A Chart of Vegetables, Grilled Vegetables, and Veggie Shreds

Here's a chart of vegetables, how to make veggie shreds, and other intimidating topics along with a list of veggies to jog your memory.

Highlights of the Veggie Chart

I particularly suggest to see the item about how to cook artichokes (and more importantly - how to eat them!).

Another exceptionally versatile veggie preparation is the roasted bell pepper. These little beauties can be stuffed with almost anything, or sliced to add color and flavor to a pale pasta dish.

Vegetable A Chart of Vegetables - The Easiest Recipes.

Artichoke (whole) Puzzled about how to cook artichokes? Cut the bottom so it can stand up, wrap in microwave-safe film, nuke it for 6 minutes, open it like a flower, serve with Hollandaise. To eat, hold the pointy end and scrape the flesh of the artichoke with your teeth.

Asparagus Bend until the weak spot snaps off at the fibrous part (usually the bottom 1.5"), steam in a bamboo steamer just until it goes from bright green to just shy of that awful "khaki green." Taste one. If it's tender, rinse with ice cold water to stop the cooking process. Dress with a Hollandaise sauce or cheese sauce, or possibly, Italian dressing or even the marinade for grilled vegetables - later.

Bamboo Shoot Open can. Drain can. Throw in a stir-fry.

Beets This recipe from Carolmae K.: "I've made a delicious roasted root vegetable dish which includes beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, rutabaga and onions. Yum! To prepare, wash and scrub the veggies well with a vegetable brush. Slice them in rounds about 3/4 of an inch thick. Place them in single layer on cookie sheets. Drizzle olive oil with herbs d' province, and/or your favorite herbs, over them. Toss to coat. Roast them in 350 degree oven until tender about 40 minutes. Enjoy!"

Bell pepper Ah, so many ways to use these! Here's one. Pre-heat oven to 450 with a pizza stone in it. Put about six of the red ones, whole, in there on top of the pizza stone. Let them get scorched - start checking after twenty minutes. Pull them out and seal them up in a brown paper bag to sweat and cool down like a guy at the sauna about half an hour - you don't want to burn your fingers. Run under tap water, rubbing off every bit of the scorched part, using a paring knife if you need to, REMOVE THE SEEDS INSIDE -bitter stuff, those. You can put these in almost any pasta dish to great advantage.

Bok choy Cut off the bottom and chop into one inch segments. NOW put them in to clean in a large bowl of water and swish them around. The soil they grew in is trapped between the tight leaves but will settle to the bottom of the bowl. Pull them out with your hands or a slotted spoon. Add to your stir-fry.

Broccoli Cut off the bottom 4 inches or so. Trim the rest until they look like little 2 inch trees. Steam in your bamboo wok - water's ok - hide them from the kids under a cheese sauce.

Brussels sprouts Preheat your oven to 425°. Place the brussels sprouts on a cookie sheet, rub olive oil all over them, roast about 20 minutes, remove. Now the important part - remove those exterior to or three leaves, which are chewy, S&P.

Cabbage Cut in half. Remove that bottom stem with a paring knife from both halves. Put it flat on your cutting board. Slice into lovely cabbage veggie shreds. Stir-fry with a little olive oil and garlic. It makes a nice substitute for rice if you're avoiding carbs.

Carrot Scrape. Cut off ends. Slice in half lengthwise. Layer under a nice chuck roast next to some celery similarly cut. When the meat's done, the carrots will have golden brown edges and they will have soaked up yummy meat juices. Click here for more carrot recipes for carrot haters.

Cauliflower My favorite low-carb tip here - run one whole cauliflower through the grater disk in your food processor. Looks like rice, doesn't it? Now add about half a cup of chicken broth, a teaspoon of turmeric and a pinch of saffron. Simmer until tender. Make a bed of it on the dinner plate, put your protein in the middle with one of the sauces drizzled on top.

Celery Well, I've tried serving steam celery as a stand-alone dish and I wouldn't recommend it. Celery is one of those things that makes up best as one of several as in stir-fry, the Creole trinity, or mirapoix. However, it DOES do well when roasted very slowly underneath a chuck roast with its perennial partner, the carrot (sliced to look like a six-inch ruler).

Chickpea Here is Zizi's authentic Egyptian hummus recipe:

1 can of chick peas drained

1 large clove of garlic

.5 tsp salt

.5 tsp of black paper

.5 tsp of cumin

2tbs lemon juice

2 tbs tahini (sesame seed paste) from any Middle Eastern store

In a blender, mix all the ingredients add a little water as the mix needs it or as you like the thickness of the mix. If you like it with more garlic add another clove of garlic. or more lemony add little more lemon.

Cucumber Cut in half lengthwise and use a grapefruit spoon (or a teaspoon) to remove the bitter seeds. Now you have a little boat. Fill that boat with diced tomato, onion, a bell pepper (an orange one's pretty) and maybe some corn - I call it confetti. I'd also add jalapeno pepper slices, but that's just me. Drizzle a little Italian dressing over it.

Eggplant The best and easiest way is to slice into 0.25 inch round disks, put on your inside griddle that is already hot, brush with olive oil, season, turn once. In Italy, they serve it just that easily and at room temp.

Endive See the picture. No prep required. Don't forget the Diablo sauce.

Fennel One of the most underestimated vegetables around - has a licorice flavor. Buy several. Holding the round bottom, cut off about the top half - save feathery parts as a garnish - remove a half inch from the bottom and stand it up on that flat surface. Slice from the top to the bottom -you can get 6 to 8 slices. Saute in melted butter in a single layer. Add a quarter cup of white wine simmer 15 minutes. Cover (glass lids are best). Turn and cook another ten minutes until the liquid is evaporated. When golden brown, slice a few strips of parmesano reggiano on top (you've seen the maitre d's do this). Serve as a side dish.

