If you’re in search of a tasty detox, you can be sure this captivating green bean salad will be your remedy to some internal spring cleaning. This salad of sorts can be served alone or as a side. With plenty of zest and garlic, you will neither feel deprived of taste or lacking nutrition.

This stir fry, rife with Asian flavors and loaded with eggplant, bell peppers, carrots will take under 30 minutes to prepare while leaving your taste buds satisfied with hints of sweet soy sauce and ginger. Serve over rice for a heartier addition to this adaptable meal.

There’s something about knowing that I have a pound of kale in my fridge that makes my heart race. Partly because I know that by ingesting it, I’ll be doing so much good for my body.

And partly because I’m thinking, “what am I going to do with it before it goes bad?!”

No need to stress about that any more though.  This lentil, sweet potato and kale dish is not only super easy to throw together, but it’s delicious. And it’s also a nutritional powerhouse, so from here on out, you can reserve your heart racing for other more rational things.

The truth of the matter is that rhubarb is a vegetable in fruit’s clothing, and our intention is to take a stand against its duplicitous nature. No longer will the wool be pulled over our strawberry-rhubarb-dream-filled eyes.

Here we dress it up with ginger and spice, smear it over a pizza crust, and top it with cheese.  If you can’t depend on a lattice crust-filled future, at least you can have your pie and eat it too.  And in a topsy-turvy world where up is down and down is up and fruits are actually vegetables…sometimes, that’s all we can ask for.

A weekend of holiday eating always makes me feel like, come Monday, I should shove as many vegetables into my mouth as possible, both to even the calorie playing field and to get rid of that heavy awful feeling that settles at the pit of my stomach after day-upon-day of eating rich and decadent foods.

Enter this stew, which is richly flavored with Moroccan spices so it won’t leave you pining for the hedonistic fare of holidays past, and so full of vegetables and whole grains and legumes, that your insides will be jumping for joy. Read More

Photo: Madeleine Ignon

I love this time of year. As California simultaneously holds on to its summer and makes room for Fall, a lot of produce is in its peak. Eggplants are a great example; I am trying to use them as much as I can right now. I love their flavor and texture, but I also love that they are meaty and substantial. In this recipe, the round slices are sort of like patties-you could even make this into a delicious vegetarian sandwich. Read More

Photo: Joanne Bruno

Vegetarians have to fend for themselves come fall.  Whereas summer is all about fresh, veggie-full clean eating…autumn cooking tends to be a practice in roasting as much meat as possible, topping it with bacon, and calling it breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I’ve quickly come to realize that if you want to find a veg-friendly option at a potluck, football party, or Thanksgiving dinner, you’re going to have to make it yourself  (Or risk having to scrounge together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from whatever your host happens to have in their cabinets.  And nothing is sadder than a PB+J on turkey day while everyone else is digging into the bacon-infused mashed potatoes that your father insists don’t have meat in them.)

Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.  This cranberry bean chili with winter squash and swiss chard is the perfect dish to bring to any fall celebration that you happen to be attending.

Photo: Joanne Bruno

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Photo: Joanne Bruno

I think we can all agree that when three twenty-something-year-old men enter your apartment, the only recourse you have is to hide your food.  Otherwise, before you know it, they’ve stuck their fingers in/licked/nibbled at everything in sight.

Generally I live and breathe by this rule, but last week when three of our friends came to pick up my roommate for dinner, I decided that I was safe in leaving this pasta dish out.  After all…it has vegetables, and no meat and little specks of green in it; not your typical twenty-something-year-old man food.  I’m sure you know what happened next. Read More

Photo: Joanne Bruno

This was the first year in the history of my life that I didn’t want summer to end.  Whereas normally, I wait until exactly one minute after midnight on Labor Day to rush out to the store to purchase my first winter squash, this year I found myself holding onto tomatoes, zucchini, and corn for dear life. Read More

Photo: Joanne Bruno

It was a sad, sad day last weekend when I went to pick out the mango pieces from a fruit salad that my mother had bought for dessert so I could devour them all singlehandedly and found that all five of them were as unripe as mango-ly possibly. They were hard and dry; and had that bad chalky taste that mangoes unsuitable for eating tend to have.

To make up for the traumatic experience and so that I wouldn’t have to have the memory of those inedible mangoes forever engrained in my mind, I turned to this soba noodle salad.

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