Eat your veg
Peter and I were caught out (as we not infrequently are) by Bank Holiday Monday. In this case it’s veg we’re short on–the greengrocer is shut, of course, and while the two tiny grimly elitist rival supermarkets in town were open today, they haven’t had any deliveries. So the fresh veg selection was somewhat thin and pale. Peter brought home several bags of mixed grimly elitist upmarket veg from one of them, containing . . . broccoli, asparagus and sugar peas. Now let’s sit here and think about this for a moment. Sugar peas cook in about the time it takes to put the steamer over the boiling water–say about a minute, two minutes tops. Asparagus takes two to three minutes. Broccoli takes four or five–and the broccoli in these packets has come in big fat five-minute chunks. Um. How are we supposed to cook this, please? Barring separating it out (which is, in fact, what Peter ended up doing).
So let’s look at the package. It says: boil 5-6 minutes or steam 8-9 minutes. EIGHT TO NINE MINUTES????!!! That’s twice too long for the broccoli, and sugar snaps steamed for nine minutes . . . I don’t even want to think about it. Green library paste. No wonder people think they don’t like vegetables: they follow these instructions they’ve never eaten vegetables: they’ve eaten (or possibly refused to eat) Instant Compost. (Straight from Your Refrigerator and Out the Back Door, with a Nine Minute Pause on the Top of the Cooker!*) Although I’m not sure that all the little wrigglies in your compost heap would be too interested either: overdone, they’d say, let’s try next door, they were out weeding this afternoon, all that lovely fresh creeping buttercup and groundsel and chickweed and celandine!**
And furthermore one mingy little packet contains three of your five-a-day fruit-and-veg? Three? I know I eat silly quantities of veg*** but please, veg is a staple†, it’s not the ornamental parsley†† with the soggy grilled tomato in the corner of your plate of steak that you don’t eat anyway!††† Rant rant rant rant rant rant. Blah blah blah health and future of the country blah blah.
Eat your veg. And don’t steam sugar peas for nine minutes.
* AKA more explanation for the staggeringly high food wastage percentages in this country. Sigh.
** Especially celandine, in my garden(s). And ground elder. We are not however composting our ground elder, because we know better.^ I read somewhere that ground elder is good to eat, so we tried it once. Nope. Boring. (And I didn’t steam it for nine minutes either.) Which is a pity, because weeding is much more amusing when you’re going to eat the result. Like you don’t mind bleeding picking blackberries: it’s in a good cause.
^ Ground elder laughs at all that composting stuff. It lies at its ease in its nice bed of weeds, grass clippings, and nine-minute-steamed sugar peas, filing its nails and enjoying the pleasant heat of a cooking compost heap, and then springs into diabolical life as soon as the so-called finished compost is put back on the garden it was so valiantly weeded out of.
***And let me tell you I resent the fact that I can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound
† like chocolate
†† One of my favourite bits of Vonda N McIntyre’s Starfarers is the concept of Decorative Food.
††† I am so sad a person that when I go out to a restaurant I eat everybody else’s parsley too. The soggy grilled tomatoes have to fend for themselves. The (Ubiquitous) Soggy Grilled Tomato: Another High Point in British Cuisine. I know where the idea for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080391/ came from: Dillon and De Bello had just spent several weeks touring around the UK, staying at B&Bs and eating at pubs, and looking at soggy grilled tomatoes on their plates three times a day till they were dreaming about the things at night. Ask me how I know this.
*shudders at the mere thought of the soggy grilled tomatoes*
Vile things they are, and if they even TOUCH other food when cooking, the taste transfers in the most horrible way….BLEURGH
(mind you, my diet would give you fits I should think. I don’t do veg at all. My five-a-day has to come from fruit.;-))
I think soggy grilled tomatoes must be some kind of government directive to lower immigration pressure or something. No! You don’t want to live here!!!
