Tag: vegetables

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Healthy Living

Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

One of the biggest challenges for any parents is to get their kids to eat vegetables. Any parent (or aunt like myself) can empathize with trying to convince, cajole, or downright force their child to eat at least one vegetable. But are we going about things the wrong way? While we can certainly agree that it’s never easy to introduce vegetables to our kids, especially if we’ve been trying for a long time, here are a few things to consider to make it a more palatable experience.

Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

Focus on Texture

If your children do not like the way a vegetable feels, can you change the texture? Nowadays you can use one of the many top roasting pans to change the texture in the oven. When you start to crisp up carrots in the oven, rather than boiling them into mush, this could make all of the difference.

You can also change the texture by mixing different vegetables together. My mother got me to eat spinach by mixing it with rice and got me to eat carrots by mashing them into potatoes. These became two of my favorite childhood comfort foods!

Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables by Making them “Interactive”

Vegetables don’t just have to be something lying on a plate. You can change how they work with meals. Something like vegetables dipped in hummus or salsa can completely change the flavor and make eating them fun.

Reconsider Your Flavorings

Seasoning vegetables is a crucial part of how you make them attractive. Think about dishes that are vegetable-based, but are covered in delicious butter and herbs. There are plenty of Italian dishes that use vegetables as the main ingredient but are drizzled in olive oil, seasonings, and butter. If you are concerned about butter being too high in fats or being unhealthy, it’s vital to remember that you should not fear the fat anymore.

Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables by Turning them Into a Sauce

If your children really don’t get along with textures, one of the best ways is to cheat by blending vegetables into a fine sauce that can go with pasta. It is a big battle, but this is one of the best ways to get over the hurdle. You can always add vegetables into dishes that are already firm family favorites, such as tacos or spaghetti. A spaghetti bolognese with a pasta sauce made from a variety of vegetables but still tastes like tomato sauce is a very easy way to get more healthiness into your children’s lives.

Think About the Experience for the Kids

If your children just come to the dinner table and don’t like to look at the food, they aren’t going to appreciate it, so your children could help prepare it. If your children are more involved, they are more willing to sample their creations. When you prepare meals for your kids, they are not going to have that same appreciation.

Keep Trying to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

While you may think family mealtimes struggle when your kids don’t eat any vegetables, and this can greatly override any sense of enjoyment, you must remember that it is not a short battle but can be a long war. Even if your kids are not eating vegetables now, you may worry about it, however, if they are healthier in other parts of their lives, you’ve got to look at it in the grand scheme of things.

Categories
Recipes

Sweet Maple Green Beans

Sweet Maple Green Beans

If you’re being good and eating your green beans, you may as well make a treat of them. These beans, sautéed in butter and maple syrup, are tender, sweet, and delicious.

Sweet Maple Green Beans

green beans
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Sweet Maple Green Beans

Green beans sautéed in butter and maple syrup.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword green beans, side dish, vegetables
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Servings 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 cups green beans
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 3 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

  • Steam green beans until softened, about 15-20 minutes.
  • In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter.
  • Add the maple syrup and green beans. Saute for a few minutes.
  • Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Need help with steaming green beans to softness? Check out these tips from The Spruce Eats.

Why do I recommend pure maple syrup? Read my post on the topic.

Creative Cooking Tips Banner

This recipe is really a proof of concept that empowers you to play around with different flavors to come up with different but similar recipes. Here are some ideas:

Tangy Molasses Green Beans: Instead of maple syrup, sautee with molasses. Molasses is less sweet and will give the beans a slightly more earthy or bitter taste.

Sweet Honey Green Beans: Instead of maple syrup, use honey. There is a wide variety of honey flavors, so you can even experiment within the honey palate!

Glazed Green Beans: Instead of maple syrup, use a combination of brown sugar and your choice of white wine, red wine, sherry, brandy, or even water. Heat together until it forms a syrup and then proceed with the recipe as normal.

If you’re not satisfied with salt and pepper to taste, there are other herbs, spices, and even some sauces, you can mix and match with your syrups. Here are some ideas:

  • yellow mustard
  • lemon pepper
  • garlic salt
  • garlic powder
  • onion powder
  • basil
  • pesto sauce
  • lemon zest

Also, if you wish to go completely off the rails, you can toss the maple syrup and butter out completely and use a touch of soy sauce and olive oil. Toss in some sesame seeds, and you have an Asian-inspired green bean dish.

Still not happy? Use honey instead of maple syrup, and curry powder instead of salt and pepper. Now you have curried green beans!

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This recipe was originally posted in 2015 and was updated in 2021.

Categories
Creative Cookery

Rainbow Fruit and Veggie Plate Ideas

Rainbow Fruit and Veggie Plate Ideas

As the days get warmer, more and more wonderful fruits and vegetables become available. Since June is National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month, I decided to share some creative veggie plate ideas. Whether you are creating one for a gather or just the family, making your display beautiful is always a good idea and makes the food look even tastier!

