Category Archives: Vegetables & Salads

Light and Delicious Springtime Coleslaw

Spring has so many foods to offer after a long, cold winter and a slaw is a great way to combine some of the flavors together. I wanted something green and a bit fruity to go with my Corned Beef Quesadillas, so got inspired to mix these flavors together. The recipe has now moved to my favorite collection.

Springtime Coleslaw

1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/2 tablespoons Sugar Substitute
1/2 tablespoon Brown Sugar Substitute
1/2 teaspoon ground Ginger
1/4 cup chopped Pecans
1/2 cup Brussels Sprouts, finely shredded
3 stalks Asparagus, chopped
1/4 cup crushed fresh Pineapple
1/2 (16 ounce) package shredded Cabbage
2 tablespoons Heavy Cream

I let my little food processor do most of the work on this. If you can buy the shredded Brussels sprouts, just add them to the processor and pulse it a few times to get finely chopped. Buy planks or cubes of fresh pineapple and let the processor turn them into crushed pineapple. Clean and cut the asparagus stalks and pulse them in the chopped until you have a nice chop. Easy.

In a large bowl, mix mayonnaise, sugars, ginger, asparagus, nuts, pineapple and cream. Toss coleslaw mix and Brussels sprouts with dressing to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Chill at least 1 hour before serving.

Makes 6 servings

Nutrition Info:
Calories: 190 Fat: 18.8 g Net Carbs: 3.5 g Protein: 1.5 g

Posted on 3/14/2014 12:36 PM

Cabbage and Spinach Vegetable Stir Fry

Once I discovered stir-fry, it quickly moved to my favorite way to cook vegetables. This particular mix combines fresh cabbage, baby spinach, broccoli, and celery to make a wonderfully delicious vegetable side dish. Don’t like spinach? Use kale instead. Not crazy about cabbage? Then substitute with bok choy or shaved Brussels sprouts.

Cabbage and Spinach Vegetable Stir Fry

1 cup sliced Cabbage, fresh
1 cup Baby Spinach, fresh
1/2 cup Broccoli, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1 stalk Celery, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 tablespoon Better Than Bullion Chicken or Vegetable paste
1 tablespoon Olive Oil or Coconut Oil

In a small pan, bring about 1 cup of water to a boil and parboil the cut broccoli for about 5 minutes. This gives the vegetable a deep green color and cooks it enough that it is more tender in the stir fry. If you prefer crunchy broccoli, then omit this step.

To 1/2 cup of hot water, add the chicken bullion and mix well.

Heat oil in a deep skillet, like a wok skillet, and add the garlic and celery. Stir fry until the celery is just tender. Add the cabbage and broccoli, stir and cook about five minutes, then add bullion and stir into the mix for a few minutes. Add the spinach and stir in, cooking until the spinach begins to wilt.

Makes 2 large servings or 3 smaller ones.

Nutrition Info for 1 serving (2 servings sized):
Calories: 57.2 Fat: 2.9 Net Carbs: 4.4 g Protein: 2.7
Posted on  2/20/2014 5:13 PM

Quick Roasted Turnips and Kohlrabi

I may be one of the few people who really finds the taste of turnips to be pretty darn good. As a substitute for potatoes, most people probably wouldn’t think it works too well, but as a really good vegetable with similar taste and a lot fewer carbohydrates, I think it’s a good choice. If you combine it with kohlrabi, it’s even better. You can also use celery root in this roast and it makes a great combination of similar flavors and textures. They roast very well and the seasoning I used is simply a half a packet of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix with Olive Oil.

Roasted Turnips and Kohlrabi

1 1/2 cups Kohlrabi (about 2 medium or 4 small)
1 1/2 cups Turnips (about 2 medium)
1/2 package Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix or any other onion soup mix
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Sugar Substitute

Begin preheating oven to 425 degrees (F.)

Peel the turnips and kohlrabi and cut into about 3/4″ cubes. Bring a pan of water with enough water to cover the vegetables to a boil. Add the vegetables and sugar substitute and boil for about 8 to 10 minutes until the vegetables are just fork tender.

Drain the vegetables well, getting as much water off as possible and spread on a paper towel and blot to remove more. In a roasting pan or cake pan, spread the vegetables into one layer and sprinkle the soup mix over the top. Drizzle the oil over the mix and use a spoon to mix it together well so that all the pieces of vegetables have oil and mix on them. Spread them back to a single layer and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. Stir them around mid-way through, flipping them over if needed. Check at 20 minutes to make sure they are fork tender and lightly browned. If not, give them another 5 or 10 minutes until they are done.

Serves 4.

Nutrition Info per serving:
Calories: 49.5 Fat: .2 g Net Carbs: 5.9 g Protein: 1.7 g

Posted on 2/20/2014 4:35 PM

Celeraic: Bargain Shopping & Root Fries

I only discovered the marvelous taste of Celery Root (Celeraic) in the past year and I wish I had known about it longer. It looks sort of like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown comic strip and like Pigpen, it does clean up nicely. Like many, I just looked at this dirty, gnarly vegetable at the market and moved on until one fateful day I decided to experiment. My first taste test was to fry a little piece and to my surprise and delight, it had a wonderful taste, a little of the celery taste to it, but a similar taste to potatoes and the texture was like a potato french fry! This is a rare thing when making root fries. The texture varies quite a bit from turnip to daikon to jicama with each making a serviceable fry, but not having that creaminess of a potato fry. Let me say here that if you don’t like the taste of celery, then stop reading now.

Of course, the celery root is also a versatile root and can be used raw or cooked in many ways, so it’s a good thing to have in the pantry, or the root cellar. And speaking of that, I need to figure out a way to do a root cellar. I may have to designate a section of my storage unit or possibly under the house for a tub of dirt that root vegetables can snuggle in. But that’s another story. What I’m talking about now is bargain shopping for some vegetables. I noticed that the price of celery root didn’t vary throughout the months at my local grocery stores, which may sound like a good thing, except they sell the vegetable by the unit, not the weight. In the early winter and fall, the celery roots are big and heavy. In the spring and summer, they are small so it is quite a bit higher to get enough celery root for a whole dish. What would cost $2.69 in the winter to make can cost over $10 in the summer.

I was excited when I saw the bigger celery roots in the store and immediately snatched up a couple. Then the roots were even bigger, so I snatched up two more. And so on. Now I have about six celery roots in the kitchen that are really big. These bad boys are about 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide. My ‘fridge doesn’t hold ’em. So what to do? Something that I needed to address as the tops of the roots were starting to get a bit soft. I decided to freeze them. My first stop was to search the Internet for freezing information and then it was to work.

Celery root does freeze well so long as you prepare them properly or cook them into the dish of choice and freeze that. Preparing them for future use seemed the best route. The biggest celery root in the photo at the top is just under 2 pounds and yielded three bags of frozen cubes.

Cleaning and peeling

First, you need to wash the celery root off, using a scrub brush or plastic scrubber to get as much of the dirt off the root as possible. Then cut the top and bottom off.If your root is huge, you might want to try to work around the knobs of root to clean them out on the bottom. Otherwise, just slice them off.

Cut off the skin using a sharp peeling knife.  If you have big knobs, it might be easier to cut the knobs off and peel them separately rather than to try to peel around them.   Put all the cuttings in your compost tub if you have one. I usually just bag mine and take them out to the compost bin.

Cut to size for use

When you’re done, you have a large, creamy white vegetable that just needs to be cut into smaller sections, cubes, planks or shreds, depending on how you want to use them. I cut most of my first one into cubes. Meanwhile put a pot of water on to boil. When you’ve got your cubes, drop them in the boiling water for four minutes to parboil.

Remove them to a colander after four minutes and let them drain well and run cold water over them to stop the cooking. Then spread them on a double layer of paper towels to dry.