I don’t do veg at all. My five-a-day has to come from fruit.;-))
********* Hey, kiddo, you shouldn’t tell me things like that, because that’s really not good. There’s too much emphasis on fruit anyway; fruit is nearly a luxury. You need veg like you need air to breathe.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I know, I know. But I can’t help it, I just seriously don’t like the taste and texture, and end up gagging. Probably all psychological, but that’s how I am :-( I wish I wasn’t, it’d probably be a LOT better for my figure. (either that or I should get some hellhounds)
Not good enough. You need to change ‘how you are.’ You can’t not eat veg without serious health consequences.
*hides*
Veg can be “added in” and you CAN acclimate. I have (and had) a strong gag response to certain veg, but I’ve been (slowly) training myself out of it.
If you can afford to eat loads of fresh fruit, and you can swing a miniature food processor (I have a venerable “Oscar” http://tinyurl.com/49qhss) you can add quite a bit to your diet.
1. Puree’d and added to soups: tomato, roasted red peppers (don’t want to roast your own? Trader Joes sells reasonably priced cans of organic ones) squash, carrots, peas. If you’re making from scratch, be sure to add gobs of whatever spices you really love: garlic, etc. for the tomato or peppers, rogan josh / cumin / curry for the squash, carrots and peas, etc. Alternatively, you can purchase the boxed veg soups to practice on, until you find flavors you like.
2. Puree’d and added to meats: you can make terrific and tasy meatballs with shredded zuccini or carrots or parsley (get or grow the lovely italian variety. Yum! Don’t stint!) kneaded into the meat. Bake until brown. Do big batches and you can freeze and use just the amount you need when you need it.
3. Roasted and added to pasta dishes: slice very thinly, brush with olive oil, sea salt (for the crunch) and pepper to taste. Broil until just crispy brown (zuchinni, thinly sliced tomatoes). Once out of the oven, slice up and mix in with your pasta sauce for sphagetti, lasagna, etc.
4. Shredded and added to breads. Just like bannana bread, you can punch up your daily staff-of-life with zucchini, carrots, squash, pumpkin…
5. Pesto pasta: 3 cups fresh basil, 1 cup olive oil, salt to taste, puree’d in the Oscar) blend with 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese.
6. Learn to make spagh. sauce from scratch with big bunches of tomatoes, those Trader Joes’ roasted red peppers, fresh garlic and italian parsley. Remember: puree the living daylights out of it: you want to work up to this!)
Best of luck to you! It may take a few years (the better part of a decade for me) but it really does open up a whole world of yummy foods for you.
Grilled tomatoes - shudder! I can’t count how many times I have insisted on “raw” tomato instead, and been treated as alien in consequence. Not so much grilled as killed in my book … bleeuurgh! (to quote Calvin)
Well, the B&B landlady tomato is pink mush even when *raw.* A proper live tomato is a thing of beauty and deliciousness of course.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
When I was ten or so, my best friend and I would “steal” fresh pea pods from her walled garden and sit somewhere quiet popping and eating them. They were so sweet, a treasure vastly enjoyed. I have never tasted peas that good since, tho I still love most peas.
Yes. That’s sheer heaven food.
My daughter doesn’t let any of the garden peas even hit the table, and at least half the snap beans(: It’s pretty funny… good childhood memories, I think.
Like you don’t mind bleeding picking blackberries: it’s in a good cause.
I mind. Well, not at first because in general I enjoy picking berries even on a hot day, but after the twentieth scratch I’m ready to get out the chainsaw or other cutting implement and hack the thing down.
Ah well. I’m *used* to bleeding because of all my roses. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
All together now, “Robin, EWWWWWW!” I don’t understand frozen mixed vegetables - the cooking time is always too long even for the toughest components. I automatically undercook them. I likes my food to move, errr, that is, I likes my veggies to crunch.
I eat a lot of salads. I like salads. I like nice fresh tomatoes* (the Husband just planted a bunch of cherry tomatoes for the summer), and carrots, and avocados and cucumbers… I like salads. Good thing I live in California.
And I eat everybody’s parsley. I love parsley.
The daughters prefer fruit to veggies, except Kitty when it’s fresh tomatoes, or Emily when it’s carrot sticks, and both of them when it’s frozen mixed veg.** As long as they get five of something, I’m happy. The Husband eats what’s put in front of him and is grateful, so there.
