Make It Don't Buy It: Vegetable add in's

I have to say, some days the idea of chopping vegetables for a dinner turns me off entirely to making the dinner. I even have a handy chopping tool! To speed things up on these low motivation days, I try to keep bags of ready chopped veggies on hand. So, pick a day to chop, shred and freeze. Squash, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, carrots...all these freeze nicely for soups, stews, and sauces.

Zip Tip: vegetable style

Your grater is a great (he he he) way to quickly add veggies to salads, soups, and sauces that are hard to detect and hard to taste. If you have a few extra minutes, put sauces and soups in a blender to really hide those veggies.

Bring on the vegetables

This is one of my favorite recipes to use up lots of veggies in. And both my kids love to eat it!

"Black Bean (and mother load vegetable) Soup"

1 bag or 3 cans of black beans
1 can or 1 large tomato diced
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
2 cups chicken broth
2 T cumin
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic

Heat olive oil in large pot, add garlic, carrots, peppers and onion. Sautee until soft, about 5-8 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 45 minutes to allow flavors to combine. Puree the whole pot of soup in blender, half at a time. Soup should be nice and thick. Serve with sour cream and tortilla chips.

This recipe can also be make in the crock pot, just dump everything in for 4 hours on low.

Vegetable Puree's

About a year ago, Jessica Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious, hit the shelves and talk shows. I went gaga for the idea of adding veggie purees to foods. I read the book, tried a few of the recipes then quickly realized I needed to adapt this idea into how my family eats (low on the meat, high on beans). My contributions to the vegetable tips this month will be how I use purees that don't make my kid question what they are eating!

First up, sauces and the purees that hide well in them:

1. Marinara Sauce: carrot, squash, sweet potato, cauliflower (I usually use 1/3 c of 2 different purees for this on pizza, spaghetti, pasta bakes...)
2. BBQ Sauce: carrot and cauliflower (1/3 cup of 1 or 1/4 cup of each)
3. White sauces: cauliflower or yellow squash


I use my rice cooker to "steam" the veggies and my blender to puree them. Now I'm off to start my next batch!

Eat Your Veggies!

stephencooks.com

veggies...i love 'em, but my kids aren't quite on the bandwagon yet. so, what do i do about that? i force them in anyway i can! i try really hard not "trick" my kids into eating them, i want them to understand that it's ok to try new things they might think could hold all the yuckiness in the world. we get a lot of local veggies every week, because we participate in an organic csa farm, and i try to use new recipes often to help our family enjoy veggies in different ways. one excellent way to get any kind of cookable green in: make a pizza! almost any person who can chew food likes some kind of pizza, and greens really are easy to work with. here are a few suggestions:

*place a layer of spinach on top of your sauce, before your cheese. delicious!
*boil hardy greens (kale, chard, broccoli rabe etc.) til tender. drain, and press excess liquid out. saute with a bit of olive oil, and s & p. add to your regular pizza recipe right on top.
*greens shrink A LOT. so use a whole bunch, or two!

one of my favorite new recipes is found over at stephencooks.com. potato, leek, sausage, and broccoli rabe pizza. SOOO good. i omit the red peppers, used onions instead of leeks, use a chicken italian sausage, and use butter/yukon tato's. for those of you who want to avoid the sausage, it is still incredibly tasty; so go ahead! also you can definitely substitute a different green for the rabe. i must mention here that sharp provolone is my new favorite cheese, and a wonderful addition to most pizza's!