OH MY. May I just say that there are far too few sandwiches in this household? Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that on the rare occasion that bread, bacon, cheese and tomatoes were on hand at the same time, there was no deciding whether to make a grilled cheese or a BLT -- and so I combined them. Thank you, Sandwich Gods, thank you. MAKE IT A MEAL Nothing like soup and a sandwich for lunch, perhaps the light, fresh-tomato Summer's Tomato Soup ? FROM THE VEGETABLE RECIPE ARCHIVES Hmm. I do have bread and tomatoes. Maybe it's time to 'update the photos' (always a good excuse ...) for 2005's luscious Eggplant, Tomato & Mozzarella Sandwiches and Artichoke & Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwiches . TWO YEARS AGO Tomato & Rice Salad , a tasty combination that I re-made this summer, still tastes great. Grilled Cheese BLT Hands-on time: 10 minutes Time to table: 15 minutes Serves 1 (easily multiplied) 2 slices bacon 2 slices bread Thin slather of mayonnaise Sprinkl

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

So it's kind of amazing to me that you can add so much Swiss chard, a soft and delicate leafy green, to what's otherwise a pretty traditional tuna salad recipe – and yet it's still completely tuna salad not some weird variation. Low Carb. High Protein. Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly with homemade mayonnaise. It's hard – for us, anyway and let me not just say "hard" but "really hard" – to eat enough greens. So I'm ever on the look-out for ways to incorporate greens into stuff that we're already eating. This easy tuna salad – it could be your favorite tuna salad recipe, even a tuna salad from the deli – was easily transformed. And I was quite surprised that even with the addition of three large Swiss chard leaves, this was still tuna salad , just a little greener – and very good, definitely worth a try. COMPLIMENTS! "Excellent savory tuna salad ...what a treat!." ~ belleplaine

Such a simple, tasty way to "dress" green beans in a quick toss of mayonnaise, soy sauce and if you like, hot sauce. The same sauce works with other vegetables too! ~recipe & photo updated 2015~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2007: At coffee with a new friend the other day, the conversation leaned to books and recipes. (Yoohoo, a new reading friend! Yay, a new foodie friend!) Marie shared a colleague's recipe from some 25 years ago. It's so simple, it's not even a "recipe" – just beans tossed in a sauce of mayonnaise and soy sauce. But I've made it twice now and it's amazing that something this easy can be this good. Would the same mayo-soy sauce work with steamed broccoli? cooked cabbage? Brussels sprouts? cauliflower? I think so. And frozen vegetables? For sure! 2015: I use this simple little sauce so often, one vegetable after another – that said, it remains a particular favorite for green beans, quick, cheap, approachable. The

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