*Grilled soggy? Sounds nasty. Sauteed with mushrooms and onions and garlic and zuccini and bell peppers, that’s the ticket.
**Carrot cubes, peas, green beans and corn, or what we in my family call tortoise veggies, because that’s what my Aged Parents feed their tortoises to supplement their normal grazing.
Yes, I eat a mixing bowl of salad every lunch! (I said I eat ridiculous amounts!) Lovely fresh crunchy raw things! I can’t eat tomatoes etc any more–sniff–no nightshade family for people with rheumaticky aches. I sin with **fried aubergines** occasionally though. tortoise veg! I love this!!! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
mmm, parsley… I’m another who eats the parsley garnish (and my husband’s too).
Isn’t it silly the ’suggested cooking times’ they pput here - I always used to wonder how my Grandma got her beans that curious grey colour when they came fresh out of the garden. Now i know, 10 minutes good boil! Poor little things…
Well that might explain why I haven’t been a big veggie person. I will eat whatever someone puts in front of me — I was raised to — but I won’t necessarily cook it for myself, now that I’m…not an adult, but cooking for myself, at least.
So, you mean, peas aren’t supposed to be mushy and pasty? Because that’s my big argument with them. The texture.
You have, by the way, convinced me to switch from margarine to butter. The margarine is better than butter thing was in full swing when I was growing up, so that’s what we ate. And that’s what I bought when I became responsible for feeding myself. But I bought butter the last time I needed to purchase *something*, and I could immediately tell the difference. Things were less oily. Who knew? :)
Chocolate is indeed a staple. Thank goodness, too!
OH GODS. No, peas should be very slightly crisp and *melty.* Granted it depends on the quality of your peas–but generally speaking UNDERCOOK veg. They TASTE BETTER . . . and they also retain a lot more of all that vitamin and mineral nonsense that is the big reason you’re EATING the little rubbishers.
Butter is SO MUCH to be preferred on ALL FRONTS. (Less oily–partly because less of it goes farther. Now tell me the margarine producers AREN’T trying to SELL MORE.) Think of it this way: you ALWAYS prefer something that has been messed around LESS to something that has been messed around MORE. Eat potato chips rather than Pringles, you know? And eat undercooked veg, and butter or oil rather than margarine, and so on and so on.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Who knew! I will give peas another try, then. I’ve been avoiding them as the veggie I *especially* hate. But if they’re not supposed to taste like that (and I can’t imagine why anyone would insist they’re *food* in that case), we’ll see.
The margarine containers here are about twice the size of the biggest butter tub. (And I did see all the different kinds of butter and had a mini panic. I just picked the most likely looking one. Salt? No salt? Something else in there I can’t remember right off… Where’s just *butter*? That spreads, of course.)
And while we’re at it, soon I am going to attempt dirt in pots with baaaaaby strawberries. I *adore* strawberries, but the ones from the store aren’t always… Well sometimes they have what looks like mold on them, and that’s utterly squicktastic. I’ll just make my own. I hope. I suppose it will take a while for the strawberries to actually appear, but if nothing else, I’ll have my very own next summer. I’m also thinking about little tomato plants…something that can live in a pot forever. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself; I’d like to make sure everything lives (and makes food) before going too crazy. But I’m excited!
good! Stay excited! But remember Keeping Things Alive can be tricky. :) Strawberries are not the easiest crop in the world–read about how to grow them!
I like slightly salted butter myself. Purists prefer no salt or ’sweet’. But you just want . . . butter. :) Look at the ingredients! There shouldn’t be anything but BUTTER and maybe salt!
My mom lived in England for a semester when she was a teenager in the ’60s and still recalls with dread the horribly overcooked vegetables, particularly the peas, served by her host family. She was therefore quite amused when we were there a few years ago to find cans labeled MUSHY PEAS on the grocery store shelves.
Yes, I see that they’re actually a particular delicacy and that there’s a bit more to them than just overcooked peas. Still, she felt vindicated.
They’re a bit like tomatoes–B&B landladies’ grilled tomatoes are dire. Tomatoes fresh out of the garden are heaven. B&B landladies’ mushy peas are probably just peas boiled till they disintegrate. Properly made ‘mushy peas’ and yes, with mint, are lovely.
