta.”' Get the recipe for Herbed Ricotta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes -- made with your very own homemade ricotta -- at Kitchen Parade. 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

From a 2003 Kitchen Parade column, published today online for the first time: "Sengalese Soup fits busy lives. It makes up in minutes and keeps in the frig for several days ready to serve warm with bread on a chilly evening or cold with a crunchy salad some steamy summer night." Sound like a recipe for your life? Get the recipe for Sengalese Soup at Kitchen Parade. THE HEART OF THE MATTER Lucullian Delights is collecting heart-healthy recipes, this month featuring "waterlife" -- made with shrimp, low-fat milk and just-slightly sweetened with natural honey and corn, Sengalese Soup is my proud entry! 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 foo

From this week's Kitchen Parade column: "Last week I chose my words carefully with a 13-year old. “Do you like rat-a-too-ee?” Not unexpectedly, he was certain I meant this summer’s Disney hit movie and flashed a grin." How do you nearly put tears in the eyes of a 13-year old? Read the rest of this week's column. So what about the first foodie movie of the summer? (Still to come are No Reservations and another whose preview I saw before Ratoutille but looks as immemorable as its name, which, right, I can't remember.) Great great fun, for sure! And for a couple of weeks my 2002 recipe for ratatouille (only column #2, that's how much I love this stuff) has been considerable attention. And it should! Ratatouille (and isn't it great that the world will now know how to pronounce rat-a-too-tee?) may 'sound' fancy but it's just a few vegetables. SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writ

How do you bake without wheat flour? How do you forgo milk and cheese and chicken and turkey and almonds and pineapple and papaya and avocado and heavens! green beans? Food blogging has opened my eyes to the challenges and successes of cooking gluten-free. But when our very own Gluten-Free Goddess Karina learned that she faces a whole host of food allergies -- oh my, what a list -- it took me aback. It's one thing to choose to give up meat and dairy. It's another thing entirely to be forced to give up foods from which you've drawn both sustenance and comfort, in order to regain your well-being, your very life. Yes, it must be done. But. Really. Now. How do you live without the brightness of lemon? For whatever reason, it's Karina's allergy to lemons that has got me thinking the hardest. I keep a half dozen lemons on the counter at the ready at all times. Now, thanks to Karina, each time I pick one up, I caress the waxy skin, I breathe in the lemon scent,

July 1 is Canada Day and July 4 is, well, the 4th of July! And that means long weekends at the cottage, family picnics and neighborhood potlucks, hometown parades and of course, the fireworks. To celebrate, here's a 2003 column for a long-time family favorite, Parmesan Chicken , published online for the first time. Parmesan Chicken is so perfect for summer, quick, easy, make-ahead, good hot or cold, as is or atop a salad or tucked into a sandwich. I made it recently for family visitors and oh, it was so convenient to have on hand. And it's time to stock the frig with refrigerator salads, ones that mix up in a flash, travel well and feed a crowd. Here are some favorites: Confetti Potato Salad Made with both sweet potatoes and white potatoes, also without mayonnaise so perfect for outdoor Holy Slaw! A coleslaw with an unusual dressing that's a real hit all the time, made with peanut butter, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a bit of heat Bloody Mary Salad Tomato-y g

From this week's Kitchen Parade column: "Summers back, friends hosted a backyard potluck, convening spirited folk from the different corners of their lives. The midsummer night was steamy, the kids rambunctious, the trees a rainbow of colored light, the Jimmy Buffet dulcet. Food-wise, the talk of the party was the ‘pink potatoes’ ..." What makes potatoes pink? For the rest of the column and the recipe for Those Pink Potatoes and That Pink Salad (a family favorite with an addictive bite), read this week's Kitchen Parade column . 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