A Veggie Venture

How to Roast Vegetables ♥15 Tips & A Master Recipe

2012-01-24T08:55:00.005-06:00

Quick! Name the single technique for cooking vegetables that we can use again and again, the same method for every single vegetable, without ever once referring to a “recipe”.

Hint: In part, the attraction to this style of cooking vegetables is seasonal. It begins in the autumn as the air turns cool and our bodies begin to crave hearty food to sustain us through the long dark winter. It’s perfect for winter, when a kitchen is an oasis of warmth and our bodies demand fresh healthy food.

Give up? It’s roasting vegetables. You’ll never forget again, once you’ve tried roasting vegetables, whether root vegetables like beets, carrots, sweet potatoes and parsnips or others like zucchini, kohlrabi and this time of year, winter squash like butternut and acorn squash.

Truth is, roasting transforms vegetables. If vegetables were to write a love letter, the page would begin, “Dear Oven: How we love thee. You coax the sweetness from our earthly forms, you transform our color into golden bites of caramel.”

The technique is dead simple, requiring just vegetables, oil and seasoning – and heat. Still, a few simple tricks will help. So make this your year to get up close and acquainted with roasting vegetables. Start with a vegetable you already like. If you like, check the roasted vegetable recipes for a recipe to eliminate uncertainty about temperature and timing. Soon enough, you’ll be writing your own love letter.

How to Roast Vegetables - Tips & Techniques & A Master Recipe

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How to Cook Sweet Potatoes in Slow Cooker ♥

2012-01-17T08:45:00.005-06:00

Ever wonder how to cook sweet potatoes in the crockpot? Just throw them into the slow cooker in the morning, they'll be ready when you get home from work.

I swear, my crockpot and I are getting close to BFF status. And all it took was a new outlet! You see, my kitchen is decent size. But all the cooking is done in one corner, albeit one ever-so-efficient corner. What my kitchen lacks is outlets – until last fall, there were only two, one in my work corner and one other commandeered by the coffee maker and an under-cupboard radio. But last fall, an electrician put an outlet in above another counter. What a difference! Now the crockpot (or the yogurt maker or ...) can work-work-work away over in its own corner while I work in mine.

So I've taken to using my crockpot like an energy-efficient oven, cooking stuff I'd never before even considered making in a slow cooker. Like sweet potatoes – yes, really, you can cook sweet potatoes in a crockpot!
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Vegetables 101: What Are Bitter Greens?

2012-01-10T08:45:00.003-06:00

So many vegetables, so many that are unfamiliar! This is one of an occasional series of posts, quick, easy and practical information about out-of-the-ordinary vegetables. Links to recipes!

On Christmas Eve, a cousin sidled up to me, "Hey, I wanna ask you something." Usually Denny's face carries a big, open smile but in spite of the champagne and frivolity surrounding us that afternoon, he seemed serious. I braced myself for some thorny personal matter. Instead, he queried, "What are bitter greens?"

I laughed out loud, half in relief, half in sudden understanding. Earlier in the day, he and his wife Jan had seen a recipe that called for bitter greens and wanted to know what they were and where to buy them. "We'll ask Alanna," they agreed. "She'll know." And no doubt, the term "bitter greens" is one tossed off by food writers and passionate food people who presume we all speak the same language. (Remember the time when someone was searching grocery shelves for "tepid water"? It's another good story, see my recipe for Acorn Squash with Quinoa & Cherries on Kitchen Parade. But I digress.)

First, let's remind ourselves that bitter is one our our five basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and the elusive savory / umami. That taste of bitterness appears in many favorite foods: think chocolate, coffee, marmalade, citrus zest and olives, even the quinine in the tonic water for gin and tonics.
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Steamed Vegetable Medley ♥

2012-01-02T04:45:00.003-06:00

Today's healthy recipe: Fresh vegetables steamed over an olive oil-onion-wine-broth mixture that is turned into a rich and flavorful sauce for drizzling or dipping. Not just vegan, "Vegan Done Real".

