Seasonal Sundays: Green Food (Just for the Fun of It)

In a garden where peas love to grow,
On a vine where the green tendrils flow,
They whisper and sigh,
With the grass by their side,
A symphony of green, don't you know!

Ready for a little fun? Let's talk "green food" ... and not just for lively limerick-lovin' leprechauns but for all of us throughout the lovely spring before us.

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

As always, thank you for inviting me into your InBox. I do so hope to kickstart your food imagination for the coming week ... PS And if you like this week's recipes, perhaps you'll share this newsletter with a friend or social circle? If you forward this message, others may subscribe for free right here. Thank you!

Looking for an antidote to the world's heaviness? When you were a kid, was playing with food cause for a swat or a scolding?

But as an adult weighed down by fear and discouragement? Heck, yeah. Let's play with our food!

An easy, no-barrier-to-entry way is to embrace some one thing and throw yourself into it for the sheer fun for an hour, a day, a week, a month, even more.

This week, I'm advocating we make that "one thing" green food. Green is the color of new life, of renewal and yes, of the spring that is springing, at least here in eastern Missouri.

For sheer outrageous green, let me recommend starting with these green pancakes or this oh-so-green soup.

Let's have a little fun, shall we?!

Just a reminder, I personally select everything that's mentioned here — nothing is sponsored, nothing is paid advertising. Oh and if you happen to buy something via a link to Amazon (just Amazon, no others), Kitchen Parade may earn a small commission. Zero pressure, just an FYI that's required by law and good manners.

In Praise Of ...

• ... while thumbing through pie recipes for Pi Day, the reminder that lemon curd was called "lemon cheese" in my Canadian family, re-discovered on the back of a recipe card from my Winnipeg grandmother


• ... this Five-Year Journal (affiliate link), I'm not in my third year of entries so it's way more fun, being reminded what I wanted to remember, years back, each day has only a few lines so this isn't the journal for baring your soul or thinking deep thoughts, I actually have two journals, one for quick memories, one for medical notes

The Words of Wise Women

• READ THIS What to Expect When You’re Expecting Catastrophe a guest essay by author & journalist Laurie Winer (@LaurieWiner.bsky.social on Bluesky) on Tim Snyder's Substack, where she warns us what to watch for, all from the well-known story of the Third Reich.


• "Daily life will take on a surreal quality and, if we do not take some action or join an organized resistance, our discussions will consist of merely repeating the latest horror." ~ Laurie Winer

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THE SEASONAL SEVEN: Green Food (It's Not Just Greens!)

For this week's recipes, I aimed for recipes with spring-friendly flavors and combinations ...

• ... that are all everyday real food, made with simple ingredients you may already have on hand
• ... whose bright-green, spring-green colors may just surprise and delight you!
• ... that just might inspire green food all the live-long day?!

• THE RECIPE Spinach Pancakes Whole-wheat pancakes with fresh spinach, light and fluffy.
• ANOTHER TAKE Green Smoothies 14 Tips + 5 Sample Recipes. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Spinach Quiche with Red Pepper & Feta Pretty red & green for holiday brunches or year-round comfort food. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE How to Make a Spinach Omelet Quick, healthy breakfast with fresh or frozen spinach.

• THE RECIPE Very Very Green Green-Pea Soup Satisfying soup from a bag of frozen peas. Really. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Broccoli Potato Cheddar Soup Substantial enough for supper, light enough for lunch. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Quick Broccoli Soup (or Quick Cauliflower Soup) Healthful veggie soups on the table in minutes.
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy-to-Elegant Asparagus Soup One recipe with either rustic or refined texture.

• THE RECIPE Power Food Broccoli Salad Food for thought.
• ANOTHER TAKE Green Cabbage Salad with Fresh Lime Vinaigrette Somehow more "salad" than "slaw".

• THE RECIPE Sautéed Collard Greens with Bacon For good fortune and good health in the new year. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Greens with Sour Cream Turn tender leafy greens into something completely delicious and decadent, almost like a simpler, earthier version of creamed spinach. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Italian Sausage with Grapes & Greens A Quick Supper, an unusual combination of familiar ingredients.
• ANOTHER TAKE Chickpeas with Tomatoes, Spinach & Feta How to fulfill cravings for winter comfort food.

What's Brand-Spankin' New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE RECIPE Irish Beef Stew A hearty, beer-rich stew with carrots and potatoes. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Corned Beef with Red Potatoes, Carrot Chunks, Cabbage Wedges & Cheese Sauce Traditional for St. Patrick's Day. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Twice-Baked Potatoes All the retro goodness but smaller, more manageable. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Hasselback Potatoes So little effort, so much drama. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup A hearty classic with tender beef, vibrant vegetables and a rich, savory broth. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Beef Barley Soup with Mushrooms Root vegetables, earthy mushrooms and nutty barley. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE How to Make Homemade Vegetable Soup Never the same twice.

• THE RECIPE Jam Jar Vinaigrette Don't pitch that jar, use the last bits for an easy salad dressing. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Orange & Cumin Vinaigrette Bright and vibrant with earthy spice.

March: Reader Favorites

• THE RECIPE Spinach Soup with Perfect Hard-Cooked Eggs A soup flushed with spring. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Split-Pea Soup with Sausage & Kale A classic split pea soup recipe made extra-hearty. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Microwave Green Beans with Easy Tomatillo Salsa A basic weeknight technique, fresh and simple. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Simple Skillet Green Beans Stir-fry beans in a simple skillet, no wok required.

Trending NOW ...

