VEGETABLES Who Can Get Enough of Vegetables? Here’S a Collection of Our Favorite Tips for Enjoying More Plants

Our tips for buying, cooking, and eating VEGETABLES Who can get enough of vegetables? Here’s a collection of our favorite tips for enjoying more plants.

Asparagus If you wind up with a batch of tough snap pea pods, the peas inside may still be fine. Pop one open and try it. Raw sugar snap peas make for a satisfying crunchy snack. They also lend a sweet crunch to salads. The secret to green (or yellow wax) beans is to cook them until they’re very tender but not quite falling apart. They can be astringent if they’re not fully cooked. Haricots verts—the French variety of green beans— Look for spears with dry, tight tips. are longer and thinner than the green beans tradi- tionally grown in the United States, so they cook Try to get a bunch that has similar-sized spears. That faster and are more tender. way, they’ll all be done cooking at the same time. Got skinny spears? Before you start cooking, bend the woody stem ends until they snap off. For thicker Cabbage, Brussels, & Kohlrabi spears, just peel the bottom third or so. The skin may be stringy, but the flesh is tender. For a quick side, toss steamed asparagus with ex- tra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice and zest, and grated parmesan or chopped smoked almonds.

Green Beans & Peas

A whole head of green or red cabbage can stay fresh in the fridge for weeks until you’re ready to cut it. Need just a little? If you use a few of the outer leaves, the rest will keep. Cabbage isn’t just for slaw. Toss it in stir-fries or fried rice. Heads of mild-tasting savoy and napa cabbage are less dense than green or red cabbage, so they’re easi- Unless your sugar snap peas or snow peas are er to cut, and their thinner leaves cook more quickly. “stringless,” trim or snap off the ends of each pod and remove the string that runs down the seam be- Sauté Brussels sprouts quickly in a hot pan. Or halve fore cooking. and roast them. Or thinly slice them for a raw salad.

NutritionAction.com® © Copyright 2021 — NutritionAction.com — All rights reserved. Use of any content without prior permission is strictly prohibited. Kohlrabi is not just for roasting. It also tastes great Keep a container in the freezer for scraps of celery, raw. The fibrous skin that surrounds the insides is carrots, onions, herbs, and garlic, as well as poultry tough, though, so remove it with a paring knife or bones. Once it’s full, make stock. (Need a good reci- serrated peeler to reveal the edible bulb inside. Then pe? Go to nutritionaction.com/stock.) grate some into your favorite slaw or cut it into sticks for dip. Dark Leafy Greens Cauliflower, Broccoli, etc.

Your greens looking lackluster? Trim the ends and perk them up with a quick soak in ice water. Shake Browned surfaces of roasted cauliflower or broccoli or spin off the excess water before sautéing or tossing deliver flavor to spare. Slice florets to get flat surfac- in a salad. es, toss them in oil, place on an unlined baking pan, Remove any tough stems and center ribs before and use the oven rack closest to the heat. chopping. Don’t discard colorful Swiss chard stems, Broccoli rabe (rapini) is a pungent, leafier member of though. Chop them up and sauté with a bit of olive the broccoli family. Blanch it to cut some of its bite, oil and garlic until tender, about 10 minutes, before then quickly sauté. you toss the leaves in the pan. Broccolini (sometimes called “baby broccoli”) is For a new, quicker-cooking take on kale, try Tuscan milder than broccoli. And its stalks are tender, so you (aka dinosaur or Lacinato) or baby kale instead of don’t need to trim them. curly kale. Bagged broccoli slaw is made of shredded broccoli Try Asian greens like gai lan, tatsoi, bok choy, and yu stalks. Grab a bag for an assertive take on coleslaw. choy. For stir-frying tips, go to nutritionaction.com/ It’s also great stir-fried. greens. To cook bok choy, stir-fry the chopped pale green stems until tender-crisp, then toss the (quicker-cook- Cucumber & Celery ing) leafy green parts into the pan or wok. Escarole, a broad-leafed form of endive that’s on the bitter side, is right at home in soups or stews. Use the more tender, milder pale inner leaves for salads. Don’t forget frozen greens, which can go straight from freezer to pot without washing or chopping. Just throw a handful in your soup, stew, curry, or pasta sauce.

“Mini” or Persian cucumbers are the perfect size for snacking. Use the large outer stalks of celery for stocks, soups, and stews. Save the tender inner stalks and leaves for salads.

Long, skinny Chinese and Japanese eggplants are Look for onions, shallots, and garlic that are hard tender and quick-cooking; perfect for stir-frying. and that have dry skin, no green shoots, and little to Thought you didn’t like eggplant? Think again. no aroma. When summer’s at its peak, look for smaller varieties Store unpeeled, uncut onions, garlic, and shallots like fairy tale or graffiti at farmers markets. They’re in a cool, dark, and dry place. Refrigerate leeks and oh-so creamy and sweet. scallions, which are more perishable at room tem- Choose the smallest, darkest-green zucchinis you can perature. find. They’re more flavorful and tender. Onions can make potatoes sprout. Store them apart from each other. White onions are milder than red or yellow ones, Mushrooms which makes them terrific either cooked or raw. The more you chop an onion or garlic, the stronger the flavor. The most pungent: minced, grated, or food-processed. The mildest: sliced with a sharp knife. Need minced garlic for a salad dressing recipe? Try grating it on a microplane for just the right-size bits.

