Veggies

Kale salad with cranberries and toasted walnuts

6 March 2012 Food
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The best way for me to keep up my vegetable intake is to make a big batch that lasts for several meals. In the wintertime, roasted vegetables fit the bill handily. But by March I’m ready for a fresher taste. Salad greens are sad this time of year, but kale – a dark leafy green [...]

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Risi e bisi (rice and peas)

22 February 2012 Food
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It seems like a dish for old folks and babies – a softly comforting thick soup, eaten with a spoon. But in fact risi e bisi (pronounced REE-see ay BEE-see) is a classic Venetian dish, traditionally served to the Doge during the spring festival of Venice’s patron saint, St Mark. Though in modern Italy this [...]

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Alice Waters’s carrot soup

1 February 2012 Food
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It doesn’t seem like it could possibly be interesting, or delectable, or surprising: carrot soup, made simply with onion, broth, a bit of thyme and a whole lot of carrots. No ginger, curry or any of your typical carrot soup dress-me-ups. Alice Waters is bold enough to leave humble carrots to stand on their own. [...]

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Chinese green beans

19 November 2011 Asian
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Chinese green beans may not seem like the most obviously perfect dish for Thanksgiving, but these really are. At a table laden with buttery bread stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes and candied sweet potatoes, lightly seasoned crisp-tender string beans make so much more sense than a heavy green bean casserole. My mom is famous for these [...]

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Greek salad

19 August 2011 Food
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Greek salad is desert-island food for me – so essentially comforting and nourishing I would gladly eat it for the rest of my hot and solitary days. With the cool green crispness of cucumber, the warm red juiciness of tomato, the dark glossy brininess of olive, and the bright white softness of feta cheese, Greek [...]

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Summer tomato salad

20 July 2011 Food
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Nature blesses perfectly ripe summer tomatoes with their own ideal dressing. Rich olive oil and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper are all that’s needed to bring out the sunny flavor of summer tomatoes and complement the sweet-tart acidity of their natural juices. This simple, unadorned salad is my favorite way to appreciate the [...]

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Quinoa arugula salad

15 July 2011 Food
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My friend Kim turned me on to quinoa again recently with this colorful and satisfying summer salad. The recipe she used had chickpeas, red pepper and artichoke hearts; when I made it I used sweet grape tomatoes and feta. If you have quinoa, arugula and a good dressing, any extras are icing on the cake. [...]

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Lighter brighter caesar salad

10 July 2011 Food
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I love the essence of caesar salad – bright lemon, salty parmesan, crisp romaine and crunchy croutons – but I could do without the gloppiness that weighs down most incarnations. This is caesar salad my way: light, bright, no egg, no mayonnaise, and simple as it gets. Fresh lemon juice, great parmesan and homemade croutons [...]

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Orzo with zucchini, lemon, mint and feta

25 May 2011 Food
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Bright flyers from my kids’ backpacks keep reminding me that summer is almost here. But I wasn’t feeling it until one of my favorite summer dishes floated back into my consciousness this week: orzo salad loaded with well-roasted vegetables and feta cheese, dressed with bright lemon juice. I live on this dish in the summertime, [...]

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Cucumber avocado soup

12 May 2011 Food
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Here in Ohio we went from cold rain to hot mugginess in a few days, and suddenly I feel like becoming a raw-foodist might not be so hard. I lived for roasted vegetables for months during my elimination diet, but now I can hardly bear the heat of incandescent light fixtures, let alone an oven. [...]

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