Need help with vegetables!

Take a bell pepper, two tomatoes and half an onion. Chop them up into little pieces.
Put some chicken breast in a skillet and brown it. (I usually try to get it as cooked as possible to start with so I don't have to worry about whether its cooked all the way through.) Add in your chopped up pepper and onion and cook until your onions are starting to look see-through. Add in your chopped up tomato with as much juice as possible. Cook for 5-10 minutes, until tomatoes reach your preferred consistency. Season to taste. You can serve it on its own or on a bed of rice or with mashed potatoes.

No need for oils or huge amounts of salt. Super easy and super delicious.I've been cooking since I was 11, so I experiment a lot. I made this one up a few years ago, so I don't have exact nutritional value, but when I cook it, I enter everything separately.

You should sign up with allrecipes.com, it is free and there is also an app for it, if you have a smartphone. The recipes are rated and they come from regular people just like us. With allrecipes.com you can type in the dish you want to make or the food you have, like chicken or broccoli, and a TON of recipes will appear with that specific ingredient. People leave comments about how to improve or substitute certain ingredients in the recipes.

The best thing for you to do is experiment. If you don't have a lot of money, then I recommend visiting Wal-Mart for frozen veggies that you can use in cooking "experiments." Good luck.

If you want to just start introducing different vegetables I'd buy some of the Green Giant or Bird's Eye frozen vegetable mixes. Some of them come lightly sauced with like garlic or cheese, or you can get them plain. They're easy to make, just steam right in the bag in your microwave for maybe 5 or 6 minutes. I just ate with my lunch 3/4 cup of cauliflower, carrots, and broccoli in a light cheese sauce for 64 calories.

Roasted veggies are the best! Toss just about any veggies in a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper and minced garlic, place on a baking sheet, and place under the broiler until veggies are tender and a little charred (turn halfway through) I discovered brussels sprouts this year and became addicted, I cook them this way and they are so good!

I've bought a brilliant book by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, "River Cottage Veg Every Day". You might be able to get it via your library? He's a meat-lover who took the challenge to eat only veggies for a period of time, and it has resulted in some great recipes and meal ideas, many of which are light in calories and cost but not in flavour. We've been eating loads of meals from it since it arrived here, and I'm also adapting recipes to fit what we've bought in. A few days a week without meat or fish protein do no harm and the food tastes great!

Broccoli + garlic

In a pan on medium high, pour a teaspoon of oil. (I use coconut.) Turn it around to coat the pan.
But the broccoli in the pan and stir like crazy. You want the broccoli to sizzle and steam quickly. You want the stove hot enough so that the moisture from the broccoli does NOT bubble in the pan. You want it to quickly turn into steam and float away. This will keep the broccoli crunchy. If you don't stir it, it will burn.

After about 3 minutes, add a few cloves of minced garlic. Stir it around for 30 seconds and then take off of the stove. Garlic burns SUPER FAST, so really, the heat in the pan will be enough to cook it. It's done!

You can substitute other veggies in this same method. I often do brussel sprouts, cauliflower, fresh beets, carrots, or combinations this way.

Make sure each piece if veggie is cut to about the same size. They will all cook in the same amount of time. No pieces too big or small.

You can switch up the flavor by using balsamic vinegar, sweet chili sauce, or no garlic.

I keep a 9X13 cake pan full of cut fresh feggies (carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, tomatoes etc..) and take it out of the fridge at every meal just to get in a few extra veggies, it keeps me from snacking on whatever it is that I am cooking as well.

A couple of my favorite veggie recipes though:

take a boneless skinless chicken breast and place it in a decent size piece of foil. Add whatever veggies you like, I use mushrooms, tomatoes, small potato, green beans & carrots. Season with salt/pepper. Wrap up in a couple layers of foil and you can bake in your oven for about 45 min to an hour. Once the veggies are tender, open it up and add a slice or two of your favorite cheese, close it for a few mins to melt cheese.

