> Are fried vegetables the "gateway" technique for vegetable haters? I admit a weakness for fried plants: fried onions, fried green beans, fried pickles, fried okra, fried eggplant. Fried eggplant? Yes, it's been known to turn self-proclaimed "we are not eggplant people" into fried-eggplant fiends. So why no fried vegetables on A Veggie Venture? Well, it's a healthy-eating thing. Because we all know that fried food is bad, right? Right? Well maybe it is, maybe it isn't. These Fried Zucchini Sticks were fried in a skillet that started with 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) of vegetable oil. When they were done, 5-1/3 tablespoons (1/3c) of vegetable oil was still in the pan. That means that exactly 2-2/3 tablespoons of oil were used to fry the zucchini sticks. Now granted, 2-2/3 tablespoons of oil is considerably more than the 1 tablespoon of oil I typically allow for a pound of vegetables. But it's also considerably less than the 1/4 cup of oil I ofte...

Today's healthy breakfast recipe: Oatmeal baked with pumpkin plus fall fruit, pumpkin-pie spices and nuts. There's just enough pumpkin for color and moisture without making the oatmeal dense and heavy. Come October 1, American-based food blogs take on a fevered orange tinge – pumpkin orange , that is – as we go cra-zee for pumpkin recipes. I have my own collection, My Favorite Pumpkin Recipes but am always happy to add another! "Never look a gift pumpkin in the face," I say, especially when it's a healthy pumpkin recipe. :-) The last few weeks, I've been made one pan of Easy Baked Oatmeal after another, twice with blueberries and bananas, twice with apples and pears (and the all-important bananas), then twice more with pumpkin and pears (and more bananas). It took some tweaking to get the right amount of pumpkin and pumpkin-pie-type spices and the baking time right, but the last batch was just excellent.

Vegan Done Real ". >> Wow. Talk about a flavor pop, both the onions and the sweet potatoes, roasted in a hot oven. Plus I love cooking two vegetables at the same time, fewer moving parts getting dinner on the table. The trick is to find small red onions, I don't see them often, these came from the garden of our Minnesota friends the Rassmussens. But once you have small red onions, they're so pretty, it seems a shame to just cut them up. So this was a really special way to use small red onions, showing off their shape and color, really making the onions themselves stand out. If you had enough, you could do a dish with all red onions too, no sweet potatoes. Either one would add color to a buffet table, say. Plus people really like cooked onions! FYI the photograph was taken before the dish went into the oven but the colors stayed really true out of the oven too.

Today's Thanksgiving recipe: A plain-looking but anything-but-plain tasting butternut squash side dish, bright with ginger and slightly sweet with orange and dried fruit. It's cooked in a slow cooker, oh-so easy and oh-so good. On Saturday, I stood in the detergent aisle at the Walmart, already confounded by too many choices only to be blasted by a perky Jingle Bell Rock from the sound system. As if the detergent decision wasn't enough, to hear, you know, Christmas music in September , I could have melted into an anything-but-red-and-green puddle right then and there. But an early Thanksgiving? Bring it on! American Thanksgiving is early this year, which actually makes the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas almost manageable. But the Canadians are even more sensible with an October Thanksgiving, this year a week early too, on October 8. Most years, I cook a turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving, a sort of prelude to the big family gathering in November: not so this year...

Today's vegetable recipe: A hearty late-summer or fall side dish. (Thanksgiving? Yes that too, especially Canadian Thanksgiving which falls in mid October when it's often still quite warm.) The beans are topped with a sweet 'n' sour sauce, crispy bacon and a chopped egg. Cookbooks are always welcome gifts but The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food by Ian Knauer was an inspired choice. For starters, these inscriptions were penned by two of my favorite cook's grandchildren. Yes, they brought tears: Dear PopPop, I like gardening with you. Teach me how to cook from the garden. I love you, A.J. Dear Grandpa, I like your garden! Here's a book on how to cook with it! Love, E. Two days later, "PopPop" aka Grandpa and the kids selected recipes from the cookbook, shopped for groceries and set up to cook dinner. What a feast! A venison loin rubbed with mustard, oil and fresh herbs. Homemade biscuits, light as air! Green beans topped w...

Today's healthy coleslaw recipe, a mix of colorful fresh cabbage and broccoli, cooked a little - just a little - in the microwave before adding a low-calorie vinaigrette. It's a slaw recipe with ambition, eager to please. Pretty green broccoli slaw? Yep. Low carb slaw? You bet! Weight Watchers-friendly slaw? Of course! Plus not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". So let's talk straight about all the things that can go wrong with a coleslaw recipe, the things that so easily and all too often do go wrong with a coleslaw recipe, turning out cole slaw like this: Too soggy, too watery. (How many coleslaw recipes are victims of this?) Too raw and well, cabbage-y. Too bland and unseasoned. (Such a waste of good cabbage, these coleslaw recipes!) Too much dressing which translates into "too many calories". (How many coleslaw recipes turn out to be complete disasters, calorie-wise?) Like a plain-jane slaw with not enough going on, but some times, a cole ...

A simple corn chowder recipe, packed with our favorite fresh summer vegetables like onion, carrot, red pepper, potato and sweet potato and of course, the soup's real star, kernels of sweet corn. As bright and colorful as crates of fresh vegetables lined up at the farmstand. Perfect for CSA members because the corn chowder recipe uses so many fresh vegetables, all at once. Fresh & Seasonal. A Summer Classic. Great for Meal Prep. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Weight Watchers Friendly. Easily Vegetarian. Naturally Gluten Free. Low Fat.