Do unusual fruits or vegetables catch your eye in your produce section and leave you wondering what they’re like? For me, it’s been the multicolor carrots lately. Despite the fact that I’m not the biggest carrot fan in the world I couldn’t resist the opportunity to put those beautiful colors in a dish. I finally picked up a package to see if they had a recipe on the back and, sure enough, there was this simple-yet-flavorful and oh-so-pretty Chilled Dill Carrot Salad.

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Despite being almost two years old, my daughter still prefers her sweet potatoes in the form of baby food purées with nothing else added. I suspect this has as much to do with the appeal of the natural sweet potato flavor as it does with the entertainment value of practicing the transfer of bright-orange mush from jar to mouth with her new spoon-wielding skills. If you’ve ever tried sweet potatoes just on their own you know they’re naturally pretty sweet. But if you’ve ever tasted streusel topping you also know that it pretty much makes anything even better.

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I’ve struggled in the past to make mashed potatoes with the texture I really like – the really fluffy, smooth, creamy kind. Maybe I’d been using the wrong kind of potatoes or I wasn’t cooking the potatoes for long enough or I could have benefited from a tool like a potato ricer…but I think the real reason I wasn’t getting the result I wanted is that I was reluctant to use enough of a few key ingredients. Namely butter and cream.

Well, I’ve gotten past that now.

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I previously said that it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving at my house without classic pumpkin pie. Well, I guess I’d also add Green Bean Casserole to that list. To be fair, is it the best vegetable side dish I’ve ever had? No, not really. But it’s loaded with tradition and nostalgia – and on Thanksgiving, that counts for a whole lot.

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I’m an adult now (and have been for some time) so I shouldn’t really need excuses to eat my vegetables. But I still kind of do. It’s not that I don’t like them…but I don’t necessarily jump for them either. That is, unless they’re made in an especially tasty manner. This Creamy Broccoli Soup definitely qualifies.

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It doesn’t come much simpler than this: broccoli tossed with olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper and roasted until that telltale caramelized crust forms. Nothing fancy – just the fresh taste of the vegetable, with a bit of its natural sweetness brought out to the forefront. Everyone needs an easy vegetable side dish recipe like this in their arsenal to serve alongside roasted chicken, pasta, steak – or even just a plate of it all on its own.

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When green beans are on sale for a mere 88 cents a pound, as they were this week at my local Ralphs, you can be sure I’ll be cooking some with dinner. I usually just steam them or sauté them with a little garlic, but when I found this fresh and flavorful-sounding recipe for a cold green bean side dish inside a package of feta cheese I was eager to try it.

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If the carrots of my childhood had been prepared with a sweet vanilla glaze like these ones, you can be sure I would have eaten them much more willingly than I did! These little cuties get to roll around with a vanilla bean in butter and honey (and a touch of white wine vinegar) until they’re tender and showing off a gorgeous caramelized glow. Even with the glaze, the natural sweetness of the carrots still shines through. It’s a fast and easy side dish that we enjoyed this week with a nice rib eye steak. I’ll be putting them alongside roasted chicken, ham, lamb or just about anything from now on.

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