• THE "RECIPE" Quick 'n' Easy Raw Salad My own "healthy habit" that I hope will inspire yours, too. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Kale Salad To-Go with Avocado & Apple Make it ahead of time, then take to work or activities. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Reuben Casserole Just five ingredients, wonderful homemade Thousand Island dressing. (PIN This)
• LEFTOVER Corned Beef with Red Potatoes, Carrot Chunks, Cabbage Wedges & Cheese Sauce Traditional for St. Patrick's Day.

March: Recipes Lookin' for a Little Love

• THE RECIPE Greens & Grits Spinach cooked with tomato and mushrooms atop quick-cooked grits.
• ANOTHER TAKE Slow-Cooked Greens & Smoked Turkey So good, you'll want to eat the pot. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Creamy Spinach with Artichokes Spinach artichoke dip meets steakhouse creamed spinach.
• ANOTHER TAKE Greek Spinach-Asparagus-Potato Gratin (Spinaki me Sparaggia Orgraten) A bit of a production but the best "creamed spinach" ever.

The Kitchen Parade Almanac: Looking Ahead ...

• March 16th (Sunday) - St. Urho's Day
• March 17th (Monday) - St. Patrick's Day
• March 20th (Thursday) - First Official Day of Spring
• March 22nd (Saturday, 8:30pm your local time) - Earth Hour

Looking Back ...

THIS WEEK, YEARS PAST
• 2020 Mid March (Week 12)
• 2021 Mid March (Week 12)
• 2022 Mid March (Week 12)
• 2023 Cabbage Fever (Week 12)

RECENT WEEKS
• Pasta You'll Love (Week 11) (PIN This)
• Fish for Lent & Spring (Week 10) (PIN This)
• Everyday Cajun (Week 9) (PIN This)
• Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner (Week 8) (PIN This)
• Sweet Little Somethings (Week 7) (PIN This)
• Super Bowl Spread (Week 6) (PIN This)
• Spinach for Any Occasion (Week 5) (PIN This)
• Project Cooking (Week 4) (PIN This)
• Snow-Day Suppers (Week 3) (PIN This)
• Feeding Our Vegetable Cravings (Week 2) (PIN This)
• Best of 2024 (PIN This)

Bridging the Seasons: 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.

• THE COLLECTION Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for March So many choices!
• BUT REALLY, DON'T MISS Cream of Celery Soup Way more than the sum of its parts.
• OR THIS Insalata di Finocchio aka Fennel Salad The Italian classic with fresh fennel and cooked egg.

Good to Know!

• THE RECIPE Perfect Stovetop Brown Rice Four quick tricks, no more dusty, gummy, pasty brown rice.
• ANOTHER TAKE How to Cook White Rice Basics done well, for dinner, for the freezer. (PIN This)

Silly (But Fun?!) Food Holidays

• March 16 — National Artichoke Hearts Day (artichoke recipes)
• March 17 — Corned Beef and Cabbage Day (Corned Beef with Red Potatoes, Carrot Chunks, Cabbage Wedges & Cheese Sauce)
• March 18 — National Sloppy Joe Day (Minnesota Sloppy Joes)
• March 18 — Oatmeal Cookie Day (Mom's Everyday Oatmeal Cookies)
• March 19 — National Poultry Day (chicken recipes)
• March 21 — California Strawberry Day (Fresh Strawberry Pie)

The Best No-Recipe Recipe I Made This Week

Corn Tortillas + Cheddar + Tomato = Easy Breakfast

It's been the breakfast/lunch/bread beside soup all week, just one or two corn tortillas with grated cheddar and some thin-sliced tomato, grilled like a quesadilla or just warmed up in the microwave. I'm not proud ...

Trader Joe's Test Kitchen

Ugh.

The so-called "Pizza Ranch Salad" Kit is a total bust unless you like lots of iceberg lettuce turned soggy in too much dressing and way too little anything else, even after doctoring, a lot, with extra tomato. Usually I love having some salad leftover for lunch the next day but this one went straight into the you-know-what.

A Quick Peek Into a Real-Life Kitchen

Just so you know, everything's not all pretty pictures around here, in the background is a pile of dirty dishes. And just like many (all?) of us, come five o'clock, I too draw a blank about what to make for supper, despite so many recipes I so dearly love. Here's a quick peek from this week.

• THIS WEEK Don't you just love it when you think you know someone really really well and then you learn something new about them? Just this year, I've learned that my husband, of all people, loves cherry pie. I baked how many pies for #PieDayFriday and still didn't learn this about him? He's taken to bringing home these awful cherry pies from different places that I realized, he l-o-v-e-s cherry pie. So I shoulda just made the man a cherry pie for Pi Day but yikes, life, (to say nothing of no source for sour cherries) and so I made this last-minute pie. At first, I thought it could have used two cans of cherry pie filling (so yeah, extra easy) but I only had one and first bite, decided one was plenty. Inside my My Favorite Graham Cracker Crust? Still super good!
• THE RECIPE Last-Minute Pantry Pie Just five pantry ingredients. No bake!

Just Updated!

• THE COLLECTION 10 Favorite Recipes for Early-Spring Pies & Tarts for Pi Day on March 14th These pies lean on pantry ingredients and early-spring supermarket fruit. (PIN This)
• NEED MORE IDEAS? Pies & Tarts, Crusts & More from Kitchen Parade's archives and a life-long pie-baker.
• HOW TO CELEBRATE #PieDayFriday Because good pie deserves more than just one day a year.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail (my current address is in the FAQs), 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.

• Any advice for Seasonal Sundays?
• Just one thing that would make it more useful for you?
• Anything else? Chime in, chat away.

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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, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. 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. When you make my recipes, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below or better still, on the specific recipe's page.

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