Bag and freeze

When they are completely dry, put the prepared vegetables in plastic freezer bags in recipe sizes, pushing out as much of the air as possible. One suggestion was to put plastic wrap over the top of the vegetable, then roll the bag to get the air out and quickly seal. If you have one of the sealing units, it’s easy to do this and gives you an airtight seal.

Next, label with item and date, then just pop them in the freezer to let them freeze.  Defrost when you’re wanting to use them and you can take advantage of the bargain price when the roots are big and still have some come summer. They will keep about six months, so do the roots for late spring and summer in February or March. I think this technique will work with any root vegetables as well as the winter squash, although I can get those fresh at the market pretty much year round at reasonable prices.

Root Vegetable Fries

If you look at this plate of French fries, you wouldn’t know that they weren’t made from potatoes. In fact this combination fry plate is celery root, daikon radish and jicama. The jicama is shorter and darker when cooked and also stays crisper. The jicama is very neutral in flavor, so it will taste most like the seasonings. Daikon has a slight peppery taste and is a dry texture when cooked. The celery root has a celery flavor, tasting like fries with celery salt on them, and the creamy, potato-like texture.

1 1/2 cups Celery root, cleaned and peeled
1 cup jicama
3 1/2 inches daikon
1/2 cup Canola oil for frying
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt

Prepare root vegetables by cleaning and peeling. Cut into 1/2″ wide x 1/4 inch thick planks. The length will vary by the size of the vegetables. Put a pan of water on the stove to boil while you are cutting the vegetables. Add the vegetables to the boiling water and let boil for 5 minutes. Remove vegetables to a colander to drain. Let them dry for about 10 minutes, then spread on a paper towel and dry as much as possible. (If you’re using frozen ones as prepared in the instructions above, this step is already done.)

In a heavy 8″ skillet, pour the oil in and heat it to a fry point. (A small piece of vegetable will sizzle when you add it.) Use a smaller skillet so you don’t need to put in as much oil as you would with a larger one. You need about 1/2 inch of oil in the skillet. Only a tablespoon or two actually remains on the food when you drain it. Add the vegetables to the oil and cook about 3 to 4 minutes per side until they are just golden fries. Remove to a double layer of paper towels on a plate to drain and dry out. Cook the next batch and do the same thing.

Let the fries cool down for a few minutes. When the fries are cool to the touch, you can pop them into a baggie and put that in the ‘fridge or the freezer, squeezing the excess air out, for use later.

When the fries have cooled and dried a bit or when you’ve gotten them out of the freezer or ‘fridge to finish, then reheat the oil to the fry point, then add the fries, a group at a time, back to the oil and cook for a few more minutes on each side until they are golden brown. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with seasoning salt. Repeat with the next group, until all are done.

This will give you nice, crisp fries that are absolutely delicious and fairly low in carbs. Each serving is about 6.7 net carbs as opposed to about 14 net carbs for potato fries. Makes four servings.

Nutrition Info per serving:
Calories: 103.4 Fat: 7 g Net Carbs: 6.7 g Protein: 1.2 g

Posted on 10/23/2013

Eat Your Greens!

How many of us heard those word when we were growing up? For some, it may have meant salad greens, but for anyone from the south, it would also include the leaves of various plants that were generally boiled with bacon and served. In my house, it was over-boiled, bless my grandmother who insured everything was fully cooked, and therefore, on the slimy side. It’s taken many years to get past this assessment of greens and some other vegetables.

Greens are very good for you and they provide a strong wallop of vitamin A, around 90% of the recommended amount and also about 54% of vitamin C. And to my surprise, they can taste delicious when not over-cooked. My go-to method for most vegetables is stir-fry or saute’. The quick cook with a small amount of oil ensures that the leaves are just done enough without draining the flavor.

This is the basic recipe for a mixture of greens and a few variations to give you some ideas of the flexibility of the recipe. Being greens, they are also blissfully low calorie and low-carb. Try some soon. You may also be surprised as how good these are.

