This recipe is very flexible and so it will never get old. Use any vegetable you have on hand and any herbs or other flavorings that sound good, with cheese or without. I especially like this in the fall when I’ve brought in all my vegetables from the garden. It’s a good way for me…

No garden should be without kale and collards. These easy-to-grow green leafy vegetables are both from the Brassica family (which includes cabbage, kohlrabi, Brussel sprouts and broccoli.) What makes these so great? Well, first of, they are packed with nutrition. Studies show that they may prevent several kinds of cancer. And they taste good! These…

This last week I finished making our family’s favorite: Sriracha. All the men in our family love this spicy condiment and chances are your’s do too. It’s on our table at almost every meal.  Last year for Christmas stocking stuffers, I bought sriracha key-chain bottles and filled it with my homemade sauce. Now they carry…

Nettles are one of the first weeds to emerge in the spring and can quickly take over your yard if you turn your back on them. Now you can make good use of them. They are a very nutritious food: high in trace minerals and more nutritious than spinach. They have a diuretic property, so…

My son made this dish for us for our New Year’s celebration. It was gone in just a few minutes–it was SO delicious! It is amazingly easy to prepare with simple ingredients and so, so yummy! Ingredients: 24 Babybella mushrooms 4 oz blue cheese 8 oz cream cheese a few dashes of sri racha or…

This dish is the perfect combination of spicy and crunchy, a great way to use some of the zucchini in your garden. Ingredients: 2 Tbsp olive oil 1 lb zucchini, diced 1 med onion, diced 1 small bell pepper, diced 1-2 jalapeno pepper (depending on taste), seeded and diced 3 C tomatoes, peeled, seeded and…

The joke is “Leave your car windows rolled up in the summertime or someone will deposit a bunch of zucchini in your car.” But the truth is, there is no such thing as “too much zucchini.” Honestly, there are so many amazing ways to use zucchini, why would you ever want to give away this…

This is our family’s favorite way to eat zucchini. It always gets rave reviews whenever I take it to potlucks. Serve it with sliced tomatoes from the garden and you have a complete and filling meal. Ingredients: 4 C sliced zucchini 1 C slice onions 1 C sliced carrots 1 can cream of chicken soup…

The first of this month my second son turned 20 (can you believe that!?) and for his birthday dinner I made (among other things) fried squash blossoms. What?!? You haven’t tried this yet? What are you waiting for? Here’s the recipe. These are really so very, very tasty and a wonderful way to use the zillions…

Man has used salt to brine or fermenting vegetables for millennia. It is one of the easiest ways to preserve the goodness of vegetables all year long. Sauerkraut is one of the easiest foods you can preserve. There are two ways to make sauerkraut: in a big batch that you later process in a water…

Our family loves this creamy golden-colored soup. Served with hearty bread, it makes the perfect meal on a cold autumn day. If you don’t have Jerusalem artichokes, just about any root will do: parsnip, turnip, rutabaga or even radish. Ingredients: 1 pound Jerusalem artichokes 2 Tbsp lemon juice 2 stalks celery 1 medium onion, diced…

Don’t throw that Easter ham bone away! Even if it has just a tiny bit of meat left on it, there’s still plenty there to make a nice soup. I especially like ham cooked with navy beans, but any variety will do. This makes 6-8 servings of soup and each serving has 2½ servings of…

Are your kids veggie-phobic? Does the goal of five servings of vegetables a day sound impossible?  Veggie Powder to the rescue! Veggie Powder is a great way to sneak vegetables into your meals and enhance the nutrition of your soups and casseroles. Since it’s made with dehydrated vegetables, you have a concentrated source of vegetables.…

Radishes are a great first crop for children to start learning to garden. They grow quickly and are fool proof. I plant radishes with my carrots. They are quick growing, so they help define my carrot rows long before the tiny carrot seedlings emerge. But then I’m left with a hug radish crop. What to…

Sometimes it’s hard to get enough vegetables into your family’s diet. You think picky toddlers are difficult? Try stubborn teenagers. One of my favorite ways to hide veggies is using veggie powder. You can put it into soups, casseroles and (my favorite) meat loaf or meat balls. I use it in the place of crackers…

There is nothing food-storagey at all about this soup, but I have to share this recipe from my friend Laura Dallman, because it is such a good, hearty soup. It is commonly served during the holidays here in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Laura brings it each year for our Thanksgiving dinner and we LOVE it.…