Rainbow Fruit and Veggie Plate Ideas

Everyone knows the traditional veggie plate: Cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and tomatoes arranged around a bowl of ranch dressing. But when you unleash your kitchen creativity, you can come up with a variety of veggie plate ideas that put that one to shame. In this post, I suggest you add a little fun to your fruit and veggie plate by turning it into a rainbow.

There are so many possibilities for putting this plate together and whether you are completely authentic and do all 7 colors of the rainbow or just 5 or 6, it’s completely up to you. Here are some ideas to get you started:

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Red

  • Strawberries
  • Red peppers
  • Radishes
  • Red skinned apple slices
  • Huckleberries
  • Raspberries
  • Rhubarb
  • Tomatoes
  • Watermelon

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[one_half_last] red veggie plate ideas [/one_half_last]

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Orange

  • Carrots
  • Orange pepper
  • Oranges
  • Cantaloupe
  • Squash
  • Peaches
  • Papaya
  • Apricots

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[one_half_last] orange veggie plate ideas [/one_half_last]

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Yellow

  • Yellow tomatoes
  • Yellow watermelon
  • Yellow peppers
  • Yellow-skinned apples
  • Baby corn
  • Pineapple

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[one_half_last] yellow veggie plate ideas [/one_half_last]

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Green

  • Celery
  • Green pepper
  • Avocado
  • Green-skinned apples
  • Peas
  • Honeydew mellon
  • Kiwi
  • Broccoli
  • Zucchini

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[one_half_last] green veggie plate ideas [/one_half_last]

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Blue / Indigo / Violet

  • Blackberries
  • Blueberries
  • Black currants
  • Plums
  • Purple grapes
  • Egg plant

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[one_half_last] Blue / Indigo / Violet veggie plate ideas [/one_half_last]

Arranging Your Veggie Plate Ideas

When going with a rainbow theme, the obvious arrangement would be an arch. But you don’t have to be obvious. You can arrange your platter in a wide variety of ways, depending on the platters you have available.

You could do concentric circles, or have the various colors arrayed as if they were rays terminating from the dipping bowl in the center. You could even give each ingredient its own serving bowl or platter and arrange them either straight across your table or in an arch pattern, again with he dipping bowl in the center. Get creative with the space and platters you have.

Categories
Healthy Living

Answers to Questions About Plant-based Eating

Answers to Questions About Plant-based Eating

Having a diet rich in plant-based sources is becoming increasingly common, especially with younger generations driving the conversation around sustainability. In this post, James Collier, co-Founder and Head of Nutrition at Huel, a nutrition company offering a variety of plant-based powders and ready-to-drink beverages, answers some common questions about plant-based eating.

Answers to Questions About Plant-based Eating

What is plant-based eating?

A plant-based diet is a diet that consists mainly of foods from plants. Such foods include fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. Meat intake is minimal if any.

There are many reasons why people eat a plant-based diet including environmental, ethical and health concerns. I am not suggesting to eliminate meat from a person’s diet completely, however, reducing meat and animal food consumption is one of the quickest and simple ways an individual can reduce their carbon footprint.

What foods should we eat to achieve daily recommended nutrients, vitamins, minerals on a plant-based diet?

There are some easy ways to ensure, with a plant-based diet, you can get the recommended amounts of all nutrients:

Eat the rainbow.
As different color foods usually contain different levels of nutrients, it’s important to eat a variety. For example, the phytonutrient, lycopene which is an antioxidant that protects against cell damage and gives tomatoes its red color. While carotenoids, another group of antioxidants, give fruits and vegetables orange and yellow colors, such as carrots.

Get enough Vitamin B12.
Vitamin B12, which plays a vital role in helping the body produce red blood cells can usually be perceived as tricky to get enough of with a plant-based diet. The good news is, it’s really not. As a start, try incorporating plant-based milks that are that are fortified with B12, and calcium and vitamin D. Cereals, meat alternatives and some soy products are often fortified with B12 too. Taking a B12 supplement also rids any concerns.

Ensure adequate omega-3 consumption.
If oily fish is not part of your eating plan, then foods such as walnuts, soy and flaxseed are ways to ensure adequate omega 3 consumption. Flaxseed is one of Huel’s six main ingredients and contains the omega-3 essential fatty acid ALA. Omega-3 fats are generally low in a Western diet and adequate omega-3 consumption is important to support cardiovascular health.

Keep your iron up.
Iron is not just found in meat food sources. Dark leafy greens, nuts and dried fruits are great sources of iron. Iron is crucial for oxygen transport, cognitive function and the immune system. Iron from plant sources can be harder to absorb, but again, there’s no need to worry. Iron absorption can also be increased by the presence of vitamin C which is found in lots of fruits and vegetables such as oranges and peppers. It’s where the idea of having orange juice with breakfast comes from — to increase the iron that is added to cereals.

