Here are several thoughtful-yet-practical tips for serving up healthy snacks for kids. They've have been condensed from the Burlington Free Press, where you may read the complete story. Stick close to nature. Fresh fruits and vegetables are some of the best snack choices because they offer strong nutrition value with no additives. Beyond that, the shorter the ingredients list, the better A box of raisins (with one ingredient) vs Gummy snacks (pear concentrate + three forms of added sugar + partially hydrogenated oil). Don't be a purist: If it takes a little ranch dressing to get your child eating fresh veggies, it's a small price to pay. No more white bread. Look for at least 2 grams of fiber per serving of any grain-based product such as bread, cereals or crackers. When choosing cereal, follow the "3-3-9" rule 3 grams of fiber no more than 3 grams of fat no more than 9 grams of sugar. Be a label reader. Avoid trans-fats (usually listed as hy

Once you start roasting tomatoes in late summer and early fall, easy suppers like this half make themselves. Here, it's just pasta tossed with a ten-minute sauce, including a few skillet-toasted walnuts. Just gorgeous ... Real Food, Fresh & Seasonal. Just Seven Ingredients! A Late-Summer Classic. Not Just Easy, Summer Easy . Little Effort, Big Taste. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Vegetarian.

Many thanks (again) to JenGray for her photo, this time the cross-stitch from her Gram's apron. It's that time again, the vegetable-centric posts from other food bloggers / home cooks. This week, the focus is on vegetable dishes for the Six O'Clock Scramble , weary from work, trying to put supper on the table in a few minutes, hungry kids waiting in the wing. From the Accidental Hedonist, a lofty-sounding Spinaci alla Piemonte, really just spinach with a secret ingredient From the Amateur Gourmet, a quick-to-the-table summer squash and corn pasta From the Bacon Show, which to my surprise features one vegetable recipe after another, a quick skillet toss of red cabbage and fixin's including bacon, natch From My Adventures in the Breadbox, a lovely garden minestrone with summer squash, zucchini, carrot, corn and spinach too And for nights when there's time for the oven: From Though Small, It Is Tasty, a sweet potato and spinach and egg "tian&quo

How to roast tomatoes, slowly, slowly, slowly. In 2005, I roasted 15 batches of tomatoes, keeping notes as I experimented with oven temperature, time in the oven, how much oil to use, whether fresh or dried herbs worked better. From mid-September through early October, the house was aromatic with a gentle tomato scent from 15 batches of Slow-Roasted Tomatoes. Each batch was a little different. I played with oven temperature, oven time, a little oil and a lot of oil, fresh herbs and dried herbs. I even experimented with Fast-Roasted Tomatoes but quickly returned to these. The inspiration came from StephenCooks , whose site includes the warning, "If you're looking for something quick here, I'm sorry but most of the dishes I cook take far too long to be called quick." His ideas about slow-roasted tomatoes are here .

How to trim and steam fresh broccoli, then dress it in different ways that are “never the same”. ~recipe & photo updated 2014~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ After the success of Day 154's Tomato Bread Pudding IV inspired by StephenCooks, I decided to try his ever-so-simple steamed broccoli. And as you might expect, it's g-o-o-d . I especially like the technique because: The broccoli stalks are absolutely delicious so do pay attention to the aggressive trimming instructions – they're worth the time, especially for what happens to the stalks. So often, they're chopped off and even discarded in favor of the more tender and flavorful crowns. I love them cold, eaten out of a bowl like vinegar-free pickles. The herb and vinegar and oil combinations (what I call the "Never-the-Same" Possibilities) are nearly limitless, making it easy to complement the rest of the meal. It fits a Six O'Clock Scramble supper schedule OR can be prepped ahead of

What, you don't remember Tomato Bread Puddings I, II and III? That's because up until tonight, the man-who-can-cook-anything over at StephenCooks has been the-man-who-cooks-everything . Impressed with Stephen's kitchen panache, awhile back I made a casual e-mail inquiry about his ideas for a tomato bread pudding, something I've been working on - entirely unsuccessfully - for a couple of summers, including here in A Veggie Venture back on Day 69 . I thought Stephen might write back with an equally casual idea or two. Instead: The next -- NEXT! -- morning, he posted Tomato Bread Pudding . And the next day he posted a Tomato Flan . And then he posted Roasted Tomato Bread Pudding . Oh: isn't Stephen's behind-the-camera artistry inspiring? Tonight, finally, it was time for me to push Stephen back into his living room out there in Maine to elbow my way into the kitchen here in Missouri . I used his Roasted Tomato Bread Pudding as tonight's

Now that the weather's turning, it's time to turn on our ovens! Here's a great start, an easy, half-good-for-ya (Quick) Brown Bread , featured in Kitchen Parade's weekly column.