Our local Kiwi pub has ‘mush peas’ to die for… *drools*
As far as growing your own strawberries and tomatoes, supposedly there is an easy and fast way.
http://www.aerogrow.com/
I am an apartment-liver (and also allergically sensitive to lots of the things that come with plants and dirt, such as mold and pollen and, well, dust…) and have been lusting over on of these since I saw one in the store. It looks difficult to screw up and their claims (which so far have been supported by all reviews I have read) as to how fast they grow sounds impressive. Want want want.
Well, try it! And let us know! :)
I see your problem right there–it’s the broccoli. Broccoli is nasty–so you cook the whole thing 2-3 minutes, and then throw out the broccoli and eat the rest. Problem solved!
Farmers’ markets just getting going around here, so I’m expecting a lot of pea shoots and asparagus in my diet in the coming weeks. We have asparagus in our community garden, but I always feel kind of guilty taking very much of it since we all share; I have to suppliment from the market frequently.
Snork! Send me your unloved broccoli–it’s my FAVOURITE veg! No, really! If I don’t have broccoli at least once every couple of days I start getting TWITCHY!!!
Good for you having a community garden–how does that work?
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Works well, thanks! :) Basically our town owns a plot of land; the Community Gardeners each pay in a share ($10 per 10 sq feet, I think) and then you have a plot of your very own to do whatever with. Nice for me as I have NO sun in my yard, so vegetables are mostly out of the question. The money is then used to buy tools, manure, rent a tiller in the spring, pay for maintenance on the lawn mower and trimmer, etc. We take turns mowing each week from May to September, and at the end of the summer we try to have a pitch-in party in the garden, though the last two years we’ve fallen down on that.
The asparagus rows are left from the farmer who owned the land before donating it to the community, so they’re well-established. We weed and till it, then top-dress it with a little manure each spring on Clean-Up day, and it yields a pretty impressive crop! We’ve also had communal grapes and fruit trees, but limited success there. We’re trying blueberries now, put those in last year… Generally we’re organic, though there have been some impressive battles concerning poison ivy control–I support the use of chemical weapons in this instance, as I know P.I.’s habits very well and the more you try to pull it up in a friendly manner, the more it puts out runners and spreads. I was outvoted, and now there is P.I. thoughout all the grass in the back half of the garden. Sigh.
Yes, we bailed on our allotment . . . and have Third House instead which is the EXPENSIVE way . . . sigh. I sympathise about poison: I’m ‘organic’ too except I’m about to use poison on the ground elder at Third House. It comes in *from the neighbours* for heaven’s sake, I haven’t got a PRAYER.
I take the fresh broccoli, cut it up into small pieces (a couple of bites size), pour boiling water over them in the pan and let them sit for no more than 1 minute. Basically just enough to turn them a beautiful vibrant green, then pour it all into a colander and shock the vegs with cold, cold water. This is wonderful eaten alone or in a salad with other vegs.
My other favorite veg is spinach. I buy organic baby spinach. Wash it out very carefully. Pour boiling water, stir for no more than one minute, drain and shock with cold water. I pick up handfuls, squeeze out the water, cut it up. Then I splash it with a little good sesame oil and a little bit of soy sauce. Totally wonderful.
I eat lots of greens. Usually stir-fried with just the minimal amount of canola oil, lots of garlic and ginger, a little bit of beef, chicken, or pork (depending on the veg). We much prefer our vegs to have that satisfying crunch when we eat it.
We eat lots of Chinese greens - gai lan, sim choy, choy sum, pak choy, ung choy. Oh, and chive buds are to die for stir fried with garlic and a little bit of fish sauce.
Down here in the Florida panhandle, we’ve had hardly any luck at all trying to grow our own - we’ve tried to grow tomatoes, snow peas, herbs. The only successes (sort of) are mesclun greens and blueberries. In northeast Indiana, we grew tomatoes, mesclun greens, carrots, snow peas, we had Chinese parsley, mint, American parsley, chives, … that’s what I miss most about Indiana. During the summer months, we could go outside and pick enough vegs for our salad minutes before serving it.
