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

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!)

Favorite Recipes for Thanksgiving's Top Twelve Favorite Vegetables

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!

Greek Lentil Soup ♥

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.

Slow Cooker Sweet Potatoes with Cranberry & Orange ♥

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!

DIY Dried Herbs ♥ (How to Dry Fresh Herbs in the Microwave)

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.