We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday (well, except when she takes a little break), the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers. And now for this week's tip:

Just in time for Derby Day, a famous recipe from Kentucky, the heart of horse country. It's a "skinny" dip, bulked up with grated cucumber and pretty pale green in color. Never ever did I dream I'd keep green food coloring on hand. Never never ever . But then last summer, my friend 'moo' – that's short for Margie Olsen Olson, yes it happens, an Olsen married an Olson; have I told you about my girlfriend Cary who met and married a man also named Cary? so yes it happens – responded to my call for cucumber recipes with the note, "What about cucumber/yogurt soup [with buttermilk] and a cream cheese spread for tea sandwiches, called Benedictine?" I already had a dreamy cucumber soup recipe, Cool-as-a-Cucumber Avocado Soup but the Benedictine cream cheese spread, it caught my eye. A little google action turned me onto the history of Benedictine spread. Between the 1890s and the 1920s, "Miss Jennie" Benedict of Louisville (for full effect,

Today's beet salad recipe: Just roasted beets with a little cheese (feta or goat or blue) but somehow, so much more. So rich and full of satisfaction, just one (Old Points) or two (PointsPlus) Weight Watchers points. Never met a beet salad I didn't love, nope, nary not a one. If there's a beet salad on the menu, odds are high (as in 99.9%) that I'll be chomping at the beet bit. I recall one memorable beet salad at the Snake River Grill in Jackson, Wyoming three years ago, another at Brasserie here in St. Louis just last week and dozens in between. I love how chefs vary a simple roasted beet salad, some times dressing up the beets, but often just letting them stand alone almost-black and all aglisten. But it was our friend Maxine Stone – the Maxine I call her now, she of Missouri's Wild Mushrooms , the guidebook to foraging for mushrooms commissioned by the Missouri Department of Conservation plus the Hot 'n' Sour Chickpeas everyone's loving – who

Today's vegetable recipe: Pretty spring carrots roasted slowly, then drizzled with a caramel glaze flavored with bourbon or another good-tasting liquor. Thank my sister for this recipe. She's a serious fan of Serious Eats – me too, actually though new posts come fast enough that I miss many. Luckily, my sister's got an eagle eye for more than editing and often forwards some gotta-make-it-NOW recipe from there. Like making pancake syrup out of leftover wine . (Wait. Is there a theme going on here? These carrots, after all, are sweetened with a caramel glaze flavored with bourbon .) Chances are, these are special-occasion carrots, even if I've "Alanna-sized" the recipe with less fat and less sugar, if only because carrots sold in bunches with their tops on are more expensive albeit ever so pretty. They'd be nice for Easter (aren't carrots somehow perfect for a spring celebration?) but I can also imagine them as a side with steaks on the grill some Sa

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday, the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers. And now for this week's tip:

Say hello to my latest salad obsession, a hearty salad that's full of crunch and color. It looks like – tastes like – bites like – summer in a bowl! But it can be made any time of year, delivering the sense of summer all year long. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real " and just 1 Weight Watchers point! ~recipe updated 2015~ ~ republished for a little weekend cooking inspiration 2015~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ BACK IN 2011 My friend Chris first brought this to a Mardi Gras shindig. All the food that night was extra fabulous but a few of us all kept going back for more black-eyed pea salad! A few days later, I made the salad myself, nixing the bacon entirely and cutting the oil by half. Again – SO good! Those extra calories weren't in the least bit missed. And then I made it again – didn't I say this salad is my current obsession? – cutting the oil by three-quarters. Chris and her husband were back for another little gathering and all three of us went

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really ? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Every Saturday (and the occasional Sunday when the day before was such spring loveliness that the thought of sitting down to a computer was the last thing even the most ardent vegetable lover would do), the 'veggie evangelist' shares practical tips and ideas from her own experience, her readers and other bloggers. And now for this week's tip: