Just a few more days left in the special giveaway offer for the readers of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture. This isn't one of those contests where the odds of winning something worth $10 is 1:million. Entering is easy! Win an HP Photosmart All-in-One Printer A Special Offer Just for Readers of Kitchen Parade & A Veggie Venture Between now and April 27, 2009, BlogHer and HP are sponsoring a contest where an HP printer will be given away, ONLY to the readers of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture. Okay, well, anyone can enter the contest but I'm only telling my own readers about it. But what this means is, the odds of winning are very very high! All it takes is leaving a comment that finishes this sentence, "A wireless color all-in-one photo printer will make my life better by ... ". I've been so touched by the many poignant reasons people say that a wireless printer would improve their lives. What's yours? ~ Leave your own c...

A classic chocolate cake, moist and earthy, studded with black walnuts. This is "the" chocolate cake in my husband's family and like most-things family, it comes with a story.

Did you know that mangoes are the world's favorite fruit? Here, just in time for warmer weather, fresh mango is paired with cooked chicken and a touch of curry for a delicious – but still light – chicken salad. ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ This recipe is so quick and easy that I'm adding it to a special collection of easy summer recipes published every summer since 2009. Watch for new "summer easy" recipes all summer long! With a free e-mail subscription , you'll never miss a one! COMPLIMENTS! "... this was delicious! ... Soo delicious and satisfying!" ~ Lynessa Eating Locally vs Tasting the World. Last fall, a shopper was woman-handling the peaches at a nearby grocery, squeezing one then another for ripeness. "The produce here is terrible," she complained loudly to no one in particular. I attempted to explain, “It's past-season for peaches." She stared my way as if I were daft and answered w...

Welcome to classic comfort and flavor: a traditional spinach salad, light and indulgent at once. Imagine it now — tender spinach and frisée with crispy bacon, velvety cooked egg and thin-sliced red onion. But then? Prepare to swoon for the warm bacon vinaigrette that subtly wilts the greens, a blend of smoky bacon drippings, tangy lemon and just a touch of sweetness. It's a dance of savory 'n' sweet that will leave you longing for a French bistro and just one more bite, just one more bite. An Approachable, Homestyle Salad, Simply Prepared. A Vintage, Easy Tried-and-True Recipe. An Easy "Extra" Side Salad or a Light Weeknight Supper Salad. Easily Adapted to Your Family's Tastebuds. Perfect When Cooking for One or Two . Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Budget Friendly. Naturally Gluten Free. What're you waiting for?! So Good!!

A new cooking lesson, how to make homemade chicken stock. Lots of tips and techniques, my own and Michael Ruhlman's, from his new book "Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking". ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ "Cook" Books vs "Recipe" Books: Which One Suits You? My kitchen bookshelves sag under cookbooks, the basement is home to two decades of food magazines. Author Michael Ruhlman wants us to call these not "cook" books but "recipe" books. Recipe books, he says, teach us to follow recipes; cook books teach us to cook . But acceptance is a virtue and me, I accept that I’m a recipe cook. Turning the pages of cookbooks and magazines, I experience the thrill of the hunt, the possibility of discovery: be still, my heart! Still, deep within, I long to be released from the shackles of recipes. In the cooking of my mind, I stand before a well-stocked pantry and a just-filled refrigerator, grab a few th...

The oh-so-special braided Armenian Easter bread called choereg or some times choreg . It's a sweet, buttery yeast bread, fragrant with an addictive spice called mahleb or some times mahlab . Best of all, the pastry may be made in advance and keeps just beautifully. Many thanks to Cyndi, a Kitchen Parade reader, for sharing her family's special Easter bread! A Celebration Bread for Easter. Meal Prep Friendly, Tastes Better and Better Over a Few Days & Freezes Well. Aren't Old Family Recipes the Best?! So Good!!

How to bake pork chops with rice in the oven in one skillet, a simple satisfying meal. Baking pork chops and rice yields tender, fall-apart chops and tasty rice. This is the very first meal I ever cooked, memorable for reasons good and bad! An Old-Fashioned One-Pot Dinner, True Comfort Food. High Protein. Weight Watchers Friendly.

An unusual fruit salad, savory and sweet at the same time. This easy recipe takes familiar ingredients like fresh fruit, almonds and cilantro and turns them upside down. Start with your favorite fruit – so far I've tried grapes, mango and apples – and then just stir in the rest, including a touch of salt, a key ingredient. There you go, fruit salad in a whole new way! Real Food, Fresh & Flexible. Simple Healthy Dessert or Breakfast Salad. Not just easy, Summer Easy . Budget Friendly. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Easily Scales from Grape Salad for One or Two to Grape Salad for Big Groups. No Added Sugar. Low Fat. Weight Watchers Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly.

My first and forever-and-forever favorite recipe for banana bread, rich with banana flavor, very banana-y. (That's thanks to very ripe bananas, even my favorite "black bananas"!) It calls for whole-wheat flour and wheat germ, so the recipe is even half healthful. But what really makes this banana bread special? Poppy seeds and those bright-red cheery cherries! Homemade Banana Bread, Made from Scratch. Real Food, Fresh & Inventive. Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Budget Friendly. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Potluck & Party Friendly.

Kitchen Parade celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009 with a collection of my mother's favorite recipes, even her very own columns. In 1959, my mother Shirley started writing Kitchen Parade for our family newspaper in a small town in northern Minnesota. She was a young wife and new mother then, also a home economist and city girl finding her place in a small town. Week in, week out, she wrote her Kitchen Parade column for twelve years and only stopped when our family moved away. After my mother's death in 2002, I resurrected Kitchen Parade in my own style, and later began publishing here online KitchenParade.com . If there's one thing to know about my mother, it's that she loved a party! So in 2009, to celebrate Kitchen Parade's 50th anniversary, I featured many of Mom's favorite recipes, including – it was fun! – some from her very own columns published in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s! Readers learned to watch for these special recipes – Kitchen Parad...