Basic Recipes

Half the battle of serving vegetables is knowing how to cook them. As I stated in my profile, I work full time. I normally get home at 5:45 (or sometimes a little later). I like to have dinner on the table by 6:30. So that doesn’t leave a lot of time. Most of my recipes can be made in 20 minutes or less. It helps if you wash the vegetables the night before (but I know that doesn’t always happen). So here are some of my stand-bys for a quick vegetable.


Brussels Sprouts

Trim brown leaves (kids can help pull these off) from brussels sprouts and cut an “X” in the stem of each sprout. If the sprouts are large, cut them in half or quarters. Steam for 8-10 minutes. Do not over-steam. The sprouts will become bitter. Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a pan. Sauté sprouts for 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Kale with soy and sesame

Tear leaves of kale (little helper alert) from the thick stem. Steam for 7-10 minutes. Kale should still be bright green. Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil in a sauté pan. Toss kale in sauté pan for a minute. Add a tablespoon of soy sauce and sesame seeds to Kale. Serve warm.

Kale Chips

Tear leaves of kale from the think stem. Toss kale with a tablespoon of sesame oil and soy sauce. Lay flat on a cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. Chips can also be dehydrated.

Swiss Chard

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a skillet. Sauté ½ onion until it starts to caramelize (about 15 minutes). Add 1 clove of garlic minced and sauté for a minute. Chop swiss chard including stems into bite size pieces and add to skillet in batches. After the chard is slightly wilted, stir in the juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/3 cup of raisins, and ¼ cup pine nuts.

Don’t overcook the veggies!! You’ll kill them.

I’m not talking about your kids, but about the vegetable’s taste and nutrition. I’m not a raw foodist, but I definitely see their point. The more heat applied to a vegetable, the more nutrients that are lost. Also, overcooked vegetables taste like poop – excuse the language.
If you can serve the vegetable raw, that will provide the most nutrition to your child. And even if you don’t like the vegetable raw, your kids may. See my earlier post about my son eating kale and bok choy raw.

If you are going to cook the vegetable, pay attention to it. There are so many times that I get involved with taking care of some argument among the kids or cooking the other parts of the meals, that I forget about the vegetable. I open the lid to the pan and it’s a dark green pile of mush. Shoot! Those are the nights that we have raw dinosaur leaves as our vegetable.

I find that most vegetables only take a few minutes to cook. I always tell my husband, who usually takes care of the meat dish, to give me a 10 minute warning when the meal will be ready. Most vegetables do not take more than that. For instance, I will steam kale for about 10 minutes and then do a quick sauté in sesame oil and a little soy sauce. We steam broccoli for about 5 minutes and it comes out a beautiful green with a little crunch to it. Yum!

Whatever vegetable you are cooking should still be a bright color after it cooks (bright green, orange, red, etc.). If it has started to lose its color, it has probably started to lose its nutrients, too.