I come from a family where vegetables were eaten either of 2 ways. And a limited variety! My dad wasn't so big on different things.
For dinner we would have peas, corn, carrots and potato, boiled and mashed where appropriate. I think we had broccoli every so often and cauliflower. Pumpkin too. I do remember a little zucchini on occasion. The other way we had vegetables was to have a salad which consisted of iceberg lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, corn kernels and beetroot. No dressing, not tossed, just in piles on a plate with your barbecue meat or whatever.
When I left high school I was studying at a Natural Therapies college and I got introduced to vegetarian food. I loved it although lentils and chickpeas were a bit hard to handle at first. I still like vegetables now.
If I have been having a big junk food run I just love steaming up carrots, broccoli, zuchini, sweet potato/pumpkin, peas, corn and cauliflower and eating them plain, maybe white sauce if I have the energy. Always fixes the dragging tiredness of not eating well.
My family now are not as big on vegetables. I can serve them more variety than I had as a kid but I would love to know how you eat vegetables.
Best wishes
Jen
corn/veggie fritters with avo on the side are good
ReplyDeleteand savoury muffins too
Zucchini slice seems to go over well with the kids hot or cold and nice with salad too
My 12 and 8yo still aren't keen on some vegies, although it's different vegies they don't like which makes things difficult! They both love raw though, so I find a dish of crudites and dip before dinner gives them a choice of veg, plus raw, which makes them happy, and me too. Frozen peas and corn are also popular snack items with the 8yo.
ReplyDeleteLast night we chopped up some cabbage, mixed it with bean sprouts, some water chestnuts, a bit of shredded chicken, ginger, onion, you know - then after heating it up, wrapped it in spring roll wrappers and fried those. Even my pickiest eater likes spring rolls (I can't imagine that working for everyone).
ReplyDeleteAnother favourite is pumpkin soup - bake the pumpkin, then blend it w. cream or coconut milk, a bit of salt, and some spices if wanted.
My kids are also fond of smoothie - into which I can put any veg, as long as it also contains ice cream.
So maybe these aren't the super healthy vegetable recipes you asked for... but they work for us .
Oh, yes - we read "Farmer Boy" some time back, and he talks about holiday meals - especially his favourite, apples and onions. Couldn't find a recipe, but I learned that if you really caramelize the onions, then slice in the apples and let them just get soft, it's really delicious. My kids love literary references. (The Mossflower books by Brian Jacques have some good ones, too - there's a good enough description to a veggie-filled pastry called "mossflower wedge" to put one together, as long as you don't mind winging it. It helps that my picky eater is the one who discovered this.) Anyway, good luck!
DeleteThanks N for the idea of literary references. Would never have thought of that one. And I do think spring rolls would go well here, although I only know how to do the Vietnamese type where you dip them in sweet chilli sauce. I will have to find a recipe to try.
DeleteBest wishes
Jen
I grew up with the exact same vegie scenario as you did LOL
ReplyDeleteNow we do all that PLUS... stir fried vegies including capsicum, mushroom and snow peas. Sometimes I sautee mixed vegies (zucchini, carrot, onion, capsicum, mushroom) in butter and garlic and a bit of tomato passata. Kye see ming is a popular cabbage dish. We eat plenty of cauliflower bake, sometimes it has broccoli in it. We tried fennel in a risotto, just to try and unknown - wasn't too bad.
We eat spinach in bean & pasta soup, spag bol is loaded with vegies. We put beans into tacos - cannelini/kidney beans. Plenty of zucchini slice and muffins and sometimes fritters. Green beans make a showing in sausage casserole and in the Kye See Ming... I use celery in soup a lot... occasionally in a Waldorf salad. Tomatoes diced then mixed with shredded mint leaves is lovely. Kids eat tomatoes whole too. I don't cook with green capsicum much - too many memories of it being overloaded on frozen pizzas as a kid but I do like it in sausage or meatball creole.
Hmm, not a huge variety of vegies but we do eat loads of them!