Creative ways to get veggies and fruits in diet

I take a bag of vegetable mix, like brocoli, carrot, zuchini and I put it with a jar of marinara, simmer it and serve it over whole wheat spagetti, sprinkle with a little parmesan. Yummo. You get your veggies and hardly know your eating them.

I don't like frozen vegetables for the most part, but I make a killer chicken veggie soup and eat off that for days.

I also second roasting broccoli. It's seriously nommers.

I read once that you can blend up (yup like in a blender) cauliflower and mash it with potatoes, light plain yogurt, herbs and spices and have a verrrrry healthy mashed potato side dish!

Here are a few tricks I use to spice it up.

- Drizzle of A-1 on broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels's sprouts.
- White vinegar on white onions
- Garlic and lemon on asparagus. (Grill em!)
- Grill vedalia onions with oil and lemon.
- Grill sweet red, orange or yellow peppers. with oil and Cajun spice (McComacks)
- Cauliflower with pine nuts, bacon bits and red pepper flakes.
- Artichokes with butter and A-1 dip and eat the soft part of the leaves.
- Avocados with tomatoes and low sodium cottage cheese.
- Carrots and hummus.
- Grilled thinly sliced zucchini, eggplant, and summer squash marinated in oil, balsamic vinegar and Italian spices (McCormack)
- Fruit salad with granny Smith apples, mixed berries, plain Greek yogurt, top with walnuts and dried cranberries.
- Grilled pineapple and banana. Goes great with grilled hot dogs and beans!
- Poppy seed fruit salad. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tangy-poppy-seed-fruit-salad/
- Apples with plain yogurt and Parmesan cheese.

like many others, i am not a huge veggie fan. i do a couple of things that i will share with you and so far, it is working out well.

first thing in the morning, i drink an 8oz glass of either tomato or V8 juice with one scoop of barley grass, wheat grass and alfalfa.
I drink it like medicine to be honest. my sister drinks hers in juice. so right there i have may veggies done for the day. i purchase "the amazing trio" barley grass, wheat grass & alfalfa.

i do quite enjoy 'stir fry veggie' and i eat those two or three times a week. my favorites are:

1/2 purple onion sliced thin
15 snap or sugar peas (shells intact)
1/2 cup broccoli florets
1/2 thinly sliced medium red bell pepper
1 small carrot julienne
1/2 cup summer squash julienne
1/2 cup zucchini squash julienne
and 1 cup broccoli slaw
1 clove of garlic

(once in a while i will add some fresh pineapple chunks to give it variety)
i use extra lite evoo 1 tbs

if your real hungry, you can eat the entire stir fry . . . i usually split it in two and add 4 ounces chicken and eat one for dinner:

veggie stir fry alone: 340 calories
split: 170
split with chicken: 294and this acts as two meals and if i am having dinner, i may add 4 ounces chicken

as for fruit, i love it in smoothies...apples with a single serving of peanut butter for lunch or a snack, put grapes or a cut up apple in your salads etc.

bumping for ideas!!!

put em in protein shakes... raw spinach works really well

I guess the right answer here would not be to deep fry them? Everything is better that way.

I like them in soup and I'll sneak them on sandwiches to thicken them up.

Today as part of my lunch I made some lemon and coriander cous cous, then added a few raisins and a fresh apricot chopped up, chinese flavoured chicken and toppped with chopped coriander, was very nice too! Raisins and apricots are not something I'd generally associate with savoury food but they worked really well :flowerforyou:

Bumping for reference, thanks for the ideas

Andy

As far as fruit, perfect timing: summer explodes with all kinds. If you're sick of strawberries and bananas, try cherries, raspberries, blueberries, melon, nectarines, peaches....

Grilling or roasting fruit can be amazing because the natural sugar caramelize, resulting in richer flavor. Try cutting a peach in half, putting a little dab of butter, a sprinkle of sugar, and a bit of vanilla extract on it, and roast it for 20 minutes at 400 or so.

We grill a lot and put various vegetables coated in olive oil in a grill basket. It tastes really good that way ... better than saute.
Some combinations: onions, baby bok choy, mushrooms or onions + something green (asparagas, broccoli rabe, etc).

Another thing that's good is oven roasting carrots, radishes, turnips, potatoes, etc with olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs (rosemary and thyme for example). Although I try to eat low carb so root vegetables aren't on the menu very often.

Larabars are calorie dense dried fruit and nut bars. I used to keep them around for a quick snack but ended up eating them too often. They''re probably one of the purist protein bars around because there's no junk in them, but I like to minimize my sugars from fruit.

http://www.larabar.com/