How to Eat More Vegetables

Eating more vegetables can seem difficult, inconvenient and confusing if vegetables aren't already a regular part of your diet. Parsing the nutritional information on canned and frozen vegetables is often confusing or disheartening. The fresh produce section of the grocery store often looks beautiful but lacks in taste. Maybe some vegetables just carry unpleasant childhood memories of mushy side dishes and sitting at the dinner table until that plate of peas or carrots disappeared.

Starting in small and simple ways will help you figure out what you enjoy and avoid becoming quickly overwhelmed. An easy way to begin eating more vegetables is to add them to things you already enjoy eating. Add some vegetables to your sandwich, your taco or scrambled eggs. Put something new into your salad. Chop up a vegetable and mix it into your pasta sauce. Mix some salsa or chopped vegetables into that cheese or ranch dip. Some vegetables that are easy to add into meals are salad greens, onions, bell peppers, radishes, celery and carrots. These vegetables don't require cooking. Raw vegetables can add crisp or crunchy textures to your meals as well as flavor.

Experiment with different vegetables. Taste the vegetables raw and cooked. Purchase small quantities and try different cooking methods to determine what tastes good. Cooking vegetables may appear intimidating for many reasons. But cooking vegetables often requires relatively simple preparation and simple ingredients like salt, oil and vinegar. Roasting an easy way to bring out the flavors of vegetables, from asparagus to potatoes to zucchini. One of the keys to making tasty vegetable dishes at home is to cut the vegetables into similarly sized pieces. This promotes even cooking, so everything finishes at the same time.

The best thing about cooking vegetables may be in the scraps. All those potato peels, leftover stalks, onion skins and carrot tops can go into a large freezer bag together. These vegetable scraps pair up with any vegetables that may have lingered overly long in the crisper drawer as the basics of a vegetable broth. Almost any vegetable can be used for broth, from mushrooms to fennel to squashes. The only vegetable to avoid for broth is cabbage, which can smell a bit sulfurous. Dump your vegetable scraps into a pot and add just enough water to cover them. Bring the water up to a simmer and add a sprinkle of salt. Simmer the pot for forty five minutes to an hour, then strain out the vegetable chunks. Use vegetable broth in place of water for soup, sauces, or rice to add flavor and nutrients. Not only is is cheap and easy, homemade vegetable broth will have much less sodium than commercially produced broths. The broth can be frozen in ice cube trays or other containers for later use.

Even one vegetable a day is better than none. Work up from small changes. Try different vegetables and preparations to determine what tastes best and suits your individual needs. Vegetables don't have to be hard. They don't have to be mushy, either. They can actually be tasty. Both fresh and frozen vegetables are easy to incorporate into your routine.

Roasted Red Potatoes

2 pounds of small red potatoes
1/4 cup Olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dried rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover a sheet pan with foil or use nonstick cooking spray.

Rinse potatoes and cut into quarters. Place cut potatoes in a bowl with olive oil and rosemary. Mix potato pieces until covered lightly with oil.

Spread the pieces in the sheet pan. Sprinkle salt over the potatoes. Roast potatoes in the oven for approximately 35 to 40 minutes, until potatoes are brown and crispy.