Lettuce Buy bag of mixed lettuce greens. Dump bag on a large and shallow serving platter. Artistically arrange tomato wedges, pitted olives, cold steamed green beans, maybe hard boiled egg wedges on top. Possibly strips of cooked ham and the same shaped cheddar or colby cheese. This is a whole meal with some artisan bread.

Mushrooms While a mushroom is technically a fungus, I'm including it here with the vegetable recipes. It's important not to put a mushroom in water because it's like a little sponge. Just get a clean damp cloth and wipe away the soil. Heat an empty skillet on your gas range, add a little olive oil, then slice them. Throw them in and let them brown on one side (that means don't move them). Do the other side. If you put too many in the pan, they will stew so only one layer with a little space between, please. On top of steak? Yum!

Okra How to cook okra? Remove the stems. Pre-heat a heavy skillet. Add 2T olive oil and when that is almost smoking put in the okra and cook (about 3 minutes) until bright green. Pull off heat, push okra to the side, add minced garlic - it burns easily - stir and add salt. Okra is also really good cooked in chicken gumbo. Okra is something of an acquired taste.

Onions Have you tried these baked? Preheat oven to 400º. Cut some yellow onions in half - leave the onion peeled - pierce with a paring knife a few times, rub with oil, put cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake half an hour. Remove, wait ten minutes, take the peel off now. S&P. Serve with a balsamic reduction (to be added to the sauce page when we find our "round tuit").

Parsnips Parsnips are scraped like a carrot and the ends trimmed off. Cut in one inch chunks. Throw in chicken soup or stew. They require about 20 minutes this way. OR, make a puree by steaming six of them in a bamboo wok over chicken broth until tender. Melt butter, saute a quarter onion to golden color in it. Puree the parsnips in a food processor, add the onion/butter, add .25 milk. S&P.

Peas For these, I like to use frozen. Dump in a pan, add a few tablespoons of broth, bring to a simmer, cover, turn off heat. When they are in the serving dish, put a few pats of butter (say, one pat per person) to melt on top. Doing this last means you taste the butter without ruining your diet.

Spinach My favorite method is using a bamboo steamer (use two or three trays, this veggie shrinks dramatically) over a wok with a cup of savory liquid -let's say, chicken broth - this will only take a few minutes. Sprinkle a pinch of nutmeg and squeeze a lemon wedge over it. Remove veggie and serve as a bed for your entree protein.

String bean Grab a handful and tap against the chopping board to line up one end. Cut the ends with scissors. Do the same on the other side. Heat the wok, put in the trimmed string beans in with a drizzle of olive oil. S&P. Taste one after three minutes and decide if it's "al dente" enough for you. Add minced garlic, stir, squeeze a lemon wedge over it and remove from heat.

Tomato In an effort to keep it simple, my favorite is to remove the stem spot with a tomato "shark" - a gadget that removes a divot like a golf club does -slice thinly, add a "chiffonade" of FRESH basil (sounds fancy, doesn't it?). That means to roll some basil leaves into a tiny banana shape and cut into little basil "strings" or - veggie shreds - that you can sprinkle over the tomatoes. Pour as little clear (not creamy) Italian dressing over it as you can stand and let it rest in the fridge until dinner.

Turnip I'll get back to you after I find a good recipe - not a big turnip fan!

Water chestnut Get can. Open can. Drain can. Toss in stir fry just to heat.

Watercress Strip the leaves off, discard the stems, pretend it's baby lettuce from there. OR, watercress is one of the leafy ingredients that is super in Caesar salad.

Yam You want simple? Pre-heat oven to 400º, stab them (get medium size ones) with a fork about 4 times each, to let the steam escape, spray with Pam, Bake 45 minutes. Cut halfway down, squeeze the narrow ends in, dot with butter.

Zucchini Cut off the ends, slice into coin shapes (about 1/4 inch wide) Heat skillet, add a drizzle of olive oil, saute them on medium about two minutes, now add a teaspoon of dry dill and a pinch of cayenne.

Ginger and garlic aren't included because though they are vegetables, one would not usually serve a plate full as a vegetable. Onions, however? Yup. They bake up nicely. This chart of vegetables represents the simplest preparations I could think of - I'd rather spend my time on the entree.

If your Mom never used some of these entries, what you might have to do to prepare any unusual item from the chart of vegetables for eating may have escaped your attention. As is the case with whole artichokes, sometimes directions to even eat them is in order.

Vegetable recipes can be dressed up to hide the taste for picky eaters. After the small fry have become used to something more exotic than the usual fare, such as Brussels Sprouts with Hollandaise, you can wean them to a simpler preparation. All my kids grew up liking vegetables because I introduced them in stir-fries or covered them under any sauce I thought might appeal - most often, cheese or Hollandaise.

My daughter-in-law took a different tack, when the girls say they "hate" a vegetable, she requires that they take three bites to see if they like it better this time. Since she spent years as a food critic for a large and well-established magazine, the food on their plates is likely to be very interesting. The data isn't in on that experiment yet.

Whether you are trying to cook artichokes or making a mirapoix, as well stocked pantry means you don't have to run to the store to finish up what's in the fridge.

For longer life from almost any item from the chart of vegetables, you might buy one of Debbie Meyer's "Green Bags." I've used them and they work quite well. You can get about nine uses from one bag with gentle washing.

Now you have a chart of vegetables...see the mini-cooking course?

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A Chart of Vegetables, Grilled Vegetables, and Veggie Shreds

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