Meet the ultimate zucchini side dish. It features caramelized zucchini and red onion with toasted sliced almonds, seasoned with fresh garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice. The flavors are bold, the dish is vibrant, and I’m going to make this sautéed zucchini all summer long.

I don’t always like cooked zucchini, but I love this recipe. Zucchini can be squeaky or mushy, and I often avoid it on restaurant menus for those reasons. Not this recipe! The zucchini is perfectly browned and tender throughout.

The flavors in this recipe remind me of green beans amandine, if you’re familiar—another one of my favorite veggie side dishes. Our friend Erika introduced us to this concept last summer in St. Louis. It paired beautifully with pasta and grilled options on their back porch. I asked her for the recipe afterward, and I’m excited to share it with you today.

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Add this fresh tortellini salad recipe to your weekend menu, stat! It features cheesy spinach tortellini tossed in my all-time favorite green goddess dressing, layered with lemony fresh greens and seasoned spring or summer vegetables.

This pasta dish manages to be light yet hearty at the same time, which is a real feat. It’s quick to make, but looks impressive. It’s versatile, too—you’ll see quite a few vegetable options below. Choose raw vegetables for the simplest preparation, as I did for these photos, or incorporate some quickly blanched vegetables, like asparagus, to expand your options.

My healthy homemade green goddess dressing comes together quickly in the blender or food processor. I suggest doubling the ingredients so you can serve the extra as a veggie dip or refrigerate it for upcoming green salads. It’s really delightful to have on hand.

Choose spinach tortellini over basic cheese tortellini to incorporate even more greens. I hope you’ll give this recipe a try. This vegetarian pasta salad is a real crowd pleaser!

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It’s ratatouille season! Ratatouille is a classic end-of-summer French stew that’s fun to say (rat-tuh-TOO-ee) and fun to make. It’s packed with fresh produce: tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash, and bell pepper.

This summer, we sampled authentic French ratatouille in Provence. I liked some ratatouille more than others, so I vowed to come up with my own favorite ratatouille recipe when I came home. Today is the day!

In Provence, ratatouille is typically cooked on the stove. Each vegetable is cooked in olive oil until it’s properly tender. In the end, all of the ingredients are combined and simmered to meld the flavors.

The French know how to cook, and this concept is definitely one to follow. Ratatouille combines a large volume of late-summer vegetables that have different cook times. If you tried to throw them all into a pot at once, none of the veggies would have a chance to caramelize, the eggplant would fall apart by the time the zucchini is tender, and your ratatouille would probably never meet its full potential.

This recipe is a little different. We’re going to roast the vegetables until they’re deliciously caramelized on the edges and a little dehydrated (no squeaky or mushy zucchini here). Then, we’ll add those perfectly roasted veggies to a simmering fresh tomato sauce.

This method yields amazing ratatouille. My husband says it’s the best he’s ever had. It’s also easier to make than proper stovetop ratatouille, since it requires less time standing over the stove. Hooray!

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Meet my favorite couscous salad, featuring Israeli couscous and colorful summertime produce. This Mediterranean-style salad is light, refreshing, and overflowing with colorful rounds of thinly sliced raw zucchini and yellow squash. That’s right, raw squash! It’s so good.

This salad is a simple, light summer dish full of vegetables, whole grains, chickpeas and feta. I came up with this recipe six years ago for Free People’s blog, and it’s become one of my mom’s go-to potluck dishes. So, I thought I’d update it to meet my current standards.

This salad is just the kind of meal I’m craving during this hot summer weather, and it would be perfect for your Fourth of July parties. If you’re looking for more Independence Day recipes, I’ve got you covered. I’ve listed a few of my other favorite salads below, too!

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We’ve been living in a winter wonderland lately. We’ve gotten so much snow that my dog, Cookie, can barely keep her head above it when we go outside (she’s smaller than you think). I’m thankful to have electricity and gearing up for more winter weather this weekend.

This hearty soup is exactly what I need. It’s brimming with fresh veggies and warms me right up. Soup to the rescue!

This homemade vegetable soup with quinoa is light but filling and packs great for lunch. Like most soups, it tastes even better the next day. Bonus? It freezes well, too. I love keeping my freezer stocked with hearty soups and defrosting one whenever I need a quick but nutritious meal.

This soup is vegan unless you want to top it with Parmesan cheese, which isn’t a bad idea if you ask me. The ingredients list, while a little on the long side, includes mostly pantry items. Every single one of them is nutritious!

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Finally! It’s about time this blog offered a traditional minestrone soup recipe. Minestrone is a hearty Italian vegetable soup made with tomato-y broth and pasta or rice. I’ve been working hard on this recipe and I’m so excited to share it with you.

Minestrone was traditionally made to use up leftover vegetables, so feel free to use any seasonal vegetables and greens you have on hand. I used potatoes and spinach for the soup you see here, and it was absolutely delicious.