Hey, word dancers! I'm looking for a word, would you help? In a single word or short phrase, I want to instantly convey that this dish is "a whole pile of beautiful rainbow-colored fresh vegetables, lovely to look at, tasty to consume, all in the same dish". 'Medley' is a word that food writers use, 'cornucopia' too. But they don't quite express the healthy wholesomeness that I'd like to express. Is there such a word, in any language?

In the mean time, I'm sticking with "medley", that's the word that Myra Kornfeld used for this recipe for Vegetarian Times' January-February issue. I didn't expect to be knocked over by what is essentially a big plate of vegetables because steamed vegetables, well, aren't they just a little boring? Not here!

Vegetables are usually steamed over nothing more than water. This recipe calls for cooking a little butter (I used olive oil), onion and white wine with vegetable broth, using that to steam the vegetables, then turning the mixture into a sauce to drizzle the vegetables with. KNOCK ME OVER GOOD, this stuff.
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How to Make Homemade Vegetable Soup ♥

2012-01-01T16:30:00.000-06:00

Today's brand-new master recipe: How to make homemade vegetable soup using whatever vegetables are in season or happen to be on hand or which just sound good.

Happy New Year, all! Are we done with cookies? champagne? fun and frivolity? Yeah, me too. It feels so good to be back to eating healthy food again. Soups like this will help kickstart the new year!

CSA folks, especially are going to love this recipe. Ah heck, I hope we all love this recipe, it posted this morning on Kitchen Parade, see Master Recipe: How to Make Homemade Vegetable Soup. (Easier still – just click the photo!) I'd love to know what you think but here's why you just might like it:

It's a master recipe for soup, getting us started with the right proportions but giving free rein to the choice of vegetables, the choice of cooking liquid and the choice of seasoning.
It's not just vegan, it's "Vegan Done Real".
It's similar to the Weight Watchers Zero Points Garden Soup (and all the many Weight Watcher variations of this soup) except that it's much more variable.
It's a basic recipe, a starter recipe, but the results are anything but ordinary.

PS I have a fabulous new many-vegetables-in-one-pot recipe for A Veggie Venture on Tuesday too. I think 2012 may just be a banner year for vegetables. Did I mention we joined a CSA? More on that later!
PPS Lots of exclamation points !!! in today's post, a big sign of excitement about this recipe. Let's hope you feel exclamation points too!
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Best Vegetable Recipes of 2011

2011-12-27T08:37:00.004-06:00

The best vegetable recipes of 2011 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.

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. (Food bloggers, be sure to let me know when you post your own best of 2011 list.) Follow me there and you'll see all the new entries over the next couple of weeks. And hey! Follow me on Pinterest and I'd love to follow you, too! Need an invitation? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. All I need to know is which e-mail address you'd like to use for Pinterest.

But okay, here you go, my favorite recipes for 2011. Do we share a favorite? Have I missed one you loved? Let me know in the comments!
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Of Favorite Cookies & Cookbooks: A Christmas Special

2011-12-13T09:30:00.019-06:00

For cookie bakers, No-Roll Christmas Sugar Cookies aren't to be missed, they're the best chewy and butter sugar cookies you might have ever tasted but without all the fuss and muss of rolling and decorating. I'm making them for my cookie swap next week, the - get this! - 19th annual.

For home cooks, savory and sweet both, the Food52 Cookbook isn't to be missed either, it's one of two favorite new cookbooks in 2011. It's a collection of "best of the best" recipes from home cooks -- I think it's fabulous and am giving away a copy!

Head on over to Kitchen Parade, No-Roll Christmas Sugar Cookies (or click the photo) for the cookie recipe and cookbook giveaway. It's easy to enter to win -- US and Canadian residents for this giveaway, please, through December 14th.

MORE GIVEAWAYS? I've started posting giveaways (mine and other food bloggers') on a special bulletin board on Pinterest. Follow me there for the latest! And it's Christmas -- right now there are a BUNCH of giveaways going on, including for wonderful LeCreuset Dutch ovens and other cooking gear.

