Seasonal Sundays (Week 02) Early January

A quick read, a post-holiday collection of healthy recipes and ideas for the new year.

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays!

Happy New Year, All! Let's grab tight to 2020, shall we?

But first, do you have favorite memories from the holidays? I have three!

• My dad dressing up as Santa, just like he did when my sister and I were girls. At 93, he still loves that role!
• The ten-year old twin grandsons were thrilled to pieces over new rain/snow/mud boots and winter gloves! We worried that "clothes" would be tossed aside for left to open. Instead, they tried the boots on, switched pairs, then marched around the room checking the fit.
• Three of my nephew's boys on Facetime on New Year's Day: "Hi, Auntie Al!" from the oldest; "Merry New Year" from the three-year old; and the baby lighting up with recognition for the first time.

Yours? ♥ Do share!

Note to Self: For all the time and effort re: food? Not one memory related to food.

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PICK ONE

Pick One is for those of us overwhelmed by life's unending choices. If that resonates, then check out this one recipe and then call it a day. It's one that I think could make the most difference, the one I hope will become a regular in your kitchen, as it is in mine.

Regular Kitchen Parade readers know that my aim is not more recipes but fewer recipes, specifically, fewer more useful recipes that empower cooks in the kitchen. When technique is important? I'll tell you why. When an ingredient can't be skipped? You'll know about it up front. After that, I abhor a slavish attachment to recipes.

Kinda funny for someone who's been writing recipes on 3x5 cards since maybe age 10? Yep. And who still pulls out 3x5 cards most nights of the week if not multiple times a day? Yep.

But this week's "Pick One" recipe is just that. It's a master recipe full of tips on how to craft a big pot of vegetable soup, perhaps the very best you've made. And then how to do it again, with different vegetables.

• How to Make Homemade Vegetable Soup, never the same twice.
  

Seasonal Showcase: A Food "Reset" with Vegetables

Doesn't it just feel good to get back to real food? That first trip to the grocery after the holidays? Stock up on vegetables!

The gateway vegetable? A vegetable you already like, roasted. You don't need a recipe, just a few tips to get started.

Maybe you'll even pick up a vegetable you don't really know what to do with, confident that A Veggie Venture's Alphabet of Vegetables will yield several options and ideas.

Maybe you are thinking about eating less meat, inspired by Meatless Monday, or by working vegetables into breakfasts.

• How to Roast Vegetables, 22 Tips & a Master Recipe
• Alphabet of Vegetables, from A-Z, Asparagus to Zucchini and every vegetable in between!
• Vegan Done Real, a collection of "real food" vegan recipes from food blogger friends.
• Favorite Seasonal Vegetable Stews, 10 recipes plus 10 tips & techniques, winter vegetables stews too!
• Vegetable Recipes by Course

Welcome Back, Weight Watchers!

It's the time of year when people who follow Weight Watchers flock to Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture in search of recipes that include both nutrition information and Weight Watchers points.

This year, Weight Watchers introduced a very member-friendly plan called myWW. In fact, it's not one plan, it's three plans. They're color coded, Green, Blue and Purple! And each member picks the one that suits best. Me, I'm Team Green but you? You pick what works for you!

More on myWW next week but suffice it to say that Kitchen Parade and a Veggie Venture are both very Weight Watchers friendly recipe blogs!

• Weight Watchers Zero Points Garden Vegetable Soup (pictured), just one of several zero-point soups to kickstart your new year, for Weight Watchers and others
• Kitchen Parade Weight Watchers recipes, sorted by the new myWW blue plan (formerly called Freestyle) points!
• A Veggie Venture Weight Watchers recipes, look for a major update next week!
• How to Lose Weight with Weight Watchers Just updated!
• Rethinking Fruit for Weight Watchers Just updated!

Looking for Your Insight and Advice

Since Weight Watchers introduced myWW in November, I've been grappling with (1) what point information to display on the Weight Watchers page and (2) which point system to use to sort those lists on the Weight Watchers page.

What's not in question? The recipes themselves will continue to contain nutrition information plus all the old point values dating back to 2002. Just this week, two long-time readers wrote imploring me to not give up on the point system information that they (and I) first used with Weight Watchers!

So I'd love your input ...

ISSUE #1 WHAT TO DISPLAY

• CURRENT LISTING Oven-Baked Whole-Grain Pilaf with Quinoa, Barley, Kamut & Other Grains (147cal–WW2–PP4–SP4–FS3–NC27)
• OPTION #1 Oven-Baked Whole-Grain Pilaf with Quinoa, Barley, Kamut & Other Grains (147cal–WW2–PP4–SP4–FS3–green4–blue3–purple0–NC27)
• OPTION #2 Oven-Baked Whole-Grain Pilaf with Quinoa, Barley, Kamut & Other Grains (147cal–green4–blue3–purple0–NC27)

ISSUE #2 HOW TO SORT

I will sort by at least one of the three new plans, either green, blue or purple. My head spins at the idea of building and maintaining more than one list. Unfortunately, there's no "switch" to click, moving from one onto another or even back 'n' forth. And unfortunately, I haven't found any information if one of the three plans is working best for most people.

