Eat Your Veggies!

Eating lots of vegetables isn’t a big problem for me in the summer months. There’s so much variety that munching on them raw or having gloriously huge salads is a delight. But come winter? Forget about the veggies, I’m all about the grains.

Between oatmeal, popcorn, and grilled sandwiches, I get more grains than is necessary. I love bread. Present me with a warm biscuit or scone and I’m your girl. Hot buttered toast, plates of steaming pasta, quinoa with chickpeas and lots of spices… you get the idea. Grain overload.

Grains make for a fantastic comfort food. They also seem to make you warmer. If I eat lots of grains in one day, I’ll feel about 10 lbs heavier. Just a couple servings and I swear I’m swimsuit ready.

So the big challenge in these cold winter months is how to not eat my body weight in grains and how to eat enough vegetables to prevent me from getting scurvy. Remembering that I’m not exactly the most accomplished cook (that’s code for I’m usually lazy and can’t be bothered to make fancy dishes plus good quality vegetables are damn expensive this time of year), I’ve got to find easy ways to get in my vegetables.

Right now, I have a huge thing for massive bags of frozen mixed vegetables- the kind with sliced carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. Throw a pile of them onto the steamer and 10 minutes later you’ve got them on a plate. Grind lots of black pepper on top and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on there and voila! Hot veggies.

The frittata I made is another great way to get in some extra vegetables. The key with this one is to let the spinach get really small in the pan and shrivel up, and then throw handfuls more on it. I made a bigger one for me and my sister last week and we put in an entire 1/2 bag of spinach in there- it shrinks down to nothing!

Use a George Foreman to grill vegetables that are starting to wilt in your fridge. This is a good one for asparagus- I always intend to make elaborate prosciutto-wrapped asparagus or similar but somehow never get around to it. But they taste great grilled and it takes all of about 2 minutes.

I’m terrible at making stirfry, but that’s another good way to get in lots of vegetables. You can also mix up a whole bunch of veggies in a pan with some quinoa, or just pile them on when you’re cooking pasta. Rather than top your acorn squash with butter and sugar, mash it up in a bowl and mix in some other cooked vegetables too (save yourself the sugar and fat!). Load on the vegetables on your sandwiches, eat your peanut butter with celery rather than bread, and throw in a ton of vegetables in your soups and stews.

Also remember that corn is a grain, not a vegetable. For some reason we tend to think of it as a vegetable. And if you’re looking for a pasta alternative, try some Tofu Shiritake Noodles! I had them just once (found them at a specialty store); it was only $2.50 for a package and they tasted great with Laughing Cow light cheese and smoked salmon. I need to restock my fridge with a few more packages because I was really impressed with those noodles and I bet they’d taste great with lots of vegetables. If the idea of tofu scares you, just remember that pasta is bland and doesn’t taste like anything anyway- when we eat it, we’re eating it for the creamy sauces and other toppings we put on it. You’re not going to notice the difference.

And you? What’s your favorite ways to get in some vegetables in the winter (especially if they don’t have much flavor this time of year)? Got any good tips for not eating grains for breakfast lunch and dinner? Share them in the comments!