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:

Don't pitch the Parmesan rind! Today's concept recipe: A quick, easy and flexible way to use up the last bits of vegetables from the vegetable bin, just before the next trip to the farmers market, the next CSA delivery. So if I told you that this soup costs absolutely ZERO to make, would you believe me? It's true. You see, we vegetable lovers, we can't help ourselves: when fresh produce is so fresh and beautiful, we buy more than we can ever consume in the few days vegetables stay quite fresh. ( "Another eggplant? Sure, isn't it pretty?! And oh, did you see the carrots? We must have a few of those too." ) CSA subscribers, I'm told, love getting a new stash of fresh vegetables but feel guilty when some of last week's delivery (and the week's before too?) languishes in the vegetable bin. Too often, we let the vegetables hang around too long, past saving. This recipe -- one of the "concept recipes" that we all love so much -- is

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:

The country is exploding with new farmers markets! More and more of us are shopping at farmers markets -- many of us for the first time. How's it done? What's it like? My first memory of farm-fresh vegetables comes from a decidedly unbustling place, a farm stand that stood hot and unprotected from sun and road dust at the edge of the still-unpaved road to the lake, a small space carved out of a farm field, the farmhouse itself hidden behind trees up a long driveway. The wooden stall was unmanned and payment was on the "honor system" -- a coffee can with a slit in the plastic top, cash only, of course, except for the occasional IOU. I suspect that the stall double-dutied as a school bus shelter during northern Minnesota's long winters. These days, farmers markets are big business but mostly, still-charming and local endeavors that rise to life one day a week during the growing season. Many towns, even small towns, have their own farmers markets. When I started

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