SORT BY THE BLUE PLAN? I'm leaning this way, since the Blue Plan is the same as WW's most recent point system, Freestyle. In fact, Blue = Freestyle, they're identical.

SORT BY THE GREEN PLAN? In this plan, only most vegetables and fruit are "free" so for anyone who follows the Blue or Purple plans, the points would only be lower.

SORT BY THE PURPLE PLAN? This doesn't seem like the right one to sort by. But what do you think, am I missing something? If you're following the Purple Plan, how do you feel about lists being sorted by Blue or Green? Are you more or less likely to use it?

Soups & Salads Especially for January

• Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for January

Vegan vs Plant-Based

Hey, Word Dancers! ♥ Do "vegan" and "plant-based" mean different things to you?

Is there a big distinction or a subtle nuance? Does one imply a lifestyle and another a food choice?

I remember when Oprah went vegan and did an entire show on vegan "products". It was 100% processed food! Zero whole food! In fact, that show inspired my personal pushback, Vegan Done Real.

ONE PLATE AT A TIME This week, a friend's daughter, someone I've known since the day she was born who's now an engineer for an energy company and outright decent human being, made a plea on Facebook for others to join her in choosing to eat less/no meat as personal activism to combat the impact of climate change. Go Steph!

FAKE NEWS But heavens, do watch out for influencers poseurs selling boatsful of BS. Also this week, I happened onto somebody making the case that there's a "liberal global elitist" conspiracy advocating plant-based eating to cause lower libidos (so fewer children) and lower male birthrates (so more females). I'm the first to challenge conventional wisdom but am not linking to this quackery. Open minds are healthy! But so is vigilance questioning what we read.

• It’s Called ‘Plant-Based,’ Look It Up from the New York Times (the NYT has a paywall but I don't think it applies here)
• Vegetarian & Vegan Recipes, Kitchen Parade's collection
• Vegan Done Real board on Pinterest!

A Veggie Venture: Best Recipe of 2019

Last week, I shared Kitchen Parade's single most useful recipe for 2019, the wonderful My Everyday Creamy Herb Salad Dressing. But oops, I overlooked selected a recipe for A Veggie Venture.

No question! It's a breakfast salad I l-o-v-e-d all summer long and even now, still, occasionally during cold weather too, as recently as this week. Enjoy a bowl of Everything Bagel Breakfast Salad this week!

• Everything Bagel Breakfast Salad, why don't we eat salad for breakfast anyway?!
• Favorite Vegetable Recipes, each year's favorites beginning in 2005!

Just Updated!

• Easy Almond Crackers, low-carb, high-protein homemade crackers for travel snacks
• Winter Pesto with Spinach, familiar pesto with a spinach twist
• Orange Julius Drinks, with extra protein, no refined sugar

Quick Navigation Tips

It's called "UX" for User Experience and it's something that writers like me give a ton of attention because we want our sites to be easy for visitors like you to click-click-click around in, finding exactly what you want.

Every so often, I'll share an inside tip about my sites' UX here. I hope these are obvious but just in case, here they are!

Is there something that would make Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture work better for you? Let me know!

• IMAGES Images are hyperlinked, even on email and RSS subscriptions. That means when you click on an image, either with a mouse or your finger on a phone, you'll click straight through to where you wanna be.
• "STICKY NAV" stands for sticky navigation. It means that wherever you are on my site, on whatever device, the main navigation bar at the top remains visible so you can always find your way back to the home page or to another Recipe Box page.
• "MORE" On our phones' small screens, that main navigation bar at the top is pretty small! But just click or touch the "More" button on the right side and you'll see a dropdown box with more navigation options. Cool, eh?
• NEW! LOVE VEGETABLES? You know I have two recipe sites, right? This is Kitchen Parade, the food column I've been writing since 2002 and before that, my mom, starting when I was a baby! But way back in 2005, when food blogs were juuuuust beginning to appear, I started writing A Veggie Venture. It was a total lark, I thought I'd just try a new vegetable recipe every day for a month. Somehow one month turned into an entire year and all these years later, I'm still fascinated by, even obsessed, with the limitless ways to cook vegetables. For you, it's easy to switch back 'n' forth between the two sites. Just check the main navigation bar, on mobile you'll need to check the "More" button to see the link. Cool, eh?

Text Me Back!

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com, dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, whatever.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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