I would like to be able to learn more about Chinese greens (and fish sauce, for that matter. I have a bottle in my refrig and I *look* at it occasionally . . . ) but availability is so erratic and the one time we tried to grow them (one of these package deals with several different kinds) it was not a success.
We are so spoiled here. The vegetable is vibrant and fresh, the fruit actually tastes of a thousand aromas (none of which are supermarket or other sprays). Although in Greece we suffer from the overcooked broccoli phenomenon (unless it is almost grey, people here seem to think it will poison you !!!) there is so much cooking with vegetables, that really you get your portions without really trying. Lunch was moussaka: potato, aubergine and courgette (eggplant and zucchini) accompanied by a massive two cabbage and carrot shredded salad dressed with oil and lemon, evening meal leftovers of yesterdays smoked sockeye salmon in white wine and grapefruit sauce with carrot ribbons and a rocket salad, followed by strawberries… Red and luscious, organic strawberries. I think tomorrow I am going to harvest some of the basil for our first pesto of the season.
Yes. That’s the good thing about just having the stuff around; it becomes part of the fabric (and fibre!) of your life. We used to grow more at the old house; we grow a little now, and have an organic veg box delivered once a week plus farmers’ markets etc.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I just grew fresh parsley for the first time last year in our back garden. It was amazing - the little garnish in restaurants (usually accompanied by sad orange wedges vs. soggy grilled tomatoes) didn’t even compare to the delicious taste. And I thought I liked parsley before!
Of course, my slugs loved it too. ;-) The slugs will not be eating as well this year, I swear it.
Gosh, parsley is one of the things that my slugs (no! No! I DENY they’re MY slugs! The HIDEOUS INVASION OF SLUGS!) generally pass over. You could grow it in a pot–parsley does very well in a pot. I used to grow it that way in Maine, where my ‘garden’ was solid granite with a little skim of powdered rock pretending to be soil.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
And parsley makes for gorgeous salads: with a bare hint of tabbouleh and fresh tomatoes, over paper-fine fennel shavings with grapefruit, over sliced oranges with raw red onion rings, with lemon zest and garlic zipped in the food processor as gremolata for putting on grilled meat or chicken or fish…. the list goes on. So long as it is flat-leaf. I could never reconcile myself with the plastic curly-leaf one I got on my dish when I lived in the States. I was sure there was more petrochemical than cellulose in those.
Try growing your own curly-leaf. I love it. :)
That is an excellent idea - I have just the right pot, too. They loved the parsley. Mowed it under within days. I felt sorry for it. Wanna trade slugs?
Mind you, the slug colony ate well on the zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower last year too. You’d think we had planted the garden for them!
Slugs weren’t native to the area until recently so no one could give me any advice on how to get rid of them, either. Until I spoke to my grandmother in law, and she told me cheap beer in a pie plate (with a roof to hold out the rain) attracts and drowns them. Then I had to dump the pie plate and replace the beer twice a day! It didn’t get serious until I ran out of cheap beer and had to use my husband’s micro-brews for a day. That didn’t go over well at all, well, with the husband. The slugs apparently loved it.
To my astonishment copper works. I thought this was going to be another of these blasted myths. I can’t make the copper tape *stick on the pots* but the copper rings around plants WORK. Hugely better than the big plastic collar type ones do. They only work to the extent that they’re a barrier, and slugs are evil insinuators. But slugs really *do not like copper* and will stay away. It’s not a perfect system and I lose stuff ALL THE TIME but copper and organic slug bait . . . I have a *chance.*
Also, basil and mint do quite well in pots too. Which reminds me that I really must at least get the herbs planted out on the patio, and try to get my husband to help me rebuild my flower beds. (They need new railroad ties; the ones that came with the patio and townhouse are rotten.)
You WANT to keep mint in a pot or it takes over the garden!!!
We actually have the mint in the flower bed right now, but I want to take it out and put it in a pot. It’s this weekend’s project.
My father-in-law has the most lovely garden, at least a quarter-acre, all vegetables… I’m very envious at times, not having much land.
