Seasonal Sundays (Week 14) Late March – Early April

This week's special features include recipe ideas for vegan dinners, veggie spreads and leafy greens plus a spring-ready assortment of soups and salads and so much more. I hope to inspire your food week to come!

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

Do other families have a "family flower"?

My husband's extended family holds a special affection for daffodils. This time of year, a flower stand of daffodil and jonquil photos crop up in wistful family text messages.

And aren't daffodils' sunny faces a welcome sight after the icy white and drab brown of what feels like a long winter?

I remember how my then-young nephew couldn't quite get the name right and came out with "laff-o-dils". I smile. Perhaps my own family has a family flower after all ...

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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.

• THE RECIPE Red Quinoa Salad Your Way A Quick Supper with healthy grains, crunchy vegetables, fresh herbs & creamy cheese.
• WHY THIS, WHY NOW Super simple, super casual, super adaptable ... and filling, even for my (surprised) meat-motivated husband.

What's New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE RECIPE Banana-Peanut Butter Muffins Whole-wheat muffins with banana, peanut butter and chocolate.
• ANOTHER TAKE Banana Streusel Muffins A super-moist banana muffin recipe topped with a "streusel" mix of toasted nuts and cinnamon.

Compliments!

• "We tried the recipe for Red Beans & Rice and it was so good. We used andouille sausage for the lagniappe, I think I would prefer ham, as my mother used to fix it. We also tried a new twist on your Fast Roast Chicken which we have every couple of weeks. I saved the pan drippings and later fixed chicken gravy that we had with mashed potatoes." ~ Charlie
• THE RECIPE Red Beans & Rice Slow cooked Creole comfort food

Vegan Done Real

Ever get your dander up?

That was me when Oprah featured "vegan" food in a program some years back. It sounded promising, right, a major influencer encouraging plant-based foods?

The thing was, where, exactly, were the living plants? Every single one of Oprah's "vegan" foods was not a plant but a "product" – boxed up, plastic-wrapped, clamshell-imprisoned.

Ever since, this omnivore cook has championed what I call "Vegan Done Real". Here's a sample ...

• THE COLLECTION Vegan Done Real Whole-food vegan recipes from my favorite food bloggers.
• MY OWN RECIPES Kitchen Parade's Vegetarian & Vegan Recipes

• THE RECIPE Eggplant & Bean Thai Curry Bowl Where local and global meet for supper.
• ANOTHER TAKE Mediterranean Eggplant Skillet Quick, easy & tasty vegetarian supper.

• THE RECIPE Slow Cooker Curried Vegetable Stew A spiced stew with many vegetables!
• ANOTHER TAKE Squash & Carrot Stew Rich with world spices.

• THE RECIPE African Pepper, Tomato & Spinach Stew
• ANOTHER TAKE Chickpeas with Tomatoes, Spinach & Feta

Vegetable Spreads

Many Fridays, we've taken to sitting down to dinner with a bottle of wine, end-of-the-week relief and a charcuterie platter. It's fun!

In my head, I'm working on a "formula" to share some time soon. One tenet is to balance the cured meats (my husband's favorite) and cheese blocks with some sort of a vegetable spread (mine).

So grab a cracker or a skillet to make Fried Bread (really just skillet toast) and an appetizer knife for a healthy schmear of something like these.

And if you're big on charcuterie platters, let me know how you do it, I'd love to learn more!

• THE RECIPE Baba Ganoush (Middle Eastern Eggplant Spread)
• ANOTHER TAKE Roasted Eggplant “Hummus" (Eggplant & Chickpea Dip & Spread)

• THE RECIPE Broccoli Tapenade
• ANOTHER TAKE Asparagus Tapenade

• THE RECIPE Beet Pesto
• ANOTHER TAKE Raw Beet Sandwiches

Gravitating to Greens

Once upon a time, we joined a CSA that was a-m-a-z-i-n-g albeit sadly short-lived.