WHERE IN HECK ARE THE VEGETABLE RECIPES? So isn't A Veggie Venture the food blog about vegetables? Yep, it is, except in December when our interest in vegetables falls to the wayside in favor of, well, Christmas cookies, holiday parties, picking out just the right gifts, decorating the tree, sitting by the fire with a hot mug of Scandinavian mulled wine (my recipe is fruity, not sweet and by the way, made for a much-lively Scandinavian dinner party weekend before last) or passing along along family traditions like making Swedish Potato Sausage. Here's my promise, made on a stack of sliced beets: Come January, A Veggie Venture will return to its usual programming, all vegetables, all the time.

Can't wait? Here are vegetable recipes I've featured during December in prior years:
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Holiday Baking Tips + A Cookbook Giveaway ♥

2011-12-05T07:00:00.003-06:00

Hello Vegetable Lovers!

Anyone gearing up for Christmas baking will definitely want to check out Holiday Baking Tips from a Certifiable Cookie-Baking Fiend. That "fiend" would be me: during December, your 'veggie evangelist' is turning into a part-time 'cookie evangelist'.

Plus I'm giving away a copy of Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies, the award-winning cookie cookbook by Alice Medrich.

Contest open through December 8, 2011 to readers from across the world - hello, Canadian readers! : - ) To enter, click the photo >>>>>>>

Happy Baking!

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Sweet Potato Recipes – Alphabet of Vegetables (Yam Recipes)

2011-12-02T07:41:00.005-06:00

SWEET POTATOES: THE BASICS
Sweet potatoes are a "root vegetable". Only two varieties are widely grown, the Beauregard and the garnet. The Beauregard can be stored for long periods and so is less expensive, usually these are labeled "sweet potatoes". The garnet is more perishable and more expensive but it's my favorite, the flesh is more orange, the flavor more sweet. In the U.S., chances are that what people call "yams" and even what supermarkets label "yams" are really sweet potatoes. A nearby international grocery carries real yams from Africa, a staple food there; one year I cooked them side by side, just for fun, see Food Experiments: Meet the Yam Man. But farmers markets and CSAs are bringing new sweet potatoes to the market. Saveur has a great photo gallery of different varieties, you might enjoy Sixteen Shades of Sweet.

How to cook sweet potatoes in the microwave
How to bake sweet potatoes in the oven
How to cook sweet potatoes in a slow cooker
How to make a Sweet Potato Casserole
How to make a Savory Sweet Potato Casserole (no marshmallows!)
How to stir-fry sweet potatoes
Analysis Frozen Sweet Potato Fries: Are They Worth the Price? the Calories?

SWEET POTATO NUTRITION ESTIMATE

Per 1/4 pound: 102 Calories; 0g Tot Fat; 0g Sat Fat; 0mg Cholesterol; 40mg Sodium; 23g Carb; 4g Fiber; 7g Sugar; 2g Protein; Weight Watchers Old Points 1 & PointsPlus 1

PERSONAL FAVORITES
My Favorite Sweet Potato Recipes (with photos, all in one place)

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Healthy Holiday Salad with Broccoli, Cauliflower & Dried Cranberries ♥ Recipe

2011-11-29T08:15:00.009-06:00

A "healthy holiday makeover" of that broccoli salad we all know and love, you know the one from church potlucks, right? the broccoli salad with bacon and raisins and cheddar cheese? My recipe uses tiny florets of fresh broccoli and fresh cauliflower for a little green and white holiday color, then substitutes dried cranberries for raisins. And the dressing? It's my favorite light mayo dressing, thinned with a little buttermilk and brightened with lemon zest. (Weight Watchers, just one point for those still counting points in the "old way" and 2 points for those who count with PointsPlus.)

So the first year that all you vegetable lovers abandoned A Veggie Venture in December, my feelings were a little hurt. What vegetable recipe, I wondered, could compete with fancy appetizers and platters of oh-so-pretty Christmas cookies? Last year, I even implored, Let's Give Salads with Abandon!

