What a creative way to use up (and stretch!) a small piece of leftover beef – leftover pork works well too – with a quick, meaty salad. But the recipe has moved to a new location, please see Simple Beef Salad at Kitchen Parade, my food column. Looking for healthy new ways to cook vegetables? A Veggie Venture is home to hundreds of super-organized quick, easy and healthful vegetable recipes and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables . Join " veggie evangelist " Alanna Kellogg to explore the exciting world of common and not-so-common vegetables, seasonal to staples, savory to sweet, salads to sides, soups to supper, simple to special. © Copyright Kitchen Parade 2006 & 2022 (retire)

(Many thanks to Markus Jordan aka computix for his inspiring photo of a London "fruit" market!) When Sweetnicks announced ARF Tuesdays to encourage us all to eat more antioxidant-rich foods, I figured A Veggie Venture was a shoe in. All vegetables are rich in antioxidants, right? Still, I'm one of those anal types who can follow instructions (and recipes), so yes, I like lists. Tell me what to do, make it easy and I'm in. (Cook a vegetable every day? No problem, thanks to limited choices. Just a vegetable, thank you, preferably high fiber and low calorie, whether as a side or a soup or on occasion, in cookies and cakes. But pick a dessert for Saturday? Now that's a chore. Chocolate? Fruit? Pie? Cake? Sorbet? Something sublimely simple or ridiculously over the top? Who can decide? Not me.) So when Sweetnicks helpfully included a recent study's list of the Top 20 antioxidant-rich foods, I sailed from top to bottom seeking out the veggies like a kid pl

Recipe for a 'light' spinach dip made lighter with 2 times the spinach, 2 times the artichokes and half the sour cream. Still rich and delicious! ~recipe & photo updated 2011~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2006: Over the Christmas weekend, two hungry teenagers hovered in my kitchen before supper, eyeing the cookie tray. "How about a snack?" the older one asked. "Sure," I answered, opening the fridge door. "Really? Like what?" asked the younger one, hoping for cookies but knowing his Auntie Al. I felt so prepared! Inspired by a recipe from Sweetnicks ', this spinach dip was already prepared. That first night, spread on baked mini pitas, the spinach dip was an instant hit with the kids and grown-ups alike. "THIS could be addictive," munched my dad. And unlike the family addiction to Christmas cookies, this one is decidedly healthful. That's because I "turned upside down" the original recipe's proportions,

Oh, so festive looking! Beyond pretty, however, this cauliflower, nut and fruit combination just didn't work. I've had my eye on the recipe for a long while. I've bought cauliflower for it twice and then used it oh so deliciously here and also wonderfully here . I planned it for Christmas dinner and then ran out of burners. The trouble is: there's no delivery mechanism between the nuts and fruit and the cauliflower. Sure, cutting the butter from four to one tablespoon might have made a difference. But I don't think so. So the result was big chunks of cauliflower (good, of course) with buttery nuts and fruit (how can buttery nuts and fruit be anything but good?) on top and clustered underneath -- but not in the least bit blended together. Too bad -- pretty AND delicious would have made it worth the calories! CAULIFLOWER with NUTS & DRIED FRUIT Bookmark or print this recipe only Hands-on time: 10 minutes Time to table: 30 minutes Serves 5 Water

For many, me included, the last days of December and the first days of January call for reflection, a pause in the busy-ness and business of the season and the life to think back on the year fast drawing to a close and to look forward into the new year that shall remain unknown 'til lived. For A Veggie Venture -- what a year! It all started as a lark, truly, just a spur-of-the-moment decision to try -- without really thinking I'd ever do it -- to cook a vegetable in a new way every single day for a month. Just ONE month! The beginning was inauspicious. On April 1, I roasted some so-so cauliflower . On April 2, I lingered late in the garden and steamed a bag of frozen broccoli . And it took a few weeks to find my voice, to find a cooking/writing rhythm. But once I did -- my, what fun it all became, how much I started to learn. And that's what keeps me going -- that and the remarkable community of food bloggers and friends and family who encourage me and write to say wh

While the kitchen is busier than ever, A Veggie Venture is taking a break from blogging. We'll be back on January 1st (tomorrow!) but here's one last soup recipe, a longtime family favorite from the never-seen-online Kitchen Parade archive and perfect for the winter months ahead. It's Sausage & Kale Slit Pea Soup , a kid favorite too. Many thanks to Luminous Lens for the soup emblem!

Looking for luck in the new year? Then check out two recipes using black-eyed peas, bearers of good fortune by tradition across the southern U.S. Both are featured in this week's Kitchen Parade column . Happy New Year, all!