How do you transition to plant-based eating?

Whether your motivation to increase plant-based foods to your eating plan is to improve your health or environmental footprint, incorporating higher amounts of plant-based foods can be achievable.

Make small changes over time.
Start by eating one plant-based meal a day. This will be easier to stick with rather than making large, unsustainable changes overnight.

Make some easy fridge swaps.
A good place to start is by swapping dairy milk with almond or oat milk such as Oatly. The rapidly growing plant-based meat industry lead by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods is also providing shoppers with plenty of options.

Change your mindset.
Instead of thinking, “I can’t eat meat,” think about all the wonderful things you can eat and how beneficial these are for your health (and the planet). Stop focussing on meat as the hero on your plate and rather, build your plate with new and nutritious food choices.

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About the Guest Expert

James Collier, BscJames Collier is a Registered Nutritionist with 20 years of experience with the national health service in the UK. James is a renowned nutrition expert with over 25 years working in nutrition and dietetics. His experience also includes working in the NHS (UK) as a clinical dietitian covering an array of clinical areas.

He is also the co-founder of Huel, which has the mission of making nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food, with minimum impact on animals and the environment. With this in mind, Huel’s products are 100% vegan.

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[one_third] Healthy Eating Worksheet [/one_third]
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Take Charge of Your Health!

Changing your eating habits can be tough. But it doesn’t have to be if you take a little time to think it out and create a plan.

This Healthy Eating Worksheet will walk you through the process of creating a healthy eating plan. All you need to do is print it out, set aside some time to complete it, and then fill it out. Then you can create your plan, knowing that you have addressed potential obstacles and came up with some creative ways to handle them.

Download Now [/two_third_last]

Categories
Recipes

Traditional Baked Acorn Squash

Baked Acorn Squash
Photo by Amber DeGrace, via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence
Baked Acorn Squash
Photo by
Amber DeGrace, via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence

Ingredients:

  • 1 acorn squash
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
  2. Cut squash in half from stem to tip. Scoop the seeds and stringy pulp out of the cavities and discard. The insides of the halves should now be smooth. Score the insides in a cross-hatch pattern, with about a half-inch deep cuts.
  3. Place the squash halves cut side up in a roasting pan. Add about 1/4-inch of water over the bottom of the pan. This will help prevent the squash from burning or getting dried out while baking.
  4. Using one tablespoon of butter per half, run the insides to coat. Leave the remaining butter in the halves to melt during cooking.
  5. Crumble a tablespoon of brown sugar into the center of each half.
  6. Bake between an hour and an hour 15 minutes. The tops of the squash halves should be nicely browned, and the flesh should be very soft and cooked through. Remove from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before serving.

Tip: If you are using unsalted butter, sprinkle with a little salt after rubbing with butter.

 
Recipe Inspired by: My mom, Classic Baked Acorn Squash and Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter.

Categories
Recipes

Oven-Baked Summer Squash Fries

squash fries

squash fries

A summer squash has a strong resemblance, in flavor and texture, to a zucchini. You can, in fact, substitute zucchini in this recipe, but it will probably bake a bit more quickly.

Ingrediets:

  • 1 medium summer squash
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ cups breadcrumbs (try panko breadcrumbs for a crunchier texture)
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon mustard power
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400° F. Grease a large baking sheet with olive oil and set aside.
  2. Cut your summer squash into wedges. Remove the seeds if they are quite large and set wedges aside.
  3. Whisk the eggs in a dish and set aside.
  4. In another dish, combine the breadcrumbs, paprika, mustard powder and salt and pepper.
  5. Start by dipping the wedges, one by one, into the egg mixture and then the breadcrumb mixture. Place each wedge on the greased baking sheet. Continue until all the wedges are done.
  6. You can bake the wedges as is for about 30-40 minutes (until soft inside and golden brown on the outside), but if you want a more golden texture, drizzle or spray some olive oil on top of the wedges. Flip halfway through baking.
  7. Serve with ranch or another favorite dip.
Categories
Recipes

Simple Grilled Fennel

Fennel has a very distinct licorice flavor and when it’s grilled becomes a tender, melt-in-your-mouth experience you don’t want to miss.

Ingredients:

  • Fennel
  • Olive oil
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Directions:

  1. Trim the tops off the fennel. The stringy parts can be used as an herb in your cooking, but aren’t needed for this recipe. You can even use the stalks in place of celery in some recipes, but realize they’ll have a much stronger flavor than celery.
  2. Trim the bottom of the bulb and then cut the remaining bulb lengthwise into quarters. Rub with olive oil, salt and pepper.
  3. Place on grill at medium heat to sear the fennel. Move to indirect heat, with the cut side up, and cook covered for about 45 minutes or until fennel is very soft. You can tell when it’s done by texture, rather than time. You definitely want to make sure it’s tender.

grilled-fennel-2-fix

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