But the thing is, even during the holidays -- maybe especially during the holidays -- nothing hits the spot like a plateful, even a spoonful, of healthy vegetables. Here's a salad that takes the summer classic, that broccoli salad with bacon and raisins and cheddar cheese, and gives it a healthy makeover with colors and flavors suitable for a casual holiday supper. (Side Note: How in the world does something with piles of calorie-dense bacon and raisins and cheddar cheese ever get to be called "salad"?! Jeepers!)
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Favorite Recipes for Thanksgiving's Top Twelve Favorite Vegetables

2011-11-20T20:30:00.000-06:00

Welcome to A Veggie Venture's collection of Thanksgiving vegetable recipes!

Since 2006, it's tradition at A Veggie Venture to feature Thanksgiving vegetable recipes throughout November. This collection features recipes for your favorite Thanksgiving vegetables, the ones readers and visitors voted for in 2009. There are now more than three dozen featured Thanksgiving recipes, all:

perfect for special dinners but not over the top
fresh fall vegetables prepped mostly or entirely in advance
easily multiplied for large gatherings and divided for small ones
and a little different for A Veggie Venture, no skimping on butter and cream and cheese!

The collection's very first recipe, World's Best Green Bean Casserole remains the all-time favorite but in 2007, the low-carb Cauliflower Cream was the surprise favorite, followed in 2008 by Creamy Brussels Sprouts Gratin. In 2009, readers loved my Savory Bread Pudding with Butternut Squash, Chard & Cheddar and in 2010, the dramatic and vegetarian or vegan Fall Stew Baked in a Whole Pumpkin. What will be the favorite in 2011? We'll see!

So here they are, Thanksgiving's Top Twelve favorite vegetables and Thanksgiving-perfect recipes for each. Watch for new recipes throughout November! Enjoy!
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Greek Lentil Soup ♥

2011-11-20T10:45:00.005-06:00

Hey Vegetable Lovers, this is my annual "public service announcement" -- the reminder to "make soup first" before starting to cook for Thanksgiving. That way, after a big day of cooking, there will be something in the fridge to actually eat, not just food for Thanksgiving Day. Naturally, I have a recipe to share too ...

A simple lentil soup, cooked in a broth scented with bay leaf, garlic, rosemary and a surprise ingredient, cinnamon. Vegan.

I've been mesmerized by the photographs from a new-ish cookbook by Tessa Kiros. I loved an earlier cookbook, Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes, mostly because it's an unlikely combination of Finnish, Greek and South African recipes, cuisines I've been lucky to know, in person, right in situ. (And long-time readers have seen two recipes from Falling Cloudberries, Lamb Roast with Lemon & Oregano and Homemade Finnish Mustard which is always -- always -- in my fridge.)

The new cookbook focuses on just one of those food traditions, Food From Many Greek Kitchens. The photos are only occasionally of food, mostly of home life, perhaps, I suspect, of a romantic notion of a home life that comes from another era. Rustic. Colorful. Everyday. Like photographs so old the faces are rubbed away. Church doors emblazoned with Greek crosses. Old flags and bottles and postcards and chairs. Shop windows with sausages and crusty loaves of bread. Greek Orthodox clerical robes. Well-worn kitchen bowls and cutting boards.
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Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes with Cranberry & Orange ♥

2011-11-08T08:45:00.012-06:00

Today's Thanksgiving side dish recipe: Chunks of sweet potato cooked in a slow cooker in a sauce that's sweet with orange and tart with cranberry. Delicious!

Okay, so granted, pretty, these sweet potatoes are not, especially on the second day when the edges soften and the chunks begin to merge. But I'm willing to bet, take one bite and you'll be as smitten as I. Delicious? You bet. They're just slightly sweet, more fruity really, nothing like a traditional sweet Sweet Potato Casserole but considerably sweeter than last year's favorite new Thanksgiving recipe, the Savory Sweet Potato Casserole.

