So when you're Too Busy to Cook, do you spend an hour making just a side dish? And then wait another hour waiting til it's ready for the table? AND use a a sinkful of dishes, a big pot, a skillet, a food processor and a baking dish? Of course not. (But I do rely on Kitchen Parade's collection of Quick Suppers .) So when this wonderful scalloped potato dish was featured in Bon Appetit's 'Too Busy to Cook' reader recipes, I had to chuckle. And then I picked up some poblano peppers and made it straight-away. Quick it's not and pretty it isn't -- but delicious it is. It is a great idea for a St. Patrick's Day feast on Saturday? I think so! So are these other recipes ideas for St. Patrick's Day festivities! NEXT TIME I will use the full quantity of peppers since poblanos are quite mild; I was half short on peppers, only enough to create a smoky background. heed the instructions for salt since the Gruyere didn't provide as much saltiness a

Earlier this week I picked up bags of the Steamfresh cauliflower and the Steamfresh beans, just to check. Talk about convenient: just pop the whole bag into the microwave for 4 - 6 minutes, open it up and voila, there's tonight's vegetable. And then I tasted them. And THEN I read the labels. I'm a big fan of frozen vegetables, but take these off your shopping list. GREEN BEANS: The beans tasted okay though turned out rather 'moist', soggy even. These aren't 'special', just decent frozen green beans, so not worth a price premium if there is one. On the plus side, the ingredient list was straight-forward: beans, nothing but beans. CAULIFLOWER: I really liked the cauliflower and was happy to call the whole twelve-ounce bag 'lunch' (at two Weight Watchers points a bag, that's not bad!) And THEN I read the label. IT PAYS TO READ THE FINE PRINT Because the cauliflower is 'specially seasoned', the ingredient list includes salt, sugar, garlic

Last November, I learned that butter and cream and cheese and even sugar can move vegetables from the real world into Thanksgiving vegetable heaven . But this Alsatian cabbage -- just cabbage seasoned with caraway and cooked in bacon -- reminded me that bacon accomplishes a similar earth-n-heaven moving experience. That said -- I 'Alanna-sized' the inspiring recipe from Food & Wine, using half the bacon it called for and omitting the butter. It was still plenty rich and served up piles of flavor for just one Weight Watchers point. Yes, it's a keeper! It would be great paired with St. Patrick's Day food -- you know, the homey, easy and delicious traditional corned beef, sausages, mashed potatoes and such. FROM THE ARCHIVES If you like vegetables with bacon, me too ! I especially love pancetta, an Italian bacon, in Brussels sprouts , in cauliflower and with broccoli . Naturally, they're all in the Recipe Box ! A Year Ago Today: Another great St. Patrick's D

Let the party begin! St. Patrick's Day festivities will soon be upon us and thanks to this week's column at Kitchen Parade, you're prepared! It's a recipe for beef stew from my long-time friend Lisa, always an inspired cook. She serves the stout-spiked stew recipe in bread bowls. In or out, it's delicious! This year I'll be remaking my long-time favorite caraway corned beef , cooked with potatoes, carrots and cabbage topped with cheese sauce. Yummy. Kitchen Parade offers up other ideas for special foods for St. Patrick's Day , whether traditional favorites or 'green food' specialties. DON'T YOU LOVE THE INTERNET? If a Swiss woman who lives in Spain can sponsor a St. Patrick's Day food blogger event, then it must be acceptable for an American cooking Irish to enter? Many thanks to Zorra from Kochtopf for hosting the party! St. Pat's Day: Green or Irish A Veggie Venture is home of the Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and v

Some nights, you just throw together what's in the frig and get lucky ... not without inspiration , however, tonight from Sweden's Anne's Food, who from this distance seems a natural-born culinary magician. The potato-apple combination went over big: the cream-cider combination as well. This is a concept definitely worth developing. I tried a new mandoline tonight: $29.95 worth of worthlessness. The hand grip wouldn't grip either the potato or the apple. It wouldn't slice the potato. It did an okay job on the apple but so do my two hands and a sharp knife, on both apples and potatoes. FROM THE ARCHIVES Check out all the great vegetable casserole recipes (what we Minnesotans grow up calling 'hot dishes') in the Recipe Box A YEAR AGO Ugly but delicious, a clean-out-the-frig vegetable puree . NEVER MISS A RECIPE! Just enter your e-mail address in the box in the sidebar. Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, automatically, straight to your e-mail In Box.

Well, the pot roast on top (sans mushrooms) was only so-so and got pushed to the side, but the mashed potatoes, well, the creamy-fennel-y potatoes warranted a second helping. If you'd like to notch up mashed potatoes a small notch, with small extra effort, this is your pick. What do I mean by fennel-y? Lots of people avoid fennel because they think it will taste like licorice. But the cooked form of fennel is entirely different, it's smooth and sweet and wonderful. I could've eaten the whole skillet of sautéed fennel, hang the potatoes. This was a weeknight supper so I lightened the potatoes. Still they were plenty rich, not sumptuous but completely delicious. If I'd had fat-free half 'n' half, I'd have used it (and have, in mashed potatoes, with great results) so will include that calorie impact. (Turns out it makes no difference in the Weight Watchers points.) This is the first time I've used russet potatoes for mashed potatoes but it won't be the

Simple wedges of cabbage, either red cabbage or green cabbage, steamed and seasoned. Weight Watchers zero points! My goodness, how delicious something entirely simple can be! Here's how cabbage roses -- my name, yes, but don't they look like roses?! -- came to be: Come March 1, I'm itching to be in the garden, whatever the weather. Starting about now, several times a day I survey all the gardens (there are a few, yes!) to see what's popping through the ground. This time of year, what you see at day's dawn can have changed by day's end. My sister mentioned that she's been steaming cabbage recently. I spike them with nothing more than a spice mix, this one from FamilyStyle Food actually, but you could use a bit of butter, a bit of salt, or, for real spareness, just the cabbage. CABBAGE ROSES Hands-on time: 2 minutes Time to table: 15 minutes Serves as many as you like Steaming water Wedges of cabbage, sliced off a whole cabbage, red or green Set water to boil