I listed some alternatives in the recipe, including yellow squash, zucchini, butternut squash, green beans or peas. That means that you can make seasonal minestrone on cool days from fall through spring!

I used canned beans here instead of cooking my own, which cuts the cooking time down to a reasonable weeknight level. The remaining ingredients are basic pantry items, including canned tomatoes, pasta, basic spices and onions.

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I set out to create the best vegetable lasagna recipe. Here it is! This vegetarian lasagna is cheesy (of course), and loaded with vegetables, spinach and a simple tomato sauce.

If you have any meatless-meal skeptics in your life, this lasagna will change their mind. I’m sure of it.

This lasagna is based on my spinach artichoke lasagna on the blog and the roasted eggplant lasagna in my cookbook. I love those less-conventional vegetarian lasagnas.

Yet, I wanted to offer a classic vegetable lasagna suitable for holidays and weeknights, and this is it. The tomato sauce is the same across all three recipes, but the vegetables vary.

For this recipe, you’ll chop bell pepper, zucchini and carrot into very small pieces and sauté them until they’re nice and golden on the edges. That caramelization brings out so much more flavor. Then, add spinach to the skillet and cooked it down for a few minutes so it doesn’t get too soggy.

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I love this time of year! The days are long and filled with sunshine. After a rough winter, this month has been entirely rejuvenating. Today, I’m bringing you a refreshing dinner recipe from Phoebe Lapine’s new book, The Wellness Project. It’s an ideal option for warm summer evenings.

This dish starts with soba noodles, which are tossed with zucchini noodles (“zoodles,” if you will) and a delicious, savory almond butter sauce. I wouldn’t have thought to top this concoction with quick-pickled cucumber and radish, but they’re perfect—crisp, colorful and tart.

You may know Phoebe from her blog, Feed Me Phoebe. In her new book, she walks us through her year-long experiment to regain her health, from drinking more water and less alcohol, to gut health and physical therapy. Each chapter concludes with actionable tips based on her experiences.

Phoebe has Hashimoto’s, a thyroid disorder, but the book is entirely relatable to anyone who has struggled with chronic health issues or is craving a voice of reason in the wellness sphere. The book is an easy and informative read, and I love Phoebe’s frank, conversational writing style. She shares her encounters with crazy naturopaths and her switch to natural skincare products, but my favorite part was when she writes about the benefits of dog ownership.

Dogs are, no surprise, excellent “rewilding” agents. Meaning that all the dirt and “environmental detritus” they bring inside actually “increase the immunity of their families by maximizing their exposure to all matters of microbial diversity. In fact, children who grow up with furry friends have far fewer instances of allergies and asthma than their dog-less peers.” That, my friends, is reason no. 45 for why everyone needs a dog.

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I thought I had this zucchini muffin recipe in the bag. Make my favorite zucchini bread batter, divide into muffin cups, bake for less time—nope. The increased surface area produced slightly dense and dry muffins, which were fine for “healthy” muffins. However, I wanted fluffy, moist and thoroughly delightful muffins that just-so-happened to be healthier.

So, I cross-referenced the zucchini bread recipe with my all-time favorite blueberry muffins in my cookbook. I adjusted the leavener, upped the amount of milk and switched to buttermilk for a more tender crumb. Success! These zucchini babes will make everyone happy.

Cookbook launch week has been a thrill. I’m overwhelmed, honestly. I’m so excited that you’re excited about the book, flattered by my fellow food bloggers’ kind words, and thankful for friends who took the time to say cheers. All that, and I’m still a little apprehensive about sending my book baby into the world. Is this what it feels like to send a child off on a school bus for the first time?

Thank you for your comments, notes and reviews; they mean so much. I hate to ask for more, but if you’ve had a chance to make recipes from the book already, would you mind leaving a review on Amazon to share your experience soon? That might seal the deal for people who aren’t familiar with my blog already.

If you haven’t gotten the book, I have more details about Love Real Food over here. I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have in the comments. Lastly, I promise I won’t go on and on about the book forever. ♥

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Man alive. I just had a really nice chat with some of my favorite bloggers, and my head is spinning. Facebook fans, Instagram, Snapchat, engagement metrics, cookbooks, employees, video. I can’t do it all. Can we just hang out here, on this website I’ve built for you all? Can we just sip some wine and make a couple dinners together each week, and correspond about them in the comments? That sounds marvelous.

Now seems like a good time to check in with you. I’ve been trying to keep my head above water with the cookbook and blog combined, but soon, I will be back to blogging full-time. I can’t wait!

So, what would you like to see here? More recipes? If so, what kinds of recipes? Would you like cooking videos? My little brother could help me with those. Maybe some more non-food links that have inspired me lately? What would you like to see on Instagram stories (we’re cookieandkate)? Behind the scenes blogging/cookbook work, Cookie pics, me falling out of yoga poses, something else? I am all ears. Your support lets me do what I love for a living, so I always want to hear from you!

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