Today's quick, healthy vegetable salad recipe: Wow. An easy, cheap, make-ahead and portable salad? A healthy, low-carb, low-calorie and vegan salad? All that AND absolutely ZERO Weight Watchers points? Like I said, W-O-W. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". Back in February, we turned ourselves into "snowflakes" and headed for Florida. (Snowflakes? Yes, snowflakes. Snowbirds head south for the winter. Snowflakes head south for a few days.) On the way back north, roadside stands beckoned: the "last" strawberries and the "first" tomatoes, the signs said. Still, I was dubious about the claim of local tomatoes. "Where are the tomatoes from?" I asked gently. "Are they from here?" "No! No!" said the woman with a shake of her head. "The tomatoes are from Immokalee!" ... that would be a town about 300 miles further south. Ha! Imokalee might not meet the "100 mile" standard for local food but in Feb

Today's easy veg(etari)an recipe for the slow cooker: Sloppy joes made with lentils instead of ground beef. Beautifully seasoned with pantry ingredients. Just a little bit spicy, easy to make it even spicier. Low carb. Weight Watchers 1.5/3 points. Not just vegetarian but vegan and not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". ~recipe & photo updated 2014~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ I l-o-v-e food blogs. If truth be told, I follow hundreds a few posts at a sit-down, really reading, stopping to appreciate the photos, the stories, the curiosity and the expertise, the response of the community and yes, the recipes too. Following my fellow local St. Louis food bloggers is especially cool. I've met many face-to-face so catching the inside bits about special ingredients, shopping finds, neighborhood doings, life changes, it's like the best jigsaw puzzle. Our St. Louis food blogger Facebook page is less puzzle, more dutiful reporting of recent recipes. Most slip

Today's kale salad recipe: What a revelation raw kale becomes, soft and slightly salty, when rubbed with avocado and salt, then tossed with apple and walnuts. This is a salad for an on-the-go healthy lifestyle. Make it ahead of time, then carry it along to work or outdoor activities. This salad stays fresh for days and travels well. Brown bag never sounded so good! Fresh Vegetables, Fast & Healthy. Just Five Ingredients! Budget Friendly. Little Effort, Big Taste. Easy Meal Prep. Low Carb. Low Fat. Weight Watchers Friendly.Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free.

Today's easy homemade soup recipe: Tomato soup made from scratch in just ten minutes. No "weird" ingredients like canned tomato soup and lower in calories, too. Skip Straight to the Recipe Is Tomato Soup Made from Canned Ingredients "Homemade"? So I suspect that purists won't consider this "homemade" soup. After all, I didn't till the soil to grow the tomatoes and I certainly didn't toil over a hot stove canning summer tomatoes, all to toss together an easy, steaming bowl of tomato soup during the cold and damp of a Midwestern winter. It Depends On the Ingredients. But here's why for me, Two-Can Ten-Minute Homemade Tomato Soup not only qualifies, it rocks. Let's look at the ingredient lists. Diced Tomatoes : Tomatoes.* Tomato Sauce : Tomato Concentrate, Salt, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Citric Acid, Natural Flavors, Dried Bell Pepper.* * Caveat: It took careful examination of several labels to find diced tomatoes and toma

No recipe today but instead a story, one of Choice and Hope and Compromise. You'll find the story posted on Kitchen Parade, Why I Switched from Weight Watchers to Medifast . There's a lively discussion there, come join the chatter! A Veggie Venture is home of ' veggie evangelist ' Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables . © Copyright Kitchen Parade 2013

Today's quick & easy way to roast one or two sweet peppers or hot chilies right on the stove, a gas stove, that is. To roast a pepper – the sweet peppers like green bell peppers, yellow and orange bell peppers and especially red bell peppers – is to change not only its texture but its flavor. A raw pepper is wet and crunchy, a roasted pepper is slippery and smoky. This same technique works not only with sweet peppers but also with hot chile peppers with a little or a lot of heat. My favorite pepper for roasting is a poblano chile (as picture) but I've also roasted jalapeños and other chiles. Mostly it's a hands-off operation, just throw the pepper on the fire, then carry on in the kitchen – no wandering off, now, it's not that hands-off! – keeping an eye on the roasting process, turning as needed. The technique is best for roasting one or two peppers, for a whole trayful, you'll want to follow this technique that works in both gas and electric ovens, Ho

The best vegetable recipes of 2012 from A Veggie Venture, just one per month, all in one handy spot for easy reference. It's that time of year, the week when we food bloggers look back over a year's worth of recipes and pick our favorites! I love-love-love this process! It really helps us hone our recipe collections, highlighting the best of the already very good, especially for sites like A Veggie Venture and my food column Kitchen Parade which by design, already post only really good recipes, the ones that work, the ones that are special or especially useful. (Here's the 2012 favorite recipes from Kitchen Parade too.) But I also love all the many sources of "best of the year" lists for movies, books, gadgets, etc. So this year, I'm collecting "best of the year" lists on Pinterest. Follow me there and you'll see all the new entries over the next couple of weeks on this board, Best of the Year Lists & Favorites . But okay, here you