Even a ~~picky eater~~, ahem, let's instead call him a young man whose palate is still developing liked them. At first, he eyed his very first sweet potatoes with suspicion but after taking a bite or two, was surprised to admit, "These aren't half bad." And then he cleaned his plate. (Hi, Benito!)

Plus, they're a great choice for Thanksgiving when oven space can be an issue, or even just for a weeknight meal, a quick vegetable to have waiting once supper's on the table.

SPEAKING OF THANKSGIVING Who else is beginning to think about menus and the annual tug between favorite old family recipes and tempting new recipes? This is my sixth year to add to a collection of vegetables recipes especially for Thanksgiving, see Favorite Recipes for Thanksgiving's Top Twelve Favorite Vegetables. If there will be vegetarians at the table, you'll definitely want to check out Vegetarian Entrées for Thanksgiving. And yes -- more recipes to come now through Thanksgiving!
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DIY Dried Herbs ♥ (How to Dry Fresh Herbs in the Microwave)

2011-11-01T08:30:00.004-05:00

Fresh Dried Herbs (Except Far Right)

Today's DIY Kitchen Tip: How to Turn Fresh Herbs into Dried Herbs. Does that make them Fresh-Dried Herbs? I think so! It takes just a minute or two in the microwave and once dried, the fresh herbs (wait, now they are dried herbs) are still bright green in color, still fragrant, and somehow, still alive.

Your 'veggie evangelist' is no DIY Diva. The rare project I tackle turns out silly junk, not shabby chic. But watching all the clever pins and repins on Pinterest, it's hard not to think, "I could do that! I could. I really could." (Pinterest is my latest online obsession, Yours too? Follow me on Pinterest, I'll follow you back! It's a fun way to share stuff we find online.)

But Kitchen DIY comes naturally -- and so does turning the last of the season's fresh green herbs into fresh dried herbs. I take no credit for the idea, it came from PJ Hamel who writes the blog for King Arthur Flour and shared Dry Fresh Herbs in 30 Seconds Flat - Really. I read PJ's post and thought, "I could do that. Heck, I could do that NOW." And so I did, heading to the herb pots on the patio, scissors in hand.
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Babe's "Naked" Fruit & Veggie Salad ♥

2011-10-25T07:45:00.014-05:00

Today's salad inspiration: A "naked" salad: No dressing. Not a drizzle of vinaigrette, not even a splash of lemon juice. What do we think, what makes a salad a salad? Is it the dressing? or what's dressed?

Back in June, a reader forwarded a recipe. (Thanks for the recipe, Mary!) She listed a few of my favorite ingredients for salads, romaine and chopped vegetables plus fresh fruit and dried fruit, coconut and a few nuts. The instructions were simple, "Cut all ingredients in medium pieces and mix together. Very delicious!" The recipe struck me as a fall salad so onto the stack it went until last week when it hit me, Hey wait, this salad has no salad dressing! Sure enough, said Mary when asked. "Actually, I like it without dressing."

My brain got to working. Is it the "dressing" that makes a collection of chopped veggies a salad? Do I ever make a salad without stirring in some sort of something to bind it all together? Admittedly, I was a little dubious – but fully prepared for a new food discovery too!
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Roasted Delicata Squash ♥

2011-10-18T08:30:00.002-05:00

The very easiest winter squash to cook, the delicata, here oven-roasted in pretty little half rings.

Say hello to my very favorite "easy weeknight vegetable" -- at least during the fall and winter. It's the delicata squash, see those two long-ish squash in the background of the photo? Those are delicata squash. What you can't see is that these guys are small, maybe six inches long. One squash feeds two or four, no need to pack up leftovers.

And delicata skins are edible, not as soft as a zucchini skin but not as hard as the skin of a butternut squash. This is good news because -- there's no peeling!

