Here I thought I was being sooo smart, making supper-time vegetables first thing in the morning. The recipe was a reprise of Day 36's Swedish Beets, the food obsession of the moment. With a freezer full of frozen vegetables needing cooking+consumption, I piled a couple of bags - still frozen - into a big glass jar while the vinegar mix was heating up in the microwave, tossed them together and threw the jar in the frig. The idea: The hot liquid would thaw the vegetables. The vinegar would cook them. Eight hours later - the vegetables were still a bit icy and, well, raw. Twenty-four hours later - delicious, a summer standby. SWEDISH VEGETABLES Active time: 5 minutes Time to table: 24 hours Serves 8 1 cup cider vinegar (I'm liking cider vinegar a bit more though the white is perfectly good too) 1 cup water 1/4 cup sugar (reduced from 1/2 cup in Swedish beets) 2 teaspoons salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper (a defining ingredient, don't skip it) 16 ounces cut frozen green beans (or wha

What fun! Sure, I would make this differently another time - but I will definitely make it another time. It's a crepe-textured pancake rolled with sauteed spinach. It's more special-occasion than every-day fare but still, easy to make. The results are considerably more impressive than the level of difficulty. And it's surprisingly low in calories. I even checked the nutrition analysis - it's all that spinach and relatively small, but still generous, servings. SPINACH PANCAKE Active time: 30 minutes (including 10 to clean spinach which isn't necessary with bagged spinach and 15 when there's lots of open time but you can't really leave the stove) Time to table: 50 minutes Serves 8 2 eggs 2 cups skim milk 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 2 tablespoons butter (original recipe specified 3 but 2 seems fine) 1 pound spinach, chopped 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (original recipe specified 1/4 teaspoon, th

Today's quick vegetable snack: Fresh, raw kohlrabi, as a snack, just like carrot sticks or cucumber wedges. ~updated 2011~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2005: Thanks to more back-breaking work in the garden late today, it's more raw food tonight, thick slices of almost-peppery kohlrabi. Kohlrabi (pronounced kall-ROB-ee) is a member of the turnip family and is some times called 'cabbage turnip'. Maybe that's because the color is just like a green cabbage! I liked raw kohlrabi better than last night's radishes and spring onions , it just seems more edible than, well, raw. (Later: And it tasted good the next day too, a desktop munch while working.) 2011: Raw kohlrabi is a great before-supper snack, wet and crisp, wetter than a carrot, crisper than a turnip. It's good!

Tonight was an adventure in raw food, graceful lengths of rose-colored radish and thick bulbs of spring onion. Both were locally grown and purchased at Soulard Market, St. Louis' old farmers market. There are newer and closer (and more fru-fru, hmmmm, how exactly does one spell fru-fru?) markets with organic eggs and bison meat and omelets made to order. But Soulard -- one of the few places where city folks and suburbanites mingle, where you'll hear a half dozen languages in a half hour, where the chickens and ducks are sold live -- remains my favorite. Radishes and green onions -- new vegetables? Of course not. But for the first time, I paid attention, close attention. What did they really look like? smell like? taste like? What was the texture? the lingering taste? What happened with the Asian Dip leftover from the other night? A smear of butter? JUST-PICKED RADISHES & SPRING ONIONS Time to table: 5 minutes Time to enjoy: Serves 4 about 8 radish lengths

Nearly always, fish makes for a fast supper. Visit the Kitchen Parade weekly blog for a recipe fo r Roasted Salmon & Asparagus , a delightful combination that takes 10 minutes of preparation and can be delivered to the table in just 35 minutes .

What a surprise to come upon fiddlehead ferns in the supermarket today! Did I never notice unusual vegetables before? Or are supermarkets experimenting with new items? Three years ago, my family published a cookbook. My cousin Laura lives in British Columbia and has been a vegetarian for years and years -- though her four children and her husband are not -- and is an inspiring cook. One of her many contributions to the cookbook was a recipe for fiddlehead ferns. So when I discovered these at the supermarket today, there was no NOT bringing them home (even at $10 a pound) and I knew right where to turn to learn how to cook them. Laura's recipe calls for scads of butter -- I just couldn't do it. But these were utterly delicious and so very, very pretty! Look at those curlicues! What do they taste like? I wondered that as I ate them tonight. They taste like nothing I've ever had before. The only words I know to describe the taste are 'green' and 'alive'