There's no forgetting the very first delivery late one evening, including two heads of tatsoi, a wonderful leafy green. We'd already had dinner but the tatsoi was so compelling, I cooked it on the spot. WE DEVOURED IT. So I cooked the second head and we devoured that, too. So good!

This weekend, we'll plant a few sturdy greens and lettuces in a raised bed. With any luck, the neighborhood woodchuck will take pity and leave some for us ... if not, well, we'll forage the Whole Foods produce section.

Let me tempt you, wherever you find greens ...

• THE COLLECTION Leafy Greens Recipes
• THE FAMOUS A-Z of Vegetables at A Veggie Venture

• THE RECIPE Jubilee Greens How to Sauté Leafy Greens Like Spinach, Chard, Kale & More
• ANOTHER TAKE Greek Greens How to Flash Cook Dark Leafy Greens to Eat Later

• THE RECIPE Greens with Sour Cream
• ANOTHER TAKE Greek Greens (Flash Cook to Eat Later)

• THE RECIPE Swiss Chard Gratin
• ANOTHER TAKE Creamy Brussels Sprouts Gratin

Lunch at the Kitchen Table

• THE RECIPE Laura's Healthy Carrot Soup Creamy without a drop of cream.
• ANOTHER TAKE Paleo Carrot Soup Quiet-inducing, spoon-clinking good.

Good to Know

• ONE QUICK TIP How To Keep Green Onions Fresh for Weeks No special equipment, no time commitment.
• OKAY, ONE MORE How to Freeze Stock in Canning Jars No more leaky freezer bags!

Put an Egg on Top aka "How About Eggs for Dinner?"

Why should breakfast get all the eggs?! If eggs for dinner were a club, I'd be president, chief marketing officer, resident evangelist, public advocate and ... hey, wanna join my club? Start here!

• THE RECIPE Never-the-Same-Twice Vegetable Frittata Protein-packed with silky texture.
• ANOTHER TAKE How to Make a Spinach Omelet

Something New to You? A Challenge!

It's one thing to know what we like. It's another to get caught in a rut of repetition. Every so often, I may offer a challenge to try something that just might be new. The challenge is yours to accept – or y'know, not – but I hope to pique your palate!

• THE RECIPE Steamed Vegetable Medley Fresh vegetables with a rich and flavorful sauce for drizzling or dipping.
• ANOTHER TAKE How To Steam Broccoli (Step-by-Step Photos)

Savoring Sweet Potatoes: A Challenge

So usually my "challenges" are, well, a challenge, an undertaking, an endeavor, a project. But here? For a few weeks, I hope you'll throw a few sweet potatoes onto your grocery list, knowing there'll be a simple recipe to tackle. Who's game?!

• THE RECIPE Sweet Potato Curry with Red Lentils, Roasted Peppers & Spinach Stovetop or slow cooker vegan supper or side.
• ANOTHER TAKE Curried Red Lentil Soup

Meal Prep

• THE RECIPE Roasted Veggie Enchilada Casserole Layers of roasted vegetables, salsa verde, corn tortillas and fresh spinach.
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas A quick green chile fix without hours in the kitchen.

This Week's Soup

• THE RECIPE No-Cream Creamy Cauliflower Soup
• ANOTHER TAKE Spicy Cauliflower Soup

Finnish Food

• THE RECIPE Refrigerator Pickled Beets No canning required!
• THEN JAZZ 'EM UP Pickled Beet Salad with Fresh Blueberries & Mint

Lookin' for Love

We're all proud of our best recipes that family and friends (and the Internet!) just love. But what about the recipes we love but are, ahem, so far under-appreciated? This recipe is just that, it could use a little extra love!

• THE RECIPE Last-Minute Pantry Pie Just five pantry ingredients. No bake!
• ANOTHER TAKE Blueberry Cheesecake Pie Cheesecake topped with homemade blueberry pie filling. No bake!

