One of the first vegetables that’s ready to harvest is rhubarb each year. I love this tart first vegetable of the season and with all the rain we had recently, my rhubarb plants are growing like crazy right now. The first stalks should be ready for harvest in just a few days.

Usually I have just enough to make a couple of rhubarb pies, but this year looks like quite a bit more. So I guess my question is what do you make with Rhubarb?

Here’s my favorite rhubarb pie recipe:

* 4 cups chopped rhubarb
* 1 1/3 cups white sugar
* 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon butter
* 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie

Preheat oven to 450F

Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle 1/4 of it over pastry in pie plate. Heap rhubarb over this mixture. Sprinkle with remaining sugar and flour. Dot with small pieces of butter. Cover with top crust.

Place pie on lowest rack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350F, and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes.

I almost always have a bag of baby carrots in the fridge. We love to much on them as a snack or appetizer and I serve them as a side dish of sorts with lunch. Everyone in the family enjoys them dipped in a little ranch dressing, but we don’t really like cooked carrots all that much. I toss a few handfuls of them in when I make pot roast, but that’s about it.

Needless to say, I need some new ideas on what to do with carrots. Do you prefer ready to eat baby carrots or do you use the whole regular ones? What are your favorite ways to prepare them? Share your recipes as a comment below.

One of my favorite winter vegetables is red cabbage. I stew it with some grated apples and a touch of vinegar until it’s nice and soft. It’s really good with a pork roast and some potatoes. I just got back from the store with a nice head of this purple looking cabbage and was wondering if anyone had any other ideas on what to make with it.

Share your recipes and ideas as a comment below.

Down here in the south, we have a tradition of eating mustard greens or collard greens on New Year’s Day. It’s supposed to make the new year prosperous for you and bring you lots of money (thus the green).

As a result, I am now seeing sales on mustard greens in just about every grocery store around and of course would love to take advantage of it.

I usually cook them by steaming the greens in a little bit of water in a large pan and season them with salt and pepper. When I’m ready to serve them, I also pour a little bit of white vinegar over them.

That’s about the only way I’ve prepared them, and I would love to hear your recipes and ideas for mustard greens.

Last May, I decided to make a very small garden of fresh fruits and vegetables. My soil is terrible so I left the plants in their containers. I picked up strawberries, cherry tomatoes,  green bell peppers and cucumbers.

By mistake, I picked up two plants that I thought to be red bell peppers but they were actually red hot peppers. I was able to produce a lot of cherry tomatoes, some strawberries and green peppers (though smaller in size than what I am use to eating/buying at the grocery store), only four cucumbers, and an oversupply of hot, red peppers. In fact, while all the other plants had stopped producing by July or August, my hot red peppers are still producing. And it is November!

Other than the fact that they are pretty and red,  I have  no idea what to make with them! They are too hot to add to a salad. My daughter and I have eaten a few as a “dare” by my son and I have added them to a vinegar and oil combination to make a pretty but only decent pepper sauce.

What can I make with red, hot  peppers? Any good recipes out there?

I had my Mommy’s Helper over the other day, and she has a pet turtle she’s adopted/saved. Anyway, I’m not going to ask what can I make with turtle (GROSS), but hang on — I do have a point here.

So, she has an indoor glass cage for her baby turtle and planted an asparagus plant in there for the turtle to eat. She said the plant is growing like crazy. (Although I don’t know that I’d personally eat THAT one.)

That got me to thinking. I have some containers in my back yard where I’ve planted a few things. I’m considering adding asparagus to a planter, but… I keep getting stuck on what in the world to DO with it and how to even grow the stuff in the first place.
I mean, I can figure out how to saute it or steam it or microwave it. But, eating a bunch of asparagus plain sounds awfully boring to me.

So, dear friends… what are YOUR favorite ways to eat asparagus? (And, do you have any gardening tips to grow asparagus?)
Looking forward to hearing your ideas.

I grew up in Northern Wisconsin and never heard of collard greens until life landed me in Pensacola, FL.

Now, my husband has falled in love with collard greens and I have NO idea what to do with them.

1. How do you clean them?
2. How do you cook them?
3. Spices?
4. How do you serve them?

Anyone have recipe ideas for making collard greens? My husband will be a happy man!

Summer time gives me certain cravings. Tomatoes, basil, rhubarb, and celery. (Not all in one dish.)

I currently have a bunch of celery in my refrigerator and am trying to think of something to do with it.

I’m leaning towards tuna salad (tuna, mayonnaise, and chopped celery on wheat bread) — maybe with a little soy sauce added.

What do you like to make with Celery? Please share your favorite recipes and ideas and help me use this celery.

I’m stumped. Fresh artichokes are a total mystery to me. I understand the marinated kind in a can, but the fresh ones? No clue. Artichokes are pokey and fuzzy and I have no idea how to turn them into something delicious.

So, creative moms, I need your artichokes tips and artichoke recipes. Tell me — What can I Make with Artichokes?!

Summer is my favorite season for one reason - Tomatoes. I love them. I hope to get lots of ideas and recipes for tomatoes in this post. Comments are absolutely welcome.

It is with great anticipation that I ask What Can I Make with Fresh Tomatoes?

PS. I know tomatoes are a fruit, but I’m going to stick them in the veggie category, too, for those of us that are looking for veggie dishes.