And unlike a butternut squash, where you need to worry about How to Cut, Peel & Cube a Butternut Squash and Keep All Ten Fingers. No, not these delicata babies, these baby delicatas. It's easy as can be to slice into a delicata squash, no minute in the microwave required. Just you and a sharp knife. Or hey, a dull knife, you decide.
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Pumpkin Hummus with Honey ♥

2011-10-11T06:45:00.004-05:00

Today's healthy hummus recipe: A traditional hummus, turned pretty and slightly sweet with pumpkin.

Once upon a time, back BFB (before Facebook), back BiP (before iPhones, iPads and iLives), there was a food blog which published one hummus recipe after another. Week in, week out, hummus and more hummus and still more hummus. I've lost track of the blog but at the time, I wondered, Who can eat so much hummus?

I'm here to say: it happens! A couple of months back, a Syrian restaurant opened nearby. Their hummus is so creamy-dreamy, I don't want to know how much olive oil it takes to achieve ethereal dimensions.

So last week I set out to use up some of that kabocha squash "pumpkin" I've been roasting. (See Homemade Kabocha Squash "Pumpkin" Purée from Kitchen Parade.) Hummus came to mind -- especially because the textures of roasted pumpkin and puréed garbanzo beans are so similar. Could I actually make a low-cal hummus?
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Mashed Potatoes & Carrots ♥

2011-10-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

These are definitely not your gramma's mashed potatoes! (Mine either!) But they belong in the category of "Why haven't we been doing this forever?" or maybe even a "genius recipe"! Just cook and mash potatoes and carrots together. You'll need hardly any (if any) fat and they'll be creamy beyond belief.

Canadian Readers, these would be a great addition to Thanksgiving dinner. Do enjoy!

~recipe & photo updated 2005 & 2011 and republished 2011~
~more recently updated recipes~

2005 Original: Ooooo, if this isn’t comfort food, what is? Potatoes and carrots are verboten for Atkins followers but their extraordinary loss is our magnificent gain. Tonight I cooked and mashed a pound of Yukon golds and a pound of carrots with nothing more than a tablespoon of butter and salt and pepper. The color is extraordinary, the taste … well, let’s just say, oooooooooooooo.

Big TIp: Bypass those bags of prepeeled carrots for they have no flavor when cooked. And come on, it takes only eight minutes – EIGHT MINUTES – of prep work to dice the potatoes, peel and dice the carrots! Your family will thank you. Heavens, you’ll thank you!

2005 Update: Mashed Potatoes & Carrots swept my family. I told my 80-year old aunt about them one evening last spring. She called an hour later to report, "I ate the whole pot." And here's a tip from my cousin Lynda who makes them all the time now. 'I've taken to using a smaller amount of water when I boil the veggies, and use all of it for the mashing - just add the salt, no butter. Delicious and no fat!' Atkins and South Beach and low-carb folks, if you're ever tempted to stray, here's a worthy temptation.

2011: This is one of a couple of dozen recipes from A Veggie Venture which I make all the time -- and if I weren't blogging, would make all the time!
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Favorite Pumpkin Recipes ♥

2011-10-04T06:30:00.002-05:00

Just in time for "pumpkin season" – that's October and November in the northern hemisphere – my favorite pumpkin recipes, sweet and savory and everything in between.

BUT FIRST, A FEW FACTS
Pumpkins are for jack o' lanterns, sure -- and Cinderalla carriages and moonlit nights awaiting the Great Pumpkin.

But best of all, pumpkins are for eating! But don't try eating pumpkins grown for Halloween carvings, they'll be watery.

Instead, for cooking, choose anything except a carving pumpkin. In fact, my favorite "pumpkin" is called a kabocha squash (more information below). No surprise, though, pumpkins are part of the squash family.

In 2009 and again in 2011, pumpkins are in short supply. I've been reading about shortages of canned pumpkin purée.

When buying canned pumpkin, be sure to buy "100% pumpkin purée" which is 100% pumpkin and not "pumpkin pie mix" which is pumpkin mixed with spices and other ingredients.