Sautee mushrooms, zuchinni, squash in a pan with olive oil, season with salt/pepper. Once tender add 1 pint grape tomatoes and cover until tomatoes are soft and some of the juice has come out of them. Add a serving of cooked penne noodles and stir, add a little parmesean cheese and enjoy

Hey guys, I need help! I don't normally eat vegetables other than lettuce, tomato and different peppers, ( sad I know) the problem is I just don't know how to cook, or prepare them, and I don't know what kind of meals to make with them! I know I like broccoli, cuz I love it in the bird's eye chicken alfredo meal, but that has soo much sodium, it would be nice if I could find a recipe I could make like that. I just need to know what kind of vegetables would be good with grilled chicken and what kind of sauces or spices some of you might use with them! How do you cook them, in the pan or do you steam them or does it depend on what you're making? Any and all help with vegetables and preparation, or any meal ideas with veggies and chicken or would be greatly appreciated!! Also I need vegetables that are on the cheaper side but will last for more than just one meal.

try http://kitchen-parade-veggieventure.blogspot.com/
it is a blog that is full of easy vegetable recipes.

We roast everything; broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, brussel sprouts , parsnips, carrots, potatoes, green beans.....

Cut to bite size-ish (except, asparagus and green beans). Toss with a little olive oil, sea (or kosher) salt and pepper. Spread on a cookie sheet and put in oven for 25 minutes (except asparagus and green beans - 13 minutes) at 350 degrees. Yum!

Veggies are fairly new to my diet as well. My husband and I started eating seasonally, which means we primarily buy seasonal produce from local farms. It's forced us to be creative. Some suggestions (I don't have calorie counts on these because I haven't made them since joining MFP last week):

Stuffed peppers:
Cut peppers in half, clean and stuff with anything and everything. My favorite so far, is onions, tomatoes, a little prosciutto, spinach and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 - 30 minutes.

Butternut squash soup (we use the same process for sweet potato soup)
Cook butternut squash by cutting in half and placing in oven cut-side down for about 30 minutes at 350.
Scrape out squash and add to blender or food processor. Add chicken stock until it's liquified. Transfer to pot on stove to bring to boil and add more stock until it reaches the consistency you like. Add whatever fixin's you like. We like goat cheese.

Spaghetti Squash:
Cut in half and place cut side up in baking dish. Fill dish with 1inch water and bake for 45 minutes at 350.
Remove insides by running fork along insides until it shreds.
Add sauteed garlic, salt, pepper and parm cheese

Sautee spinach with garlic and tomatoes and top with goat cheese.

AllRecipes.com is really great and so it just experimenting in the kitchen with different recipes and tastes. I've never been a fan of frozen veggies, though there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. Supporting local farms is really important to us, which is why we buy very little produce from the grocery store. It's been an added challenge, but great so far.

Youtube.com has AWESOME free videos on how to cook things... Video Jug is great.. they give a list of ingredients - so you just click pause, and you can write them down.... gives step by step instructions..

There are TONS of free vidoes on food preparation techniques and such.... you can even learn how to do the mother-sauces as well....

in the end though - this requires your total dedication to changes and incorporating things...

Get your knives sharpen, baby!!!!

Cooking in a pan of hot watercon top of the cooker works well for most veggies - wash veggies, cut into large chunks, poor boiled water from kettle into pan containing your vege with a little salt with the heat up high and a lid on. When it starts really boiling turn down the heat (usually to about 2.5 on the dial) and check the pan is now gently bubbling (it's called simmering). After the time below check with a sharp knife to see if it is done. Drain and enjoy! Simple eh!

Potatoes take about 20 mins
Carrot slices or batons, pumpkin chunks, celariac about 15
(only bother to peel pots/carrots if the skin looks really yucky)
Broccoli stems about 10
Peas mAnge tout and french beans about 5

Start testing for done-ness before these times in case you have small pieces or have been boiling them a bit hard. You want them just as they go soft not once they are all mushy - but that takes quite a few mire minutes.

Don't do courgettes or cabbage this wAy though (small amount of water, knob of butter, lots of pepper gentle simmer for 10 mins with lid on)


For mash - start off the potatoes, add in other vege if you are mixing it in after eg 5 mins, then after all is cooked drain add some milk and butter or yoghurt salt and pepper and mash it all together with a fork or masher...

Green giant have fantastic frozen veggies that steam in the bag. They are what I eat 99% of the time. 5 minutes and you have a whole bag of chopped broccoli or green beans or whatever you want without much effort. If I want flavor later, I just spray ICBINB spray on my serving and then sprinkle on some garlic powder.

No added sodium or anything. Its just the veggies. Plus with them being frozen, then steamed, you won't lose as much nutrients as overcooking them on the stove.