Today's "unrecipes", seven quick ideas for turning a bag of frozen green beans plus on-hand ingredients from your fridge and pantry into something your family will love (inhale?!). If you stockpile frozen green beans, just cook the beans with plenty of salt, then add simple flavors and textures to turn them into something brand-new and delicious! Real Food, Fresh & Flexible. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Low Carb. Low Fat. Weight Watchers Friendly. Vegetarian. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly.

Today's (crazy?) beet recipe: Fresh beets roasted in a salty crust, topped with a horseradish sauce. Low carb. Weight Watchers 1 point. To sell a house, forget baking cookies just before prospective buyers arrive, so last-century passé! Instead, roast beets wrapped in salt and horseradish and citrus zest. Oh my, who knew that horseradish could smell so good? (And besides, how could I resist an addition to all the ways to cook beets ?) The recipe comes from the February 2008 issue of Bon Appetit, bookmarked in a dozen spots for intriguing new ideas for cooking vegetables. This is the first of several, I suspect, to appear here ... SO IS THIS A NOVELTY or the LATEST & GREATEST? Well, I'm not sure. The aroma while baking was -- wait, you already know that was amazing. And then -- it was easy enough to crack open the salt layer but once that was off, the beets were hard to peel, a real surprise since after beets bake ( wrapped in foil , say, like the ones pictured behind

Today's quick supper or side recipe: Pasta tossed with an Asian-style sauce of garlic, ginger, sesame seeds, peanut butter, soy sauce. Weeknight quick. Vegan. Low carb (with low-carb pasta). Weight Watchers 5 points. Who else is prone to this? Day One. Spy a recipe calling for some obscure (to us) ingredient, fun! Take note. Day Fifteen. Spot the ingredient in a grocery. Hey! that's what such-n-such recipe called for. Bring it home, add it to the pantry, middle shelf, front row, right in plain sight. Days Sixteen to Sixty. Life. Day Sixty-One. Spy the ingredient again, this time at the back of the pantry during the quite-successful-so-far ambition to actually use , not just store, the pantry's contents. Wonder, Now what recipe was that for? Welcome to my life. And say hello to the black sesame seeds purchased last fall for some now-forgotten recipe but much welcome in this pasta sauce from a brand-new cookbook, Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen , a Chri

What's the best thing about the Superbowl? (Um, who's playing again? Hmm. Let's see. Green Bay isn't , right?) Why, the food, of course! This week's Kitchen Parade column features three favorites: a recipe for Chicken Nachos made with homemade Pickled Jalapeño Rings (they're refrigerator pickles!) plus Game-Day Pretzels, an addictive recipe from family friends in Minnesota. Dig in -- enjoy! Note to Vegetarians 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 '. Want to know more? Explore KitchenParade.com , including Kitchen Parade's Recipe Box ! WHY DOESN'T THIS POST ACCEPT COMMENTS? Because I hope that you'll click through to the actual column and comment there! E-MAI

Looking for the energy of a puppy in spring? Consider this list from WebMD/Men's Health, the Ten Best Foods You're Not Eating . And tell me, where do you stand? > A+ to anyone who's tried all 10. > Kudos to anyone who's heard of all 10. > Cheers to anyone who commits to find all 10! 1. Beets -- beet recipes, yes, we've got beet recipes 2. Cabbage -- yep, we've got cabbage recipes too 3. Guava -- oops 4. Swiss chard -- of course, Swiss chard recipes 5. Cinnamon -- and yes, recipes with cinnamon too 6. Purslane -- a green, hmm, must keep our eyes peeled for this 7. Pomegranate juice -- yum ... 8. Goji berries -- I keep hearing good things about Goji berries 9. Dried plums -- what 'prunes' are called these days 10. Pumpkin seeds -- a fall favorite, pumpkin seeds are also called pepitas By the way, the adorable puppy is Sulo from Life of Jalo whose four amazing dogs do deliver dog-smiles every day! Eat more vegetables! A Veggie Venture

Today's guacamole recipe: Traditional avocado guacamole lightened with tomatillos. Stays fresh and bright green for a couple of days! Weight Watchers Friendly, just 2 PointsPlus per quarter cup! Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Paleo. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". And decidedly delicious, did I mention that?! ~recipe & photo updated 2014 & republished 2015~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2008 ORIGINAL POST: Much as we all might hope (and I might try, say, with guacamole made from broccoli ), there's really no replacing real avocados if we want real guacamole. So this year, I switched strategies, trying a recipe that adds bulk from a lower-calorie ingredient to the traditional avocados. TASTE Taste-wise, guacamole made with a mix of avocado and tomatillo completely works! It is definitely a real avocado guacamole . Better yet? The lower-calorie tomatillos add a brightness that's just a touch deliciously different. Tomatillos are also called

Today's vegetable recipe: A quick supper or side dish using a quick-cook technique for low-carb pasta and Trader Joe's 'Greens with Envy' frozen vegetables in a simple sauce. Vegan. Whether this qualifies as cooking, well, is doubtful. But it does qualify as getting supper on the table in a flash. Some nights, well, that's challenge enough, yes? (Even through the internet-wall, I imagine heads nodding ...) This is a fast, tasty supper, just Dreamfields Pasta (that's the low-glycemic pasta that carb counters can eat and the rest of us love the taste of) and my new favorite Trader Joe's product, "Green Envy" (correction: "Greens with Envy", thank you readers!), a bag of frozen vegetables. Any frozen vegetable would work but Greens with Envy is a great mix -- broccoli, asparagus tips, spinach, green beans, even edamame beans. These five green vegetables really work beautifully together and I'm so grateful to the mom at Trader Joe