Seasonal Sundays (Week 13) Late March

Happy Sunday, All. This week's recipe collection veers between planning for Easter and all the meals we'll cook between now and then. It's a fun time to be in the kitchen, right?!

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

#STOPAsianHate What a &^%^ing country we are, attacking the elderly on the street, murdering people in cold blood, all in the name of a Bad Day and Not Gettng Laid. How is it that we even have to say, "Don't hate people because of their skin color, their birthplace, their religion, their age, their class, their gender?" How is it that?

About the Photo By Popular Request, a Little Insight into the Top Image: So far we're all talk and no hoe but there's talk in this household of putting in winter greens or starting seedlings in cups.

Anyone else got the planting bug? Me, I'd just be happy with gumballs-be-gone ...

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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.

• WHY THIS, WHY NOW Because these are so dang good, so dang easy. Plus isn't it cool to spend a few minutes cooking and have something to show for it a long while later? If you have an Easter checklist, add pickled beets to the menu, then check them off as "done" asap.
AND BESIDES Ruby Eggs!
• THE RECIPE Refrigerator Pickled Beets No canning required!
• THEN JAZZ 'EM UP Pickled Beet Salad with Fresh Blueberries & Mint

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.

Compliments!

• "So good!" ~ Pat on Pinterest
• THE RECIPE Chicken Curry Reminiscent of London's curbside curry take-away.

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.

• SAFETY TIPS How to Safely Purée Soups & Other Hot Liquids in a Blender Preventing big messes and bad burns.
• ANOTHER USEFUL IDEA How to Freeze Stock in Canning Jars

• THE RECIPE Reuben Casserole Just five ingredients including wonderful
• LEFTOVER Caraway Corned Beef with Red Potatoes, Carrot Chunks, Cabbage Wedges & Cheese Sauce Traditional for St. Patrick's Day.

Easter Inspiration for Small Gatherings

Anyone else gearing up for an early Easter? an early start to relax(ing) social distancing? The Year That Follows 2020 would have been a good year for the calendar gods to declare a late Easter!

So I suspect our collective gatherings will skew wildly based on size, weather forecasts, family vaccination rates. (Somebody goes last, right?)

Still, odds are, I suspect our Easter gatherings will remain smaller than Before Times.

In the early years with my now-husband, we continued his family tradition of a huge Easter egg hunt, the whole extended family and all their Littles and Middles. Have you ever filled 500 or 100 plastic Easter eggs? Lost track of the golden egg and its real gold coin? LOL we've been together long enough that the Littles are now in college and the Middles are married with their own Littles!

Easter Inspiration for Small Gatherings ...
Starring Asparagus

• THE RECIPE Roasted Salmon & Asparagus The original sheetpan supper.
• ANOTHER TAKE Maple Glazed Salmon A Quick Supper, sweet & peppery marinated salmon.

• THE RECIPE Asparagus Custard Tart Visually impressive but oh-so-easy.
• ANOTHER TAKE Asparagus Whole Wheat Bread Pudding A rustic bread pudding with whole wheat bread, asparagus, cheese, fresh herbs and lemon zest.

• THE RECIPE Party Asparagus with Aioli
• ANOTHER TAKE Asparagus with Blender Hollandaise

Easter Inspiration: Thinking About Ham?

• 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 Twice-Smoked Ham How & why to smoke a smoked ham a second time.
• DON'T FORGET Spicy Raisin Sauce for Ham My grandmother's recipe, always-always served with the Easter ham, the Christmas ham, the Sunday ham.

• THE RECIPE Spicy Raisin Sauce for Ham My grandmother's recipe, always-always served with the Easter ham, the Christmas ham, the Sunday ham.
• ANOTHER TAKE Homemade Finnish Mustard How to make mustard at home, Finnish-style.

Easter Inspiration: Traditional Baking

• THE RECIPE Hot Cross Buns Sweet buns traditional for Easter.
• ANOTHER TAKE Armenian Easter Bread The buttery sweet bread called choereg or choreg.

• THE RECIPE Armenian Easter Bread The buttery sweet bread called choereg or choreg.
• ANOTHER TAKE Hot Cross Buns Sweet buns traditional for Easter.

• THE RECIPE Southern Belle Lemon Layer Cake Easy lemony cake with lemony cream cheese frosting. Also cherry layer cake, orange layer cake, many variations!
• ANOTHER TAKE Best-Ever Caramel Cake A spectacular layer cake worthy of a special occasion.

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 Easy Green Chile Egg Casserole No bread! Just eggs, green chiles, bits of cheese and a surprising ingredient, cottage cheese.
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy Make-Ahead Breakfast Casserole Just eggs, hash browns, salsa, cheese. Then adapt!