Potatoes Don’t wash them: They’ll end up soggy. Instead, use a paper towel to wipe off the brown stuff (it’s most likely heat-treated compost, not dirt). To extend the life of your mushrooms, store them in a paper bag or open container in the fridge. Plants have next to no vitamin D, but some mushrooms supply vitamin D because they’ve been ex- posed to UV light (check the label) or sunlight (like morels or chanterelles, which grow wild). Sweet potatoes have twice as much fiber and more potassium than white potatoes. Sweets also pack a beta-carotene punch: 90 percent of a day’s vitamin A per serving. Do your potatoes always turn green? Try storing them in a dark, dry, cool place, but not the fridge. Cut away any green flesh (and any eyes or sprouts) before cooking.

Before storing roots like radishes, turnips, or beets, A salad spinner isn’t just for drying greens. You can cut off any leafy green tops. They draw out moisture, also store your washed and spun lettuce in it (inside which makes the veggies go limp. Sauté the greens in the fridge). garlic and olive oil. If your bagged or boxed salad greens have been pre- Rutabagas or turnips can stand in for white potatoes washed, don’t re-wash them. You could contaminate if you want to slash starchy carbs. Turnips have a them with germs from your sink. distinctive tang that mellows when you cook them. The best way to toss your dressed salad greens? In a Rutabaga (a cross between cabbage and turnips) has low, wide bowl. If the leaves are delicate, use (clean) less tang and more sweetness. hands to get the dressing evenly distributed without For rutabagas or turnips, get yourself a serrated bruising the leaves. vegetable peeler—the kind with teeth—to shave off Soft, foldable lettuces like butter, green leaf, or red their thick skin with ease. (The peeler is also great for leaf are perfect for lettuce wraps or cups. (Butter let- butternut squash.) tuce is often called Bibb or Boston.) Thought you didn’t like peppery radishes? Try them When you don’t want the robust taste of darker sautéed (or roasted). They’re surprisingly sweet and greens like baby kale, spinach, or spring mix, try a mellow. mellow baby butter lettuce blend or mâche. There’s no simpler—or more delicious—way to en- For a satisfying crunch, look for Little Gems at farm- joy root vegetables than roasting. Chop 2 lbs. of any ers markets. They’re like personal heads of romaine. combination (like beets, radishes, carrots, and/or turnips) into bite-size pieces, toss with 2 Tbs. olive oil, and roast at 425°F until tender and browned in Tomatoes spots, 20–25 minutes, turning once. Don’t want to roast and peel beets? Look for vacu- um-packed cooked ones from brands like Melissa’s or Love Beets in the supermarket’s refrigerator case. For a pop of color, use a combination of red and golden beets. Jicama tastes great raw. Peel and slice it for crudités, or use it in salsa or slaw.

Summertime is heirloom tomato time. For the rip- est, juiciest tomatoes, look for ones that are heavy for their size, yield just slightly to pressure, and still have their green stems attached. In spring, fall, and winter, the tastiest supermarket tomatoes are small ones like grape or cherry. For

NutritionAction.com® © Copyright 2021 — NutritionAction.com — All rights reserved. Use of any content without prior permission is strictly prohibited. slightly larger varieties, try mini Kumatos, Campari, A sharp knife is less likely to slip while cutting hard, or cocktail tomatoes. heavy squashes. Keep the blade sharp with an elec- Got a pile of perfectly ripe summer tomatoes? Scoop tric sharpener. Don’t have one? Some kitchen or out the centers and stuff them with a savory filling. hardware stores will sharpen your (non-serrated) (For five perfectly delicious recipes, go to blade for a few bucks. nutritionaction.com/tomatoes.) Don’t want to peel or carve away thick squash skin? Keep whole tomatoes on the countertop, not in the Look for delicata or honeynut squash, whose skin is fridge. Cold temperatures slow ripening, turn flesh thin (and edible). Or try small acorns or butternuts: mealy, and sap flavor. Cold does little or no damage Both have skin that’s pleasantly toothsome when to cherry or grape tomatoes, which are sold ripe, so roasted. if you’re not going to use them quickly, you can keep Looking for pumpkin? Cans or cartons of purée them in the fridge. make it easy. Add some to soups, pasta sauces, or curries. If you’re starting from scratch, pick up a sugar or pie pumpkin. They’re smaller and more flavor- Winter Squash ful than their jack-o’-lantern cousins. And don’t ignore seeds from other winter squashes (like butternut). Clean, dry, and roast them just like you would pumpkin seeds (at 325°F for 20 minutes or so).

Using a large chef’s knife, slice off the root and stem ends of your squash first. Aim to create flat surfaces that can rest securely on the cutting board while you cut.