Sneaking in the Vegetables

Sneaking in the Vegetables

I eat so many vegetables that most people think I like them.  This is Not nearly as true as it looks.    But after having cancer twice I have made huge changes to my life style.  That includes a lot of brightly colored vegetables and a lot of dark leafy ones.  But I sneak them into my food.

One basic ingredient is home made cole slaw, using organic broccoli stalks, carrots, and cabbage.  The slaw is a base.

A smoothie may include plain unsweetened yogurt, a banana, pineapple packed in its own juice and slaw.  "Do you know what that Looks like!"  My best guess is a bad diaper.  So get out the food coloring and make it look orange or like a banana.  Sweet spices can help too; pears with ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg to taste are great.

Make jello, adding fruit, walnuts and, you guessed it, slaw, you just sneaked in three vegetables.  Put in the fruit and walnuts on top and the taste of slaw will be covered. 

Another way to sneak in vegetables is dip.  I like strongly flavored hummus, because chick peas or garbanzo beans are themselves another vegetable.  If I eat hummus and veggies with blue corn chips, a bean and a grain make a progein.  I do not especially like the taste of kale, collard greens, or  hot greens.  But if I roll the leaves up around their stalks then dip them in hummus I only have to eat the length of the stalk covered by the leaf.  And if I have chipotle or jalipeno pepper hummus, I get to count the pepper as another vegetable.  Sometimes I wrap a leaf of a least favorite vegetable around one I like; carrot, tomato, spinach,  sweet pepper, and then dip in hummus.  Watch the canola oil the chips are fried in if you don't want to eat GMO food.

Left over green stalks can either be covered with peanut butter (peanuts are a legume, like beans) or frozen then broken up easily into tiny pieces added to soups, spaghetti, etc.

Spices are a wonderful gift.  In the seasons Below 100 degrees I like curry, chili, and spicy soups.  If I think of curry or chili as just ways of seasoning rather than specific recipes I must follow any vegetable can go into them. Slaw grated fine cooks down to Nothing in soup made in a slow cooker, but you still get the veggies.

Stir-fry is a relatively quick way to use nearly any veggie., no, not slaw though.  And again, the secret is in varying the sauce.  Thai peanut sauce, a mildly sweet and slightly salty lemon and ginger sauce, or traditional stir-fry sauce, are all good variations.  I like to use fruit juice (usually pear or pineapple) from canned fruit in all kinds of sauces or marinades. Salad dressings not high in fat can add a lot of variety to stir-fry sauces and grilled veggies.

So if you want to eat at my house but hate vegetables, Inspect All Foods Carefully and you will find them sneaked in, nearly everywhere.

Since I can't afford all organic food I try to choose the most sprayed foods (apples and strawberries, for example) and buy Them organic.  Or I can substitute less sprayed foods, (raspberries, blackberries, sweet potatoes, cabbage) sometimes.    

So I try to eat 7 to 10 veggies or fruits per day.  It isn't that I love them all, though I am Very thankful for their nourishment, it's that I Need them.  Eating a whole fruit, such as a pealed or organic apple, an orange, etc. is Much healthier than just drinking the juice.  I try to limit fruits to two per day and make the rest veggies.