Quinoa Pilaf with Kale & Corn ♥ Recipe

Today's new favorite kale recipe: Quinoa and kale cooked in one pot, then tossed with a bright lemon vinaigrette and a few kernels of corn. You might serve it on the side, you might choose it for Meatless Monday.

So. Confession time. You know that household chore you put off and put off and put off some more and then when you finally buck up and just do it, well, it takes all of ten minutes start to finish? (Except for the four months it took to get around to it in the first place.) Kale is like that for me, it's a bit of a chore, something I ought to buy/cook/eat more of but always put off. Then when I finally do, I'm half surprised to realize all over again, that "Hey! Kale is really good stuff!" And no chore at all!

Enter this quinoa, just quinoa and kale cooked at the same time in the same pot – yay, just one dish – then tossed with raw corn kernels and a lemon vinaigrette and topped with a few toasted walnuts and feta. That's it. Why did I put this off? You don't want to make the same mistake.
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Fried Zucchini Sticks vs Baked Zucchini Sticks ♥ Recipe

<< Today's vegetable recipe: My friend Helen's recipe for Fried Zucchini Sticks (what she calls just "Fried Zucchini") plus my test of the same recipe, but baked, so Baked Zucchini Sticks. It's a face-off, Fried vs Baked in taste, calories and Weight Watchers points. Which recipe wins out, the Fried Zucchini Sticks or the Baked Zucchini Sticks? You might just be surprised. >>

Are fried vegetables the "gateway" technique for vegetable haters? I admit a weakness for fried plants: fried onions, fried green beans, fried pickles, fried okra, fried eggplant. Fried eggplant? Yes, it's been known to turn self-proclaimed "we are not eggplant people" into fried-eggplant fiends.

So why no fried vegetables on A Veggie Venture? Well, it's a healthy-eating thing. Because we all know that fried food is bad, right? Right?

Well maybe it is, maybe it isn't. These Fried Zucchini Sticks were fried in a skillet that started with 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) of vegetable oil. When they were done, 5-1/3 tablespoons (1/3c) of vegetable oil was still in the pan. That means that exactly 2-2/3 tablespoons of oil were used to fry the zucchini sticks.

Now granted, 2-2/3 tablespoons of oil is considerably more than the 1 tablespoon of oil I typically allow for a pound of vegetables. But it's also considerably less than the 1/4 cup of oil I often see used in vegetable recipes in magazines and cookbooks.

That said, I really did want to see how Fried Zucchini Sticks and Baked Zucchini Sticks compared, taste-wise, goodness-wise. The verdict?
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Friday Dinner: the Amazing Macaroni and Cheese, Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw

I don't make mac and cheese or any pasta at home, nor do I order it in restaurants. Why? Because the angel on my shoulder reminding me that, "It's not as much about what you eat, it's about portion size." gets smacked into oblivion by "want". However, Friday dinners cooked with my amica in cucina, Lynn are the exception and boy-oh-boy this mac and cheese was fun, easy and delicious.

We compare notes on cooking shows we've watched, or recipes found and this one (Maccheroni al Formaggio) came from Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali's cookbook, "Lidia's Italy in America". I don't post recipes if they are not original, unless we've made significant changes in ingredients, preparation or sometimes both. With the exception of the cheeses and our choice of pasta (shells over the recipe's called-for "pipette"), we made this exactly as written, cutting the amounts in half.

Generally, when we find a new recipe, we do some research but we've never been steered wrong by Lidia - "In Lidia We Trust".

Why did we get so excited about this recipe? There is no Mornay sauce (a béchamel or "white sauce" to which grated cheese is added). The sauce is cheese, milk and two sage leaves. I've seen references to this type of sauce, but hadn't seen any recipes. Another big plus is the topping. Day-old Italian (we used a baguette) bread is hand-grated using the large holes of a box grater, lightly toasted in butter, cooled completely and the crumbs are combined with Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano (we used Romano) cheese. The variation in the crumb size really contributes to the topping's crunchiness.

Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw - oh yeah, we did have a couple of other dishes and they were delicious, too. Lynn made a rub with brown sugar, paprika, onion, garlic, salt and thyme, rubbed down the ribs (1 rack of pork spareribs), wrapped them and refrigerated them for 24 hours and then we cooked them, covered in foil with a little white wine in the bottom of the baking sheet for 3 hours at 250 F, then broiled them for a total of 5 minutes right before serving. We made Al Bergez' sauce to accompany the ribs.

My creamy coleslaw dressing wasn't too creamy or sweet (I never add sugar to my coleslaw dressing) and one important thing to remember - unless you like too much dressing - is to under-dress the coleslaw and let it rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. The moisture released from the coleslaw as it breaks down a little will add to the dressing and the salad remains crunchy without a soupy mess of dressing in the bottom of the bowl.

RECIPES: MACARONI and CHEESE and CREAMY COLESLAW

MACARONI and CHEESE
Maccherone al Formaggio from Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali's cookbook, Lidia's Italy in America

Notes: We made a half-recipe and this could serve 4-6 as a side or 4 as a main dish. We used shells and the three cheeses we used were American Sharp Cheddar, Consider Bardwell Farm's "Pawlet" (purchased at Cowgirl Creamery) and Romano.

COLESLAW with CREAMY DRESSING
Serves 4 as a side.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 large head green cabbage, sliced very thin (1/8" to 1/4")
• 1 medium carrot, grated
• 1 rib celery sliced thin
• 2 green onions, sliced thin
• 2 tablespoons white or white wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
• 1/2 teaspoon + a couple of pinches of salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon sour cream

Preparation:

• Combine the prepared cabbage, carrot, celery and green onions in a large bowl. Season with 2 pinches of salt and toss.
• In a small bowl (1 quart) add the vinegar, Dijon mustard, celery seed, 1/2 teaspoon salt and ground pepper to taste. Whisk to dissolve the salt. Add the mayonnaise and sour cream and whisk until fully homogeneous.
• Add the dressing to the salad in the larger bowl. Toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for two hours before serving. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to service, taste and, if necessary, adjust the seasoning.

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Baked Oatmeal with Pumpkin & Pears ♥ Recipe

Today's healthy breakfast recipe: Oatmeal baked with pumpkin plus fall fruit, pumpkin-pie spices and nuts. There's just enough pumpkin for color and moisture without making the oatmeal dense and heavy.

Come October 1, American-based food blogs take on a fevered orange tinge – pumpkin orange, that is – as we go cra-zee for pumpkin recipes. I have my own collection, My Favorite Pumpkin Recipes but am always happy to add another! "Never look a gift pumpkin in the face," I say, especially when it's a healthy pumpkin recipe. :-)

The last few weeks, I've been made one pan of Easy Baked Oatmeal after another, twice with blueberries and bananas, twice with apples and pears (and the all-important bananas), then twice more with pumpkin and pears (and more bananas). It took some tweaking to get the right amount of pumpkin and pumpkin-pie-type spices and the baking time right, but the last batch was just excellent.
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Roasted Whole Red Onions Recipe ♥ with Sweet Potatoes & Rosemary

<< Today's colorful vegetable recipe: A double punch of vegetable color from small whole red onions and the cubes of sweet potatoes, roasted together in a sherry-sweetened broth with pungent rosemary. Not just vegan, "Vegan Done Real". >>

Wow. Talk about a flavor pop, both the onions and the sweet potatoes, roasted in a hot oven. Plus I love cooking two vegetables at the same time, fewer moving parts getting dinner on the table.

The trick is to find small red onions, I don't see them often, these came from the garden of our Minnesota friends the Rassmussens. But once you have small red onions, they're so pretty, it seems a shame to just cut them up. So this was a really special way to use small red onions, showing off their shape and color, really making the onions themselves stand out. If you had enough, you could do a dish with all red onions too, no sweet potatoes. Either one would add color to a buffet table, say. Plus people really like cooked onions!

FYI the photograph was taken before the dish went into the oven but the colors stayed really true out of the oven too.
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