Today's recipe: Tofu braised in a slow cooker in soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and other Asian-style flavors. Low carb. Weight Watchers 1 point for a snack, 3 points for a meal. Regular readers know that I'm prone to exclaiming, "Isn't it pretty?" ( See ?!) No chance of that happening here, with these mud-brown cubes of tofu. Ugh, how UNappealing. I couldn't bear for them to ugly-up a beautiful green salad. I wanted to leave them in the refrigerator to develop fridge-fur, justifying a fast trip to the rubbish bin. And then -- These ugly-ugly cubes called to me. Closing my eyes, I nabbed one cube, then another straight from the tupperware. They tasted great! And that's how Ugly But Delicious Tofu become my between-meal, protein-packed pick-me-up all this week -- now that's an eye opener. For portion control, I put aside three cubes measuring an ounce, otherwise I might have eaten the whole dish, all at once. Note the Escali kitchen scale which I pooh-

Today's vegetable recipe: A low-carb substitute for fried potatoes, turnips fried with onions and seasoned with cumin. Weight Watchers 1 point. Okay, so of course turnips aren't potatoes. But for those who either choose or must follow low-carb diets, call me surprised that to my taste anyway, fried turnips are a good substitute -- it just takes cooking them at high heat until they develop that golden-brown color and oniony flavor we so associate with fried potatoes, whether for breakfast (my downfall favorite) or for supper. These were great! Full disclosure: better good luck than good management! I learned about fried turnips only because the phone rang while cooking supper and soon enough -- oops -- the turnips were looking more than a little done. I feared they were lost but took one bite and whoah -- just kept on cooking. LOW-CARB FRIED TURNIPS Hands-on time: 15 minutes Time to table: 60 minutes Serves 4 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 1 pound turnips, trim

A quick and simple cabbage soup studded with carrots, celery and beans. Spartan and spare, a welcome reset for our bodies and tastebuds after indulging in rich, heavy food. Easy Weeknight Supper. Low Fat. Very Weight Watchers Friendly & Freestyle Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. One of my oldest and still most-favorite recipes. Oops. All December, the "five-a-day" admonition has applied to Christmas cookies, not vegetables. For awhile, I even wondered if my vegetable moxie were lost, if chocolate and pecans would forever supplant cabbage and pumpkin. I was happy to eat vegetables , if someone put them in front of me. But cook them? No way. Thankfully: the moxie has returned in force. So man-oh-man, am I ever ready to get back to healthy recipes again. (Who can relate?) With this stew (or soup? stoup?) recipe, I'm dipping a baby toe back into vegetables, just in case. It's a great basic recipe, with easy pantry ingredients, a

Who else is intrigued by buckwheat, which we often lump in with grains even though it's not a grain? And who else doesn't know what, exactly, to make with buckwheat? Put this hearty recipe on your "what to make with buckwheat" list. It's a whole-grain side dish (or maybe a salad? I keep calling it "Buckwheat Salad" in my head) or even, a vegan main dish, just a simple ingredient list of buckwheat, fresh mushrooms and carrots. Seasonal. Weight Watchers Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Curiosity guides many of my recipe choices but so do health, budget and taste. It's karma when all four collide! This fall I set off to explore whole grains (even those not technically grains), knowing that I, along with too many of us, know far too little about such an important group of foods. To narrow the field (ha! so to speak ...) I decided to stick with the healthiest whole grains and grasses – barley, brown rice, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, quinoa

Today's vegetable recipe: A quick-quick and flavorful stew made with canned beans and canned green chile sauce but surprisingly good. Weight Watchers 4 points (Old Points) & 5 points (PointsPlus). Vegan. ~recipe & photo updated 2011~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ So here it is, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. For the next few days, kitchens all across the U.S. will be busy-abustle. The fridge will be packed. The counter space will be at a premium. The cook will be up to her elbows in flour. Family and friends will be arriving. And oh my, there's so much to do. Trouble is, despite all that food, there's nothing to eat, not til Thanksgiving dinner anyway! So consider this a public service announcement: the one recipe to throw onto the stove to fill people's bellies, quickly, healthfully, flavorfully, inexpensively. Make time for this -- you'll be glad.

My book club's many-year reading list. Book ideas for book clubs and reading groups. Because books clubs are so popular, especially among women and especially (I believe) among food bloggers and food-blog readers, I'm sharing the books my reading group has read -- we've been reading together since 1994! Our book club is plenty social, but at the same time, serious about our reading. We hire a 'professor' and we read books in series, by theme. So our list may well inspire other reading groups, both new book clubs thinking about what books to read and established groups looking for new book ideas. Naturally, we're always looking for new themes, new book ideas. If you've got a favorite, please leave a comment. If your own book club publishes your reading list online, let me know and I'll add a link here. The more the merrier! More About the Red Wine Book Club "Writers we admire and reread are absorbed into the fine print of our consciousness, into the