Posts

Running Round-Up: Fennel

"The fennel is beyond every other vegetable, delicious. It greatly resembles the largest size celery, perfectly white, and there is no vegetable that equals it in flavor ... indeed I prefer it to every other vegetable, or to any fruit." - Thomas Jefferson, Garden Books (quote source, Vegetarian Celebrations ) Many thanks to NYC photographer Tara Harnad for permission to use her fennel photograph! In February 2006, A Veggie Venture and other food bloggers cooked our fill of fennel! This is a running round-up of the round-the-world fennel dishes we collected, terrific sources of inspiration, one and all! APPETIZERS Bagna Caoda from Cream Puffs in Venice SALADS Butterleaf Salad with Peaches, Grapefruit and Fennel Beautiful too, from Fresh Approach Cooking Fennel, Apple & Clementine Salad Includes detail on how to trim fresh fennel, from ToastPoint Fennel, Orange and Olive Salad from Something in Season Fennel and Cucumber Salad with Meyer Lemon Dressi

Day 296: Fennel & Parmesan Gratin

Even approaching 300 days (oh my, three HUNDRED days!) of cooking a vegetable in a new way every single day, A Veggie Venture has some holes. A big one -- one I aim to fix NOW -- is fennel. So in February, let's cook some fennel! (Care to join in? Any time during the month, let me know about a fennel post -- either a past post or a current one, even one that just uses fennel seed, since hey! I'm not that picky -- and I'll add it to a running round-up . Send the link via e-mail using akATkitchenHYPHENparadeDOTcom or by leaving a comment!) Tonight's oh-so-simple fennel suffered: it went into the oven with a whole chicken, on the upper rack which turned out to be too far from the heat source at the bottom. When the picture was taken, the fennel was only half done and hmm, let's call it 'chewy'. After another 30 minutes in the oven, it was buttery delicious. NUTRITION NOTES Fennel is high-fiber, low-calorie and low-carb. It's versatile too, great slivered in

The Best of January

No surprise that a veggie-loving cook follows the four seasons. Fresh tomatoes in winter? No way. Butternut squash in summer? Not on your life. Still, January warrants special thought when picking the month's favorites, the one soup and the one vegetable that together simply shout winter and holler holiday letdown. And sure enough, they do. Weight Watchers Zero Points Vegetable Soup Easy to make. Easy on the holiday-gorged palate. Life-giving vegetables. Low-carb and low-calorie. Zero points or one point in the Weight Watchers world, depending on how you count. Yup: perfect for January. Turnip Potato Puree Girds the winter soul for the remaining months of cold and snow. (In Missouri, where it's been in the 50s to the 70s in January, for heavens sake, northern sorts like me still live in hope.) January perfect. FROM THE ARCHIVES ... Find all ten months' Picks of the Months in the Recipe Box . (c) Copyright 2006 Kitchen Parade

Day 295: Cabbage with Winter Pesto ◄

Simple and good. And OH so fast. Just a little cooked cabbage (no sniffing! no up-turned noses! it's good!) with a little spinach pesto, what I call Winter Pesto , stirred in. A definite keeper. FROM THE ARCHIVES For other oh-so-simple vegetable sides, see here in the Recipe Box . CABBAGE with WINTER PESTO Bookmark or print this recipe only Hands-on time: 5 minutes Time to table: 20 minutes Serves 4 Salted water to cover 1 pound cabbage, cored and roughly chopped (would a bag of coleslaw-cut cabbage work? maybe, although the texture would be considerably different, and it only took 4 minutes to chop the cabbage) 1/2 tablespoon Winter Pesto (or a commercial pesto though the calorie differences are likely significant) Start the water in a medium saucepan over MEDIUM HIGH. (Don't forget to salt the water!) Add the cabbage as it's prepped, even before the water boils. Once the water begins to boil, cover, reduce the heat to MEDIUM and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Drain an

Day 294: Spinach Curry ♥

Today's Vegetable Recipe: Fresh spinach quick-cooked with onion, garlic, mustard seed & cumin. Weight Watchers 1 point. Low-carb. Vegan. ~ recipe & photo updated in 2008 ~ 2005: What an easy, healthful and unexpectedly delicious vegetarian supper! (Or of course, if preferred, vegetable side dish.) The recipe is inspired by Indian- and vegetarian-cuisine food blogger Mahanandi , whose simple vegetable dishes capture my culinary imagination. And, hey! in one dish, I've made a good start on two of my 2006 food resolutions . Not bad, eh? The hardest of those resolutions -- the one that always created a bad case of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) -- is hot peppers. But my fridge is now home to a pound of tiny Thai peppers, a couple hundred of them. I used two of those tiny little green guys tonight -- it's a start, yes! -- especially because I loved the underlying subtle heat, even if next time I'd probably use one pepper, not two. 2008: Once again, this easy spina

Day 293: Carrots & Mushroom Ragout

The idea here was a hearty vegetarian supper, as suggested by the inspiring cookbook, Vegetarian Suppers , a favorite during my meatless years. Instead, the carrot and mushroom combination seemed much more like a savory vegetable side dish. What might have made it more supper-ish? More sauce perhaps, to soak into rice or a grain or even mashed potatoes. And honestly, I think the ragout would be delicious with chunks of cooked lamb. Oh dear, so much for good vegetarian intentions! NEXT TIME I'd skip the raisins which added little and were slightly odd paired with mushrooms. NUTRITION NOTES Skipping the currants drops the dish into 'low carb' territory. FROM THE ARCHIVES For other vegetarian supper ideas, see here in the Recipe Box . CARROT & MUSHROOM RAGOUT Bookmark or print this recipe only Hands-on time: 20 minutes Time to table: 40 minutes Serves 6 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (reduced from 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon butter) 1 small onion

Sneaky Moms Unite!

First it was Sweetnicks . And now it's Alysha over at The Savory Notebook who's using delicious-looking and great-tasting food to teach her boys veggie-loving habits. Today Alysha's boys gobble up asparagus gussied up with a Penzeys gift spice blend called Florida Seasoned Pepper. She's also had luck with cauliflower mashed liked potatoes and an ever-so-healthful vegetarian soup with -- get this! -- spinach! Great work, Alysha! VEGGIES for KIDS is a continuing crusade here at A Veggie Venture, a forum for parents wanting to encourage healthful eating habits at home and school. What works for you? What would you like to fix at your own table? Leave a comment, send an e-mail or write your own post -- ideas and links along with kid-tested recipes will be posted in Veggies for Kids . (c) Copyright 2006 Kitchen Parade