Sunday's Plate

Vegetables - the inscrutable little thing mostly forgotten and thought of as a duty. Me too, Iguana!

Like many of us, I was not reared on vegetables. I was reared on a myriad of fruit that mostly grew in my back yard or just down the street. I ate it all with delight. Vegetables were another story. The vegetable I probably ate more often than any were hot pickled peppers because they were always on the vegetable tray that came with the olives and man, was I hungry.

We had frozen mixed vegetables, canned peas, corn, and lettuce. I ate artichokes, but it was a solo in my house. Not tomatoes? My father knew they were poisonous. That was about it at home. At Thanksgiving we had sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes. We had those hideous French fries occasionally, and roast potatoes that were so thick with time in the oven, they were impossible to eat. I did eat Chinese vegetables a lot and loved whatever was in the mix. There were times when a shish kabob had mushrooms, green pepper and tomatoes. I was not a picky eater, I was a deprived eater.

So introducing my own family to vegetables was not an easy gig. I had never eaten broccoli, cauliflower, most lettuces, squash, leeks, turnips, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, etc. But I learned.

And that's the attitude other people of deprived backgrounds should take when re-discovering the vegetable market. Especially in a store like Schnucks that looks like an outdoor market. It's a great way to re-up your acquaintance with vegetables. Don't be afraid they will taste bad.

Vegetables are still relatively cheap, and can be the center of your meal if you play them up. It's just a matter of trying to mix and match.

Let's start with a salad. My husband once told me that my salads were as dull as the plate. I was horrified, but he was right. I had never really eaten a salad that did not consist of lettuce. So the effort began with adding one thing at a time to the family dinner salad until I finally had to lessen the amount of lettuce. Nearly anything goes into a salad, I discovered: raw onions, raw broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumber, peanuts, celery, carrots, raisins, nuts, cheese, berries and the list can go on forever. Salad dressings do not have to be those egregious bottled yucks. They can be made easily and made to go with the salad at hand. Mayo, lemon juice and Parmesan cheese make a great salad dressing. It's a matter of trying and doing. Takes five minutes. Cost: about $1.00.

Let's talk about the hateful canned vegetable. Let's ask the Judy question: Why? Why would anyone buy an overcooked, water- soaked, nutrition free slop - ever? The only thing you can do with canned vegetables that's even remotely palatable is leave them on the front porch for the possums. They have taste buds that correspond to canned vegetables. Frozen are OK in a pinch, but they still taste remarkably like freezer paper.

Let's now talk about fresh vegetables: They are cheap, they are good, they are nutritious. They should add, grace, and enhance everything you serve. Let's start with the hamburger. Instead of serving those potato paste sticks that drip unconscionable amounts of questionable added heart attack fat, let's look at the little red potato. @ $2.99 for five pounds, you can't go wrong. You wash, slice into wedges and bake for 25 minutes - about the same as frozen French fries. Yum. To the hamburger and potato wedges, we can add sauteed onions and mushrooms ( in olive oil) for the adults, and carrot sticks for the children. Dinner served. Cost of vegetables: about $1.00.

When steaming broccoli, cauliflower or brussels sprouts, don't over kill. These vegetables take about four minutes in the average micro and about that long on the stove. If you buy a steamer basket, it helps keep the vegetables from turning troll green.

But what about the other vegetables you see and never buy: turnips, leeks, funny looking squash, odd mushrooms, Asian vegetables, rutabaga, kale, and all the things you would have to ask the green grocer about before buying. Try one thing at a time.

I like turnips raw with dip. Three turnip chips on a plate is plenty. You can also julienne them. They are stunningly cheap. Leeks are funny little onion looking things, but they really taste more like an artichoke. One leek makes a ton of boats into which we can put meat, rice, bread stuffing, and some rice like noodles - and they are invitingly cute!.

Kale makes a great leaf to stuff much like a grape leaf. Beet leaves are good in salads, cooked, and shredded and added to rice and noodles. Beets are delicious and turn everything red. They aren't like those nasty canned enemies, they are sweet, and vaguely crunchy.

My favorite these days are odd squash. Cut in half, baked and filled with rice and a little meat and then topped with cheese sauce is a very filling dinner.

Vegetables are delicious rubbed with salad dressing mixes, seasoned with a favorite spice and baked. Cube them and mash them and serve like applesauce. They are great baked into a "critter" and topped with crumb crust. Lots of bland vegetables make great fruit buddies. It's just a matter of taking the time - about 20 minutes - and reinventing the wheel.

Summer squash like zucchini and yellow crook neck make lively little dishes sliced, and alternated with sliced tomatoes with a cheese topping. Dipped in pancake batter, these three make wonderful fritters. All squash make great dumplings, breads, cupcakes and cookies.

One of my favorite dishes is sliced cucumbers, onions and green peppers in an oil and vinegar brew. It only gets better with age.

None of these things take much time. A whole squash can be zapped in the microwave in a matter of ten minutes. Don't forget to pierce like a potato. Don't over cook anything.

The whole gig with vegetables is that you buy probably less than a pound of anything and then divide and use a little at a time. Fruits and vegetables should cost less than $25.00. You don't have to buy every veggie every shopping trip. For a family of four, you need about half a pound of broccoli, some potatoes, a bag of carrots, an artichoke, lettuce, mushrooms and onions and a squash. Next time try six more.

Here is the Garden School recipe for cheese sauce:

1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup flour
3 cups milk
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon

Bring mix to steaming, add 8 slices American Cheese - don't use cheddar - it will taste like soap.
1/2 cup sour cream once to take it from the heat.

Salad dressing:

Real mayo, and then anything you can think of.

Make it fun and add one new veggie every week. You'll be glad you did, and well prepared vegetables will really cut down on your meat budget.