Today's oh-so-simple but still sumptuous tomato recipe: Perfectly ripe summer tomatoes marinated in gentle vinegar and good olive oil with slivers of onion and fresh herbs. Yeah that's it but is it ever heavenly! Weight Watchers Friendly, WW PointsPlus 2. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Paleo. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". Tis a happy day, the day the first tomato ripens. We sit in the shade to share the first one like an apple: better one tomato than two, somehow, for this heady moment. The flesh is already warm from the morning sun, tomato juices run down our chins. We grin: summer has arrived! Soon we'll be doing all the things gardeners do with what will soon become a glut of tomatoes – a summer-only tomato soup , the Italian bread salad , even making homemade mayonnaise just for BLTs. But this very first tomato? It's always the best of the summer. Once or twice a week for the rest of the tomato season, the evening meal will include either Ma...

So much to love about zucchini noodles, aka "zoodles"! Here I've paired the spiral zucchini noodles with leftover lobster, oo-la-la, it's completely special but still, it's on the table in a fast 15 minutes. Weight Watchers Friendly, just 5 PointsPlus. Low Carb. High Protein. Gluten Free. Paleo. And naturally, totally tasty. I even thought about calling it "OMG Zucchini Noodles with Leftover Lobster". So leftover lobster is a definite "first" for me and at age someputty-something, the math says that leftover lobster is likely a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience too. But the thing is? I would totally buy lobster just to make this again. Let me back up a tiny step? So we had a little shindig here on Saturday to celebrate the longest day of the year Scandinavian-style. If you're keen for the menu for our Scandinavian Midsummer feast, it's here . But the short story is that the menu was all about the fish. We went kinda crazy, ...

Vegetables for Breakfast? You bet! Or for Meatless Monday? Naturally! Quickly cook some ratatouille vegetables (that's eggplant, zucchini and tomato for starters) and then top it with incredible-edible eggs. Weight Watchers Friendly, WW 6 PointsPlus. Low Cal. Gluten Free. Paleo. Vegetarian. Whole 30. Did I mention? So totally good! Um, so yeah, where were we? Not blogging, or even cooking, that's for sure. In the past four weeks, I criss-crossed the country, racking up 5900 miles driving between St. Louis and North Carolina and back (for a day); St. Louis and the Texas Hill Country (hauling a furniture-filled U-Haul, a four-hundred pound rock and an after-wedding brunch for 25) and back (for two days); then St. Louis and northern Minnesota and back (for two days). Yikes. As if that weren't enough? Then we packed up eleven of us for a week in the hot sun and cool waves of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Twas all good but no surprise, right? I-Am-So-Ready-to-Be-Home. And food...

Today's eggplant recipe: An explosion of tastes and textures and temperatures, just eggplant and tomato slices baked in a smoky tomato sauce and topped with a garlicky yogurt-mint sauce. Serve this great summer dish as a side dish or for a Meatless Monday entrée – or maybe like me, to explore Afghan cuisine. Weight Watchers Friendly, just PointsPlus 3. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Vegetarian. So. As if there weren't already enough good reasons to belong to a book club. You know, like hanging out with life-long friends talking about books while drinking a nice glass of wine. And now? Discovering Afghan food. WOW. My book club is a small group of women in our 40s, 50s and now, even 60s. We've been reading together for 21 years! (Here's our book list , for others looking for a great collection of book-club books.) We rarely tie our meal to the book we're reading but for some reason (fate? good luck? I must've done something right?), last month when we read...

Today's sweet treat for some night when dinner's a little skimpy, a warm rhubarb-orange cake, not quite a crumble, not quite a cake, something in between. So you know those magic pudding cakes, right? They're the ones where you throw together all the usual suspects for cake, but once it's baked, out comes pudding topped with cake . It's as if somebody sneaked some pudding into the bottom of the pan while you weren't looking! Well, "pudding cake" is the idea here although the "pudding" on the bottom is less pudding and more like a rhubarb sauce without the need to actually cook one. (Although word to the wise, a rhubarb sauce is totally wonderful, here's how I make it, Custard with Rhubarb Sauce . Hmm, dessert tomorrow, methinks.) This is a rustic cake, but the kind that makes a table turn silent, that is, until there's the clink-clink of spoons scraping out the very last crumbs, sad but satisfied it's gone.

Today's latest "zoodle" recipe: A Greek salad gone spiral, a big jumble of zucchini noodles, tomatoes and olives tossed in an oil-free Creamy Feta Vinaigrette. It's the salad of the summer, people! And you won't believe that those noodles aren't pasta! Weight Watchers Friendly, WW 2 PointsPlus. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Vegetarian. So here's a salad – if our tastes are similar, and they are, right? that's why you're reading? – that you'll make all summer long and might even dream about in-between times. The first time I made the salad, we were rushing out the door, pleased to spend a lazy Saturday with friends basking in late-summer sunshine in the silence of the Missouri countryside. Honestly? I just winged it that day, hapdash-style throwing a few "Greek style" vegetables into a bowl. For the dressing, I went for a tried 'n' true recipe, the Creamy Feta Vinaigrette works so well in a real Greek pasta salad, made w...

A simple-simple zucchini salad, just thin-sliced ribbons of young, small summer squash tossed in a simple vinaigrette and dusted with parmesan. WW 2 PointsPlus. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Not just vegan, " Vegan Done Real ". Are you noticing, too? It's just spring here in Missouri, but I can tell, It's summer, somewhere. That's because the vegetables, even at the grocery store, are so sweet and perfect, miracle of miracles emerging somewhere from the earth. And small! You can tell, these were picked young. Usually, we must wait for vegetables like this until July or August, either from our own garden or the farmers market. But for a short window, the grocery store's produce department is a vegetable lover's heaven.