Thoughts & Musings

Looking Back. These gray days of a wet 'n' windy March push my mind back to those early days of the 2020 lockdown when I sat for hours at a window looking onto a much-loved field, just looking-looking-looking, wondering-wondering-wondering, worrying-worrying-worrying but also, I'm reminded, grateful for the service of so many.

I plopped in that same spot again one day this week and found myself weeping: the dullness of that same field in the same season dumped a flood of flashbacks to that time when we knew so little and feared so much but had no idea that a year later, we may know more and fear less and hope more but, well, we're still in the thick of it, aren't we?

Many of us have shed oceans of tears in the past year, but me, not so much, just twice, so infrequently that I can pinpoint exactly when and exactly why.

It's true, of course, that the field across the way may appear dull but also that it is already alive with growth and activity unseen from my safe inside seat. Soon it will flush with green, soon enough spotted fawns and their watchful mommas and aunties will feed there.

These tears? Perhaps some cries carry the same restorative power as rain.

Good to Know I was just about to push the "buy" button on a pillow spritz with essential oil that gets rave reviews for sleep issues.

Then this popped up, Essential Oils May Be Wreaking Havoc on Your Skin. The main take-away? "Dermatologists have long argued that essential oils are risky for skin, but customers are starting to catch on in the wake of unexpected and sometimes painful skin reactions."

The worst culprit is the most commonly used oil, tea tree oil. I remember buying a tea tree oil from Trader Joe's, it made my skin burn so I tossed it, chalking up the reaction to sensitive skin.

"Recipe" Cooks vs "Intuitive Cooks" If this is a continuum one to ten, you know where you fall, right?

I'm probably a three, by life-long inclination and self-imposed expectations for both perfection and consistency but also because, well, I cook soooo much. Who can remember the details of 1500 dishes, even 200, say?

So When Did Following Recipes Become a Personal Failure? got me to thinking, especially about the women who for decades faultlessly fed families big and small 3X per day (to say nothing of budgeting, budgeting and hauling groceries; making sure there's always milk and the whatever whatever that somebody loves; the 3X per day cleanup plus deep-cleaning the fridge and the kitchen drawers every so often; and ... and ... and ... ) vs the men (and yeah, sorry, stereotyping ...) who decide to exercise a little creativity one weekend by brushing some bbq sauce onto burgers for the grill and oh my, here come the achievement accolades.

Netflix! Who knew that my newer phone would pick up wifi better than a much older tablet? This week I especially loved a Netflix original called "The Dig". Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown is ... brilliant. For anyone who falls for BBC-style content, settle into this with a cuppa. I loved this movie. Friends who watch movies more frequently watched Enola Holmes twice!

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.

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.

Dig into Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for March, tons of ideas!

Here's a sample!

• THE RECIPE Winter Tomato Salad (Quick Pickled Vegetables)
• ANOTHER TAKE Quick Pickled Asparagus

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 Carrot Cake Cupcakes Made in the food processor!
• ANOTHER TAKE Old-Fashioned Black Walnut Chocolate Cake A true classic, moist and earthy, studded with black walnuts.

Timehop

Who else loves seeing old photos pop up, quick memories from years past? Welcome to a recipe time hop ...

• THE RECIPE Grape Salad with Almonds & Cilantro An unusual fruit salad, savory and sweet at the same time.
• ANOTHER TAKE Cantaloupe Salad with Feta & Basil A sweet 'n' savory summer fruit salad.

• THE RECIPE Pinto Bean Salad
• ANOTHER TAKE Black Bean & Corn Salad

Trending

My Top 10 Recipes are predictable, hello Ham 101: What to Know Before Buying a Ham and Vegetables 101: What Are Bitter Greens?. But every week, seasonal recipes catch the internet's attention and start to trend.

• THE RECIPE Homemade Thousand Island Dressing
• ANOTHER TAKE German Salad Dressing

Just Updated!

• THE RECIPE Light 'n' Easy Chocolate Pudding Sweet and satisfying but won't ruin your diet.
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy-Easy Chocolate Coconut Pudding Just five ingredients and ten minutes to pudding.

• THE THINKING Rethinking Fruit for Weight Watchers Weight Watchers works. But free fruit might not work for everyone.
• MORE INSPIRATION How to Lose Weight with Weight Watchers Tips from Alanna & Kitchen Parade readers.

• THE RECIPE Very Very Green Green-Pea Soup Satisfying soup from a bag of frozen peas. Really.
• ANOTHER TAKE Laura's Healthy Carrot Soup Creamy without a drop of cream.

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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