Hah! It happened to us in Indiana! There was already some mint growing in one of the flower beds when we bought our house, so hubby decided to transplant some in our veggie/herb bed. Within a couple of years, we had mint in EVERY plant bed in the yard (and in the grass, too!). I had to start trying to dig out the stuff (we used lots of it, of course - mint tea is delicious!) so it wouldn’t choke out our bearded irises and daffodils, black-eyed Susans, etc. It was crazy. See, in Hawaii, we tried to grow mint and it kept dying on us, so hubby thought the plant is delicate. Oh, did we learn!
Invertebrates hate copper because it is very bad for them. We use low levels of copper to kill parasites on fish in the aquarium industry. However, if you put an octupus in that fishtank later, it will “mysteriously” die from the copper that has bonded to the walls and pipes and can dissolve into solution again. This is also why you should not throw copper pennies into ponds or fountains that have fish in them, because too high of a copper level can kill the fish too.
I don’t steam sugar peas at all, usually. When I so it’s not for very long. Or I quickly stir-fry them with garlic and olive oil. Yum.
Yes–stir fry just long enough to heat them up! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
What bothers me most about the ‘cook nine minutes’ instruction - it might not have to do with cooking the veggies properly. It might have to do with - they didn’t clean the veggies, and they figure nine minutes will incapacitate anything .. nasty .. included in the package.
And I like my broccoli sliced thin, about as thin as sugar peas. Even the stalk loses it’s bitterness eaten raw. I just feel bad scraping the scattered bits from the crown into the trash. Unless no one is looking ..
I wash EVERYTHING. I wash organic lightly and I wash the *begeezus* out of anything NOT organic–not for the bacterial nasties but for the chemicals.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
50 years ago I was so fortunate to be in a house for 18 mos with an established garden that included an asparagus bed, a strawberry bed and a parsley bush (big enough for birds to land in). I don’t know if another such perennial parsley exists/exisisted, but that one was wonderful! Such luscious food just outside the kitchen door!
I have learned as an adult cooking for myself that I prefer many of my vegetables raw or lightly steamed rather than boiled. We’re planting several Brandywine tomato plants this year and hoping for more lovely tomatoes than we know what to do with.
Is there a way to make GOOD grilled tomatoes? I’ve heard of them and I’m curious.
My problem with vegetables is that I don’t know enough ways to cook them to make them truly appetizing to myself. I’m back on the beloved Weight Watchers (intentional sarcasm), and I’m trying my best to eat the five servings of fruit and vegetables a day. It’s just finding ways to incorporate them that’s quite hard. Fruit, I could eat five servings of any day, but vegetables are a much harder thing to conquer.
As for good tomatoes, if you ever come to the US during August or so, you’re welcome to have some of the Celebrity tomatoes which my father-in-law grows. They’re organic, they’re delicious, and they’re good in everything. He sells the extras every year, by an honor system in front of their house, and they always make a couple of thousand dollars that way.
I take my vegetables raw mostly, or maybe steamed once in a while. But cilantro is my favorite additive at the moment…it makes anything taste all fresh and GREEN! (it really does taste like a color)
I put chilled pasta, tomatoes, olives, cilantro, and some oil and vinegar together tonight, and it tasted heavenly. yumm…
YES! Green is ABSOLUTELY a flavour, I know EXACTLY what you mean. And I also love cilantro. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Ask me how I know this.
Okay, how DO you know that? :D
I refuse to buy vegies that come from large stores….I’ll DRIVE 30 minutes to a decent fruit/veg store that has local produce or brave the crowds at the markets on a Sat for organic stuff before I contemplate Coles or Woolworths.
Though I HATE HATE HATE cooked tomato - its evil personified. Mind you I cant eat fresh tomato at the moment anyway, nor lettuce or celery which really curtails my raw vegies fetish. You cant really eat potatos or celaric raw…..unfortunately.
Though I love a good roasted parsnip. YUM! Broccolini is ok, atual broccoli or sprouts are EVIL.
I dont eat enough vegies - my excuse is I am a student with too much on…my mother says thats not reasonable.
