Top | The Vegetable Challenge

Vegetable love

(post, Kim Carlson)

Tomorrow, we'll get down to business and define exactly what we mean by "vegetables" here at the Vegetable Challenge. But today, let me direct your attention to several links that might be useful to all you Challengers out there:

 Mark Bittman, the New York Times' Bitten blogger, makes pasta with Tuscan kale and a bit of bacon.
 The blog Cheap Healthy Good lists links for 134 eggplant recipes. (No, we didn't count them.)
 Eric Gower is pickling jicama.
 Shelling beans count! Go see how The Amateur Gourmet prepared his fresh cranberry beans.
 Via Edible Portland, Piper Davis of Grand Central Bakery teaches us her method for making a seasonal savory galette. 
 And Cathy Erway's recipe for vegetarian Jamaican patties looks and sounds so good, I can't wait to try it.

[%image reference-image float=right width=400 caption="Carrie's fresh-tomato pasta."] 

Meanwhile, here at Culinate, food editor Carrie Floyd dishes on eight ways she's eating fresh tomatoes right now, including Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Herbs.

In an effort to help inform your shopping decisions, our staff put together a visually oriented list of 20 readily available produce items — fruits and vegetables — that contain the most pesticide residues, along with 20 items that contain the least.

And, in case you missed it, last month Kelly Myers penned an ode to zucchini — good reading for anyone who's still plucking zucchini from the vine (or the market booth). 

Finally, food for thought: Dinner Guest blogger Harriet Fasenfest walks us through a three-part look at her garden, ending with her belief that "the only true sign of our economic health is our soil."

Amen.