What a lesson: Perfect, ultra-fresh need little - any? - adornment. The browned butter sauce is perfectly good - really good, in fact. But the asparagus were so perfect, all on their own, that the sauce actually detracted. The roasting process (without the browned butter) is a great zero-point way to roast asparagus and presumably other vegetables. Usually it seems to take more oil than I'd like to coat vegetables headed to the oven for roasting AND it's sort of an oily mess, I usually just dig in with my hands for simplicity and speed. The cooking spray (or a mister with your own oil) makes light, er, work of the process and calorie impact. ROASTED ASPARAGUS with BROWNED BUTTER Active time: 10 minutes Time to table: 25 minutes Serves 4 1 pound asparagus Butter-flavored cooking spray Salt & pepper 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 teaspoon soy sauce 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar Preheat oven to 400F. Clean and trim asparagus, removing the woody ends. Place

Hey, pickle lovers! Here's how to pickle bell peppers, the sweet red, orange and yellow pickles are especially pretty, right?! You can make "quick" pickles (which keep in the fridge for a few weeks) or canned pickles, your choice. Real Food, Fast & Casual. Little Effort, Big Taste. Great for Homemade Food Gifts. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free.

Two recipes today! First, a new way to cook carrots, with a little butter and seasoning right in the cooking water. This is a super-simple technique but makes a huge difference! The carrots practically cook themselves while you're working on the rest of dinner! And then, if you're inclined? Toss the carrots with chutney and mustard, such a simple way to doctor cooked carrots! Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Low Carb. Low Fat. Weeknight Easy. Scales from Small Plates to Large Platters. Weight Watchers Friendly. Vegetarian & Easily Vegan. Naturally Gluten Free.

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