Listen to your mother. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Actually the best way to eat celeriac is raw. Grate into a bowl of acidulated water (add lemon juice or parsley stalks so it goes acid and the grated celeriac doesn’t go brown-grey) then squeeze out and mix with a remoulade sauce: mushed up anchovy (go ahead, you won’t realise it’s there in the end), capers, mustard, homemade mayo and lemon and lime zest and juice. Mix it up, and put in fridge covered. Classic French summer dish. Also lightly cooked, sliced very thin alone or mixed with fennel with white wine or aniseed liqueur or (best of all) vodka and lemon. When al dente add some low fat milk, which will immediately coaggulate to form cheese-like substance. Eat immediately.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
(I LIKE anchovies!)
Oh yeah - Chocolate is a food group, as is random sweet stuff that makes me hyperactive.
Bet the asparagus was from Peru. It’s always from Peru. Nobody in Peru can eat aspargus. Ever. I live entirely surrounded by asparagus fields. You can’t go out the door from mid-Feb until June 21 without tripping over asparagus. It’s cheap. It’s local. It’s super-fresh. And where does it come from in the supermarket? You’ve got it? Peru. Tchah!
Hahahaha so true! I bet here in Guam if we ever get asparugus it’s come from Peru via the mainland US and then Hawaii. Most fresh veg is wilted by the time it gets here. I am slowly ferreting out local bits and pieces, but it is very slow going.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Guam. Golly. That’s a little bit of nothing a long way from anything. I’m interested it’s big enough to HAVE local bits and pieces. . . .
As a mostly vegetarian person, I sympathize with your Bank Holiday predicament. I hate buying things already bagged up, so you can’t see what they look like, and in a mix like that you’d have to separate the broccoli (yes, broccoli! we eat a lot of broccoli in this house) no matter how you chose to cook the stuff.
We have had such a cold spring that I don’t think anything local is going to come in early. Blackbear88 is in luck–I am amazingly ready for local asparagus and probably won’t see any for weeks. One of the natural food co-ops I belong to is very committed to buying as much local produce as possible, but in this part of the world the pickings are slim until June.
It’s nice to hear from those who like eggplant, since so many people think it’s a weird vegetable and won’t touch it. And I want to put in a good word for Brussels sprouts, too. If you don’t boil them to death, but saute or roast them, they are very good, but they get no respect at all.
I ADORE brussel sprouts. It’s one of those terrible proofs of my hopelessness as a human being. I go into a minor decline during the six or so months of the year you can’t get them. Thank the gods broccoli is year round. I’m the complete brassica girl really.
I entirely agree about buying veg loose so you can CHOOSE.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Ooh! FOOD!
I LOVE brussel sprouts!
And broccoli, and asparagus [when it is properly cooked- it is very easy to get over-cooked asparagus, but when you get the just-right version... yummm.]… and most vegetables, really.
Never took to cooked peas, though I will eat snow peas happily. And tomatoes- well, I keep trying them, and I keep not liking them. But I DO keep trying them.
My trouble is that here at school, I eat a LOT of salad, [but somehow, even the salad feels unhealthy] while on the whole staying away from the cooked veggies, which, as I have discovered, are something to be leery of.
But I’m almost DONE. And then I can go HOME. And EAT. Real FOOD. Fruit that is washed- and not rotting inside. Something green and vegetable-ish and healthy other than salad.
Oh. Now I’m hungry again. And I just ate, too. Sigh.
Really, though, I can’t wait to get home, especially because you all insist on posting all these recipes, which sound *delicious*, but I am unable even to attempt, as I have no kitchen [or time to cook. Or ability/talent required to produce something that is edible- or at least not set off the fire alarms! But I could always TRY, had I somewhere to experiment]…
Just felt the need to second [or third, I suppose] the praising of brussel sprouts. And distract myself from writing papers, for the ten minutes or so I am allowing myself before I get back to studying/writing.
Yay.
–Julia
The only way you learn to cook is by cooking. Turn off the smoke alarm, open the windows! Everybody makes horrible mistakes. It’s inevitable in practical chemistry like cooking. But it’s fun too. Anybody who likes food should find something they like to cook. . . .
Peas are tricky: they really have to be flash-cooked. A