It's easy to make your own pumpkin purée from scratch (recipe below) but canned pumpkin is more economical and, honestly, our taste buds have been trained to "like" canned pumpkin.
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Raw Butternut Squash Salad ♥

2011-09-27T08:40:00.002-05:00

Today's salad recipe: It's one thing to eat raw tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini. But winter squash? When grated small, winter squash is surprisingly tender. Pair it with a little fresh ginger and add some dried fruit for sweetness. This is a salad that will delight the eyes and the tastebuds! A small serving is "low carb" and even a larger serving adds up to only 1 Weight Watchers point (old points) or 2 Weight Watchers points (PointsPlus).

As sweet as vegetables can turn once they're cooked, especially when they're roasted slowly in a hot oven, every once in awhile, "raw" vegetables can really hit the spot.

I first made this salad last fall -- on the very day the recipe was published in the New York Times. I made no notes, I wrote no post, mostly because mid-November didn't strike me as the "right time" for a raw winter squash salad. But I did take a pretty picture and it kept popping up when perusing the photo files for the scores of "work in process" recipes, many which are too "meh" or too "something" to meet my high standards for both A Veggie Venture and Kitchen Parade.

But the first small winter squash are showing up both at the farmers market and the grocery store. They're especially perfect for this raw salad -- because the flesh is slightly more tender, the proportion of flesh:seeds&gunk is high. And just like the Butternut Squash Soup with Mango & Toasted Coconut, it strikes me as a great "transitional" salad, one that spans the season, when the weather is still warm and

And -- Canadians readers, are you there? This would be a great side salad for Canadian Thanksgiving coming up so quickly now, especially with dried cranberries instead of dried currants.
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Beet Salad with Sumac, Yogurt & Pita ♥

2011-09-20T06:30:00.003-05:00

A quick beet salad turned appetizer when served with a garlicky yogurt sauce and fresh pita bread. For Weight Watchers, just three points (PointsPlus) or two points (Old Points).

So I set off to find another delicious way to use the sumac that makes a Fattoush (Traditional Middle Eastern Salad) so delicious. You see, I really want you to seek some out and the fact that I just might be a tiny bit smitten to sumac's earthy sourness, well, that might not be enough so, well, will another temptation help? :-)

But what I accidentally happened onto was another contribution to a meze (also spelled mezze and pronounced [MEZ-ay]). It's a happy style of casual eating, a few dishes, full of flavor and texture and -- let's be truthful here -- lots of garlic. Just one meze-style dish we might call an 'appetizer' but with a handful of different dishes, that would be a meal. It's easy to imagine sitting cross-legged on Turkish rugs eating this stuff but in my world, the kitchen table does just fine. A picnic blanket outdoors some fine fall day? That would be heaven.
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Butternut Squash Soup with Mango & Toasted Coconut ♥

2011-09-13T06:40:00.004-05:00

Today's soup recipe: A smooth almost custard-like soup, served chilled on warm days or warm on chilly days.

But first, it's "back to school" for a quick lesson about vegetables, specifically 'squash'. What's the difference between 'summer squash' and 'winter squash'?

Is it that one grows in summer and one grows in winter? Nope.
Is it that one's eaten in summer and one's eaten in winter? Nope, at least not in today's global food distribution system that delivers year-round availability of many of our staple fruits and vegetables.

This book you can read by its cover, for the difference between summer squash and winter squash is up-front and visible, right in the skins.

Summer squash have tender, edible skins. Think zucchini (called 'courgette' in many parts of the world) and yellow squash.
Winter squash have tough, inedible skins. Think butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash and even pumpkin.
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Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas ♥

2011-09-07T08:25:00.006-05:00

A vegetarian main dish salad -- or a side salad -- with a double-dose of protein, one from quinoa, another from chickpeas. This is a classic "concept recipe" -- and seasonal too. Here I've added late-summer vegetables but it's easy to imagine spring and summer versions too. Very filling and satisfying, even a half cup at a time.

