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Lima Bean Hummus ♥

Hummus is such a favorite quick appetizer. And it's so easy to make homemade hummus! While hummus is typically made with garbanzo beans -- in fact, last week's Kitchen Parade column includes a recipe for traditional homemade hummus -- it needn't be. This version, inspired by Je Mange la Ville , a lovely food blog based in Portland, Oregon, uses lima beans. Topped with a little goat cheese and fresh thyme: my book club loved it! And the green color is much welcome compared to the muddy gray of hummus made with garbanzo beans. Aren't those little crostini pretty? THE HEART OF THE MATTER This is my contribution to an event hosted this month by JoAnna's Food -- and this month featuring, um, yes, vegetables. Hmmm. How hard do you think it was to pick a vegetable recipe to participate in the event? Not too hard, since A Veggie Venture is all vegetable recipes, 100% vegetables and nothing-but-vegetables! But the collection of recipes for the event will be great fun since

Simple Arugula Salad ♥

When you're gifted with an abundance of just-pulled-from-the-ground arugula, it's not to be squandered. And so I went looking for new ways to enjoy the late-in-the-season so slightly bitter greens. Instead, I saw something extraordinarily simple and moved straight to the kitchen. And honestly, even I feel half silly posting this 'recipe'. But I figure if Gourmet can , and 37 people make comments, it's a winner, even if ever so simple. But another reason to post, it's a zero-point salad for those who follow Weight Watchers -- and there are never enough of these. FROM THE ARCHIVES For other ways to use arugula , see the Recipe Box . TWO YEARS AGO Brushed Eggplant ... "addictively good" PRINT JUST A RECIPE! Now you can print a recipe without wasting ink and paper on the header and sidebar. Here's how . NEVER MISS A RECIPE! For 'home delivery' of new recipes from A Veggie Venture, sign up here . Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, auto

Another Kitchen Parade Quick Supper: Chicken Greek Salad ♥

Summer nights create a thousand reasons to skip supper at home in the kitchen. This week's Kitchen Parade column features an antidote, a 'drive-by' quick supper salad that features one of the world's greatest conveniences, rotisserie chickens. Plus, if you've ever wondered how to make hummus , the column includes a simple recipe for homemade hummus with canned chickpeas. Perfect, yes, for a quick supper during summer! SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features ' fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences '. Where A Veggie Venture is 'pure food blog', full of experimentation and exploration, Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are f

Garlicky Bok Choy ♥

While developing the Alphabet of Vegetables , call me surprised to find a hundred carrot recipes and a thousand beet recipes , but no recipes for bok choy ! Have I ever cooked bok choy? Maybe not. Seems I'm not alone. While my food blogging pals regularly cook baby bok choy, the big heads of bok choy (also called Chinese cabbage, bai cai, bok choi and pak choi, according to my source, Jack Bishop ) are rare. It's in the cabbage family but is often treated like a leafy green. I chose to 'start' with something simple, something all about the bok choy. So this is a very basic recipe, just bok choy (local, even!) quick-cooked with garlic and for color, some sliced radish (also local!). Bok choy keeps a bit of its bite when cooked even as radishes soften and sweeten during cooking; they were quite perfect together. UPDATE (6/14/07) After a little sleuthing, I've become convinced that what I cooked here was not actually bok choy (even if that's what the farmer I bou

Farro with Asparagus & Green Onion Sauce ♥

Today's simple vegetarian supper recipe: Asparagus cooked with the lovely grain called "farro" and topped with a simple and most surprising green onion sauce. My version of Heidi Swanson's recipe has been "lightened" considerably, reducing the calories, carbs and Weight Watchers points. ~recipe & photo updated & reposted 2013~ ~ more recently updated recipes ~ 2007 ORIGINAL POST I'm betting that when Heidi Swanson titled her new cookbook Super Natural Cooking , by 'super natural' she meant something other than (1) three hours of afternoon errands (2) feeling oh-so-tempted to pick up supper somewhere, anywhere , on the way home (3) deciding otherwise and (4) then, the payoff, 30 minutes later, sitting down to a fast, delicious and healthful meal. (And colorful! Look at that plate!) In my book, anyway, one definition of 'supernatural' is helping us successfully battle the lure of the drive-through. Thank you, Heidi! In fact, H

Pan-Pickled Beets ♥

A bit ago, I participated in academic research attempting to answer, 'Why do people blog?' I paged through dozens of canned responses, waiting to check off something that reflected my own reason, the wealth of learning that accompanies my own blogging efforts. The 'I blog because I learn, I learn because I blog' concept returned to me tonight while slipping leftover beets through the Benriner , then moving them to a skillet to create, almost without thought, a quick and entirely new way to enjoy beets. Aha! If we're bored with vegetables or simply want to experience vegetables in new ways, there are several techniques to turn the comfortable and familiar into the fresh and unexpected, terrific ways to turn vegetables upside down, inside out and sideways. ISOLATE -- or MAKE FRIENDS If we always 'add flavor' to a vegetable (onion, salt and pepper, for example), try it all by itself , just to remember what the vegetable itself tastes like unadorned and unmas

Kitchen Parade Extra: Easy Summer Appetizers ♥

A warm summer evening is good enough reason to share a glass of wine on the patio. And I like add a quick bite to eat, too, something from the frig that requires zero effort. Easy appetizers are the subject of a 2003 Kitchen Parade column, published online today for the first time. Red Pepper Crostini, Olivada and Parmesan Crisps -- yes, they're that easy to make and easy to keep on hand for impromptu gatherings. SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE, EXACTLY? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features ' fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences '. Where A Veggie Venture is 'pure food blog', full of experimentation and exploration, Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are family and reader favori