***

This dressing is especially good on a salad of  mixed lettuces, red onion, green onion tops, and radishes.If you have any leftover protein, you’ll have a delicious dinner salad. For a nice complement, serve with potatoes tossed in horseradish butter.*

1/3 Cup olive oil

3 T red wine vinegar

2 T VK Zucchini Relish

1-2 clove garlic, minced

1 t Worcestershire sauce

1/2 t salt

1/8 t black pepper

1/4 C blue cheese, crumbled

Mix all ingredients, stirring well, adding cheese last.

*  This recipe is courtesy of Food and Wine Magazine where it’s used on a beef roast. However it’s very tasty on many other foods. It makes a lot and you can keep it in the frig or freezer, and use it to flavor veggies , (think asparagus and green beans),potatoes, pasta, and bread. Steam your vegetables, for instance, and then toss gently with the butter. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Combine in food processor:

Our newest location is Pyramids on Main Street where we debuted  our products in a lavish spread, set-up by the Pyramids’s designers with a colorful spring theme. You can also find us in the Piggly Wiggly in the Coligny Plaza.

Your family won’t even believe they’re eating a vegetable if you don’t tell. This recipe uses the flesh of one squash and the toasted seeds in a topping.

Acorn Squash Gingerbread

1 Cup Acorn Squash

{Halve squash, remove  and reserve seeds. Place squash halves cut side up on foil lined sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 40-60 minutes until flesh is soft. When cool, remove flesh from skin. Spread seeds thinly on foil, roast at 350 degrees until brown, turning once.}

2 eggs

1/2 Cup canola oil

1 T butter

1/4 C buttermilk

1/2 Cup sugar

1/4 Cup honey

1-3 T peeled and grated fresh ginger root

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg

1/2 t allspice

1-2 t powdered ginger

Put soda in buttermilk and set aside. Mix squash, eggs, oil, butter, sugar, honey, and ginger root in medium sized bowl. Sift dry ingredients together and add to bowl.  Stir the milk and soda mixture once more, then add. Combine until just incorporated but do not over mix. Pour into a 8 x 4 ” loaf pan that has been well greased and floured. Topping: Toss toasted seeds with 2 T sugar and 2 T cinnamon. Sprinkle the seeds over the top of the bread in pan. Bake at 350 degrees 50 to 65 minutes until wooden skewer inserted into center comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached.

Try them together in salad with Dee’s Diamond Dressing!

Well, it’s cold and rainy late winter, with no gardening for days! But we do have lots of spirit reviving orange in the kitchen lately (shoutout to Grace, it’s her favorite color!) We have oranges of course: fat baby navels, still fragrant, and juicy kumquats, nature’s perfect fruit. Their sweet skin and tart innards are perfect for snacking or making marmalade.

Only one problem: time and patience are required for cutting and removing seeds. Kumquats have more seeds per one inch of fruit than any other citrus. But I am eating one as I write this and can tell you — it’s worth it.We’re lucky to have these foods to brighten the gloomy days of winter.

Another orange favorite is butternut squash. All of this vegetable (except the skin) is completely delicious, even the seeds!

Butternut squash before and after roasting.

Here’s a quick and easy way to prepare a butternut squash for just about any recipe — quinoa salad, pasta sauce, risotto, or just by itself.

First, peel the outer skin with vegetable peeler. Cut in half with a large knife. Scoop out the seeds (and keep them!)

Cube the flesh 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Prepare an oiled cookie sheet, with or without foil.

Place squash on pan and add  1-2 T oil (olive, canola, nut or a mixture), turning to coat.

Add salt (flavored is nice, plain is fine) and black pepper. Mix again.

Roast a short time at high heat (425) or a longer time at low heat ( 325) depending on what else you might be cooking. As long as you’re turning on the oven, why not do something else before or after? You can also do this in the toaster oven if it’s a small squash. You will need to turn at least once during cooking.

As soon as the flesh is tender it’s ready to use in recipes. If you brown it just a little and toss it with pasta you will be very happy. If you use colored pasta you will be even happier because it will be twice as pretty. Garnish with a little green or cracked pepper. Simple and good.

As for the seeds, put them on a small square of foil (separate from flesh, they cook faster) in a single layer, toss in a little oil, add salt and pepper and pop in the oven. Check after 15 min, stir and watch so they don’t burn. Eat them alone or use as garnish in your dish.

We recently got a mention in the Wednesday, January 26 issue of the paper Bluffton Today.

Click here to read the article! It’s about GMO foods, which we don’t use in our products and are completely not into. We have a picture on page B2, along with a statement from Pat about the ingredients we use.

Thanks, Bluffton Today!

Last week was the Florence, SC Agribusiness Expo, and Vegetable Kingdom served our Gumbo to over 200 people. It was (if we say so ourselves) the best thing to eat of the night!

Here’s the serving dish after the first five minutes of the event! We emptied two others after this one.

Our Gumbo Base is made with the perfect amounts of spices and vegetables — all you have to do is heat and add your choice of meat, be it chicken and sausage or seafood.

In other news: attention North Carolinians!

You can now buy VK products from any Whole Foods Market in the state — enjoy!

Dee’s Diamond Dressing, ready for your greens!

Dee and Ann have been friends since their kids were small, and spent lots of time cooking together. One recipe they shared was for Dee’s dressing, piquant and rich. It was originally designed for Dee’s own salad with Craisins and pine nuts (recipe on the bottle), but it works well on any green salad.

Dee came to visit the Vegetable Kingdom recently, to see our kitchen and all the wonderful sights around Beaufort.

Here’s Dee and Ann (out of the kitchen, for once!) at the Church of Ease on St. Helena Island.

When she’s not making delicious food, Dee works as a founding member of the Colorado Springs Science Center Committee, a groundbreaking science museum-in-progress. Check it out by clicking here!