It's a lesson an attentive cook learns early: apply heat to food to draw out flavor, to reveal an inner character. We toast nuts to make them nuttier, we toast bread for its warmth and crispy edges. We roast tomatoes and squash to not only cook but sweeten. We brown butter to darken its character and put a little burn on bones to make stock. So what would happen if I toasted the quinoa first, would it make a difference?

Side by side, I cooked red quinoa in salted water in one pot and toasted regular quinoa to a toasty brown before adding water to cook in another. Did it make a difference? Taste-wise, not a smidgin.
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Fattoush (Traditional Middle Eastern Salad) ♥

2011-08-30T09:45:00.015-05:00

It takes a lot of words to describe what's really a simple traditional Lebanese / Syrian / Middle Eastern salad. So instead, just learn this one word and repeat after me: Fattoush. Fattoush. Fattoush. (That's fuh-toosh, fuh-toosh, fuh-toosh.) Now go make one.

Dear St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
A certain St. Louis food blogger is wild for the Fattoush Salad at Ranoush, the Syrian restaurants in University City and now in Kirkwood. Would you please see if the owners would share the recipe? Please, pretty please?

That Certain Food Blogger

Since February, I've been writing a weekly column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called "Special Request" -- the one where St. Louisans write in to ask for recipes for their favorite dishes from restaurants. It's a kick! (See St. Louis Restaurant Recipes & the Most Recent Columns.)

But every once in awhile, I want to game the system and send in my own request. Now that'd be cheating but I've been extra-tempted all summer long, ever since Ranoush (before clicking, you might want to "mute" your sound) opened a second location just a few blocks from home.

Ranoush is my kinda place. Good food. Open late! (The "Kirkwood Dinner Bell" rings at five so finding good food after 8pm here can be tricky!) Friendly owner and staff. A big patio with red umbrellas that brightens a too-long empty corner right in the midst of our little downtown. We've been at least three times -- and I've suggested it for lunch and supper and a late-night snack at least that many times again -- but have ordered only one thing, the fattoush salad. (Well, two, actually, but the amazing hummus will have to wait for another day.) The fattoush salad is made with romaine and tomatoes in a lemony-garlicky-sweetish vinaigrette and checkered with crisp squares of just-out-of-the-fryer pita bread. OH MY.
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Chilled Zucchini Soup Shooters ♥

2011-08-21T08:00:00.006-05:00

Here's a soup that will satisfy as summer winds toward autumn, made with little more than zucchini charmed with a touch of curry and served cold. It tastes much richer than it is, for the recipe is low carb and for Weight Watchers, either 1 or 2 points. Enjoy!

REVIEWS
"... loved it warm ... it's creamy without using cream or much fat ... " ~ Anonymous
"Absolutely outstanding! ... SO GOOD!" ~ Anne I

If I were the "document everything" sort, I could impress you by naming exactly how many recipes there are here on A Veggie Venture. But I'm not that sort. Sure, I could figure it out, it wouldn't even take that long. Maybe some day I will. But it seems beside the point somehow -- for there's no disputing that A Veggie Venture has a lot, a LOT of vegetable recipes whether it's a 1000 or 1200 or 1400. How many vegetable recipes are here? A lot. That's all you (and I) really need to know.

During the first year, I cooked a new vegetable recipe every day (that was the "Veggie" part), and posted it, good or bad (the "Venture" part). It surprises me that nearly all the recipes, even the ones from six years ago that I've not made again, remain familiar. So when I happened onto a recipe for a chilled zucchini soup on Food52, I knew there was already a recipe here like that -- and that back in 2005, it hadn't been very good. So being an "Out with the old! In with the new!" sort, that's exactly what I've done.

And this, dear readers, is the new recipe, the one worth making, the one I'm happy to recommend, the one that had me up at midnight one night, taking a spoon to the refrigerator for just one more bite.

The soup is surprisingly creamy -- in fact, first taste, you'll think, "Wow, this is rich." But it's not. It's just onion and zucchini and some chicken broth. It's good enough warm but it's designed to be served cold and that's what I did, like shooters, small cupfuls with tiny spoons. Add another vegetable recipe to the list, we're up one.
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