Recipes That Stand the Test of Time

To mark A Veggie Venture's 15th anniversary in 2020, I took a hard look at the first 365 vegetable recipes from the first year to select just 15 which, all these many years and recipes later, remain ever so useful. The result is a fascinating collection of recipes, 15 Favorite Vegetable Recipes, Still Useful After 15 Years. Here's just one.

• THE RECIPE Weight Watchers Zero Points Garden Vegetable Soup
• BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE All the WW Zero-Point Soups

PS Who's noticed? I'm big on "usefulness". See? Best-Ever “Most Useful” Recipes 2002 – Present, just one recipe per year from Kitchen Parade.

Made Me Think ...

• Obituary of Louise Little, the Mother of Malcolm X It's easy to forget that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Fascinating!
• The Unsung Heroes Who Ended a Deadly Plague Ever known anyone with whooping cough? Ever heard of the bacteria Bordetella Pertussis? No? During the Great Depression, it killed 7,500 American a year, so fer . The vaccine the two women discovered is the "P" in the DPT vaccine that was the forerunner to a vaccine that today protects 85% of the world's children. That's the good news. The bad news? Read on ...

Soups & Salads Especially for March

March is such a funny month for cooking, some wintry days (yo, soups!), some spring-like days (hey, salads!) and so many days neither one nor the other, just smack in the middle. So what grabs us depends on the day, yes? That's why I spent a year gathering all of A Veggie Venture's best soup and salad recipes into easy-to-scan month-by-month collections.

Unless you're ready to move onto Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for April, dig into the last gasp of Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for March.

Here's a sample!

• THE RECIPE Spring Garden Vegetable Soup with Asparagus, Artichokes, Peas & Spinach A bowlful of our favorite spring vegetables.
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy-to-Elegant Asparagus Soup One recipe with either rustic or elegant texture.

Feeding a Sugar-Conscious Sweet Tooth

You too? We're cutting back on sweets without demonizing dessert, usually with smaller batches, smaller servings, shareable desserts or fruit desserts in addition to limiting frequency. But some times?

• THE RECIPE Chocolate Malt Ice Cream Old-time fountain flavor at home.
• ANOTHER TAKE Buttered Pecan Ice Cream Old-fashioned goodness featuring native Missouri pecans.

Trending

My Top 10 Recipes are predictable, hello Should Cooked Pork Be Pink? and (Sloooow) Baked Potatoes (How Long to Bake a Baked Potato). But every week, seasonal recipes catch the internet's attention and start to trend.

• THE INFO Ham 101 What to Know Before Buying a Ham
• THEN FIRE UP THE SMOKER Twice-Smoked Ham How & why to smoke a smoked ham a second time.

• THE RECIPE Detox Chopped Salad
• ANOTHER TAKE Big Cajun Chopped Salad

Something to Read

I love books set in times and places and circumstances far from my personal experience. Often, yes, they long, generational sweeps of historical novels. I finished both these books this week and recommend each one.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is set in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s and 1960s during the rise of Prime Minister Eric Williams (more about Williams' legacy) and the country's struggle for independence from Great Britain.

Admittedly, it started slowly, for me, I put it down for many weeks. But I also "remembered" the characters and story, even after time away and finishing other books.

That doesn't always happen. I re-listened to the early chapters of Rules of Civility (affiliate link) this week, after listening to it in its entirety just a couple of weeks ago. Only bits and pieces were familiar.

In contrast, Northern Spy is set in Ireland during the Troubles. It's billed as a thriller but to me was far more an exploration of internal conflict and conflicting loyalties. This was a quick, compelling read.

Hmmm, I'm just now struck that both books are about peoples willing to give their very lives for freedom through political movements. A sign of our times?

• The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (affiliate link) by Monique Roffey
• Northern Spy (affiliate link) by Flynn Berry


• BOOK CLUB BOOK IDEAS My Reading Group's Book List since 1994!
• NO TIME TO READ? How I Read 4X More This Year Than Last What I gave up, how I read so much, what I read.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

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, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, 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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