Sometimes, I crave for a crunchy fresh salad though most of time I like my vegetables cooked.
I get tired of eating the salads (my signature style) that I make. I have many salad recipes but I wind up making almost the same flavor every time. Plus, there are tons of calories in salad dressing which I'd rather stay away from. It uses lots of oil to create the creamy texture.
A little bit of oil is very essential when you are on diet, but not a lot...
A good reason why cooked vegetables are better or easier to eat.... since vegetables contains lots of water, when we cook them, they shrink. A bag of baby spinach can shrink to almost a handful! By using very small amounts of butter or olive oil on a heated frying pan and add pre-washed baby spinach, stir and cook for a couple of minutes, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and taste. That's pretty much all we do. Sometimes I add mushrooms and a mixture of whisked eggs and a bit of heavy cream and seasoning... to turn it into scramble eggs.
My favorite way of eating vegetables are oven roasted or grilled vegetables. I use a Panini maker for grilling vegetable, sometimes too.
I like oven roasting asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, colored peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions, zucchini, etc. My sons really like them as well. Yes, my 6 and 8years old boys love vegetable! Expect egg plant though... ;)
I use a touch of olive oil and salt & pepper before roasting or grilling vegetables. I like them as they comes up, but sometimes I dress them with a little bit of crushed garlic and white balsamic vinegar and some chopped herbs.
Left over grilled or roasted vegetable soup is even better. I believe it's an Ina Garden's recipe. Cook vegetables in chicken broth, until they are heated, then puree the vegetables in the soup. Add heavy cream at last. Sometimes, when I don't have left over roasted vegetables, I then cook chopped zucchini, cabbage, onions, carrots, mushrooms and/or potatoes in chicken broth until it gets tender, then purée the cooked vegetables in the soup.
Kale chips were a big hit on our family, too. I'm not a big fan of traditionally cooked kale, but these chips were amazing! Just don't try to store them, they take on moisture and get soggy.
I like vegetable in my cakes, too. I love carrot cakes, and I discovered zucchini muffins are also good.
I use
Williams-Sonoma's recipe and give it my own twist. I like cranberry, rather than dried cherry or raisins. Since it uses orange marmalade, cranberry goes so well. Orange and cranberry are like butter and bread... I use a half cup of wheat flour, instead of making it with all all-purpose flour. I reduce amount of sugar by half and use light brown sugar. It still gives it enough sweetness and the flavor of light brown sugar really compliments the other ingredients.
One main reason why I like cooking and baking is because I can twist the original recipe to fit our taste or make it to a healthier version.
This is the soup I made from grilled vegetable.
Cook grilled vegetable in chicken broth then puree it in the soup like this...
This is even before pureeing...