If you buy fresh celery root with the stalks and greens still on it, clean the stalks and leaves and separate them for cooking and seasoning. The taste is stronger than regular celery so a little goes a long way and brings a slightly sweeter celery taste to foods. This recipe is great with both the leaves and stalks. Use about 1/2 cup of the chopped stalks.

The greens in the recipe are flexible and you can use equivalent amounts of the ones available. If you can’t find turnip greens, use twice as much of one of the other greens or substitute in a different one.

If you want this to be vegetarian, omit the bacon and substitute in a soy-protein alternative, if you wish, or just eat without it.

Basic Greens with Bacon

1 cup Turnip Greens, cleaned and trimmed
1 cup Beet greens, cleaned and trimmed
1 cup Mustard greens, fresh, cleaned and trimmed
1 cup Swiss Chard, cleaned and trimmed
1 stalk Celery, large (11″-12″ long), cleaned and chopped
1 cup Spinach, fresh, torn into pieces
1/4 cup Celery root (celeraic) leaves, cleaned and trimmed
(optional)
1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Italian Seasonings (oregano, rosemary, thyme mix)
4 slices Bacon, thick sliced, cooked and broken into pieces
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1 to 2 tablespoons White Vinegar or Red Wine Vinegar

Clean and trim all the greens. Just basically remove the stems and cut or tear into smaller pieces. Dry them on a stack of paper towels or let them sit in a colander for about 30 minutes. You can prepare more greens than you plan to use, then store them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

Cook the bacon (I prefer the baked in the oven method), let it cool, then cut or break into pieces.

Heat a deep skillet or wok style skillet with one tablespoon olive oil. Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute before adding most of the greens. Don’t add the spinach until last as it cooks very quickly. Add the celery at this time also as it will take a little longer to cook.

Raw greens in the deep skillet.
See the brighter color in the cooked greens on the right.

Cook and stir the greens until they begin to get wilted and are a deeper color. Add the bacon and mix it in well. Then add the spinach. Cook and stir it in until the spinach wilts. Add the vinegar and turn off the heat. Serve. Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition Info:
Calories: 88.2 Fat: 6.7 g Net Carbs: 2.1 g Protein: 3.5 g

 
Variations:

Greens with Turnips

Add 1 cup Turnips, cubed and cooked (boil or microwave) until fork tender.

Clean, peel and chop one or two medium turnips to make 1 cup cubed. Put into a bowl, no added water, cover and steam in the microwave for 2 to 3 minutes until they are fork tender. Or you can put them in about 1/2 cup of water in a small pan and boil them until they are fork tender on medium heat. Make sure they don’t run out of water.

Cook the greens as above. Add the turnips when you add the bacon.

Calories: 97.3 Fat: 6.7 g Net Carbs: 3.6 g Protein: 3.7 g

Greens with Brussels Sprouts

Add 1 cup shaved Brussels Sprouts with the initial group of greens. They will take a little longer to cook. Can’t find shaved Brussels Sprouts? Buy regular ones and chop them into smaller pieces or put them through the shredder of your food processor.

Calories: 102.4 Fat: 6.8 g Net Carbs: 3.8 g Protein: 4.6 g

Super Greens with Daikon and Mushrooms (Pictured)

Add 1 cup Daikon Radish, Cubed and cooked (microwave)
1 cup shaved Brussels Sprouts
1/2 cup bok choy, cleaned and chopped
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

Peel about 6 inches (assuming about 2 1/2 inches in diameter) of daikon. Cut into cubes and measure one cup. Put in a microwave safe bowl, no added water, cover and steam in the microwave for 2 to 3 minutes until they are fork tender. Or you can put them in about 1/2 cup of water in a small pan and boil them until they are fork tender on medium heat. Make sure they don’t run out of water.

 

Cook the greens as above. Add the bok choy when you start the greens. Add the daikon and mushrooms when you add the bacon.

Makes 6 servings
Calories: 79.6 Fat: 5.7 g Net Carbs: 2.5 g Protein: 3.3 g

Posted on 10/10/2013