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25. Use vegetables as sauces. How about pureed roasted red peppers seasoned with herbs and a bit of lemon juice, then drizzled over fish? Or puree butternut or acorn squash with carrots, grated ginger, and bit of brown sugar for a yummy topping for chicken or turkey. Cooked vegetables are easily converted into sauces. It just takes a little ingenuity and a blender.26. Nix the bitterness of healthy veggies with a sprinkle of salt. Of course, we're going to be talking about how to reduce the sodium in your diet later, but the chemical reality is that salt helps neutralize bitterness. For an added kick, try capers, olives, or mashed anchovies instead of salt.
27. Grill your vegetables. If you only use your grill for meats, you've been missing out! Peppers, zucchini, asparagus, onions, eggplant -- even tomatoes -- all taste amazingly good when grilled. Generally, all you need to do is coat them with olive oil and throw them on. Turn every few minutes and remove when they start to soften. Or skewer chunks of veggies on a bamboo or metal skewer and turn frequently. You can also buy grilling baskets that keep the veggies from falling through the slats in the grill.
28. Go exotic. Every week, try one exotic vegetable, the kind that will stump the grocery store cashier. Here are some to try, and ways to try them:
- Belgian endive. This type of lettuce has a mild, slightly bitter flavor, and is packed with fiber, iron, and potassium. Use it in salads and instead of crackers with vegetable dips.
- Jicama (HEE-kah-mah). Known as the Mexican potato, jicama is a root tuber (like potatoes). Buy it smooth and firm with unblemished roots. Serve it peeled, cold, and raw in thin slices or strips, either straight up with a dip or in salads or coleslaw. Or throw it into soups, stews, or stir-fries. It works great as a substitute for water chestnuts.
- Bok choy. An Oriental cabbage, bok choy is excellent chopped and stir-fried in a bit of peanut oil and soy sauce. Or throw it into soup just before serving.
- Chayote (chi-OH-tay) squash. A summer squash native to Latin America, chayote squash is also known as vegetable pear because of its shape and color. It has a mild taste, like zucchini, with a slightly citrus tang. You don't have to peel it, and the seeds inside are edible. Just cut into cubes, add 1 cup water, cover, and microwave for about 8 minutes.
- Kohlrabi. A member of the turnip family, it is often called a cabbage turnip. It's sweeter, juicier, crisper, and more delicate in flavor than a turnip. The cooked leaves have a kale/collard flavor. Trim and pare the bulb to remove all traces of the fibrous underlayer just beneath the skin, then eat raw, boil, steam, microwave, or sauté, or add to potato casseroles.
- Fennel. Also known as sweet anise, fennel has a sweet, mild licorice flavor. The feathery fronds can be used as an herb, like dill weed, to flavor soups and stews. The broad, bulbous base is treated like a vegetable and can be eaten raw, or sliced and diced for stews, soups, and stuffing.
- Spaghetti squash. Also called vegetable spaghetti, this oval-shaped yellow squash is a relative newcomer and a novel one: When cooked, the flesh of the squash can be pulled apart to form slender strands that resemble spaghetti.
29. Use canned pumpkin for dessert. Just sprinkle it with cinnamon, and mix in two packets of Splenda. Even if you eat the whole can, this dessert is only 140 calories and packs a healthy 9 grams of fiber. For 1/2 cup you get 40 calories and 3.5 grams of fiber, not to mention tons of beta-carotene.
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