First, let me tell you where I got such a large list of vegetables:
One of my 4 dictionaries is the Chambers Dictionary; it has a Thesaurus. Depending on what word you want information on, you may get an added bonus. For food, I got this big list of vegetables.
Vegetables include:
artichoke, asparagus, aubergine (or North American eggplant), baby corn, beetroot, bok choy (or pak choi), broccoli, Brussels sprout, cabbage, calabrese, capsicum, carrot, cassava (or manioc), cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chicory, courgette (or North American & Australian zucchini), cucumber, daikon, fennel, garlic, globe artichoke, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, leek, lentil, lettuce, lollo rosso, marrow, mooli, mushroom, okra, onion, parsnip, pepper, potato, colloquial spud, pumpkin, radish, rocket, shallot, spinach, spring onion, squash, swede, sweetcorn, sweet potato, turnip, water chestnut, yam
Let’s talk about some, for instance, that I like:
artichokes, asparagus, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, zucchini squash, onions, potatoes, and mushrooms. There’s more, but that’s enough for now.
For a healthy diet, you should include vegetables in your main meal.
I have noted from the observation that the average citizen in the U.S. is overweight. Back when I was growing up in the 1940s, people, for the most part, were slim, which probably was due to diet.
In this day of fast pace, people are on the go and eat a lot of fast food, so they should be paying attention to the number of calories contained in the food they’re eating.
I’ve eaten a lot of food from McDonald’s, Windies, Jack in the Box, Carlos Juniors, Kentucky fried Chicken, Popeyes Chicken, Etcetera, and enjoyed it, but if possible home cooked meals can offer a more balanced diet, with a visit to fast food, restaurant keep it to more than not more than once or twice a week.
I hear fast food restaurants are offering on their menus low-calorie items of food. I know so many of their menu items are scrumptious, but remember your weight.
Getting back to vegetables, I’ll talk about some, but my list of vegetables is so big I’d have to go into book mode to write about them, and many of those vegetables I’ve never heard of, I’m sure they’re good, though.
Here’s a list of vegetables we can consider:
For potato cooking:
The potato is a root Vegetable, meaning it grows underground. Known as a staple food like rice and beans. In using the word staple, means to anchor, but in this reference, a base food that stays with you for a good time.
Rice, for example, is a staple food for the Chinese, and beans are a great staple food for Mexicans.
Beans come in many varieties; a good meal, for example, is Pinto beans. My daughter’s mother Anntha could cook a pot of Pinto beans you couldn’t beat. Beans well cooked will keep you full for some time.
There are many different potatoes, which come in many sizes, white, red, the large Russet baking potato; the White potato, a sort of flat like rectangle potato, is very good; the Red potato, more or less round with a very thin red skin, you don’t need to peel it.
Also, the klondike gold is a great all-around potato.
The potato is eaten in many ways, cooked in a pan, baked, mashed, scalloped, cut into small slices, and served with breakfast in a restaurant, yum yum french fries, you name it.
Potatoes, rice, and rice pilaff, also pasta, are a filling food, for example. If your dinner consists of a steak and some Vegetables, you probably need some potatoes, etcetera, to fill up.
The Artichoke
The artichoke is around, say, 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches tall. With small leaves, you pull off and say dip the end in mayonnaise, then pull off the small portion of its meat with your teeth and eat.
Once the leaf ends are eaten, you pull off a thistle portion, and there is a round base so thick that is very good to eat. Mayonnaise is good with the artichoke, or you may prefer something else to garnish it with.
The Avocado is a fruit
You can make guacamole a dip, I don’t know how to make it, but it’s very good. I’ll let you figure that out.
Guacamole can be used as a garnish on different foods, like, steak, tacos, and seafood.
Avocado is very good on a sandwich sliced, by itself, or with other goodies on a sandwich.
This fruit is in much use and in demand. But it must be at the right of ripeness to eat.
Bell Peppers and some Peppers
The Bell Pepper can be found in the produce department of the grocery store. They come in different colors, green, red, yellow, and so on; some may be sweeter than other colors, but I like green.
A nice bell pepper, when at home and cleaned, cut open, and pull out the insides, will then be hollow in the inside, rinse, and it’s ready to use.
Bell Peppers can be cut into a few pieces and added to a tossed green salad, added to a cooked dinner, and large ones stuffed.
Stuffed bell peppers are great, but the ingredients for the stuffing do vary; check a recipe for what to use for the stuffing.
For peppers, there are many. Here are some that my granddaughter’s boyfriend, Doug, 23, grows in his grandmother’s backyard: Jalapeno, serrano, and habanero.
Doug says he likes growing these peppers, but mostly he gives them away. Hmm, well, they are very hot.
Here’s some info Doug gave me on some peppers:
Peppers you get in a salad at the Olive Garden restaurant are tiny pepperoncini; Doug doesn’t grow them.
- Unit to test the hotness of peppers, Scoville.
- Scoville test on pepperoncini peppers, between 100 and 500
- Scoville test on Jalapeno pepper, 2500 and 8,000
- Scoville test on serrano pepper, 10,000 and 23,000
- Scoville test on habanero pepper, 150,000 and 575,000
This is an overview, as peppers themselves vary in hotness and flavor.
Peppers, when cleaned by cutting the end off and removing the seeds, will be milder.
Also, Jalapeno peppers served at a restaurant probably came in a jar in a form of pickling.
The Carolina Ripper, a restaurant that serves this blistering red hot pepper, will have you sign a release paper, eliminating them from any liability that may arise.
This pepper is so hot it comes in a special package to the restaurant and is handled specially when served.
I mentioned the above as peppers are liked by many, but do your research on them, which will come as you get into them.
Corned beef dinner
Buy 2 nice-looking packaged corned beef in a meat market or at home to trim off the fat unless you like some fat.
Place the corned beef in a pressure cooker, add some water, maybe 2 cups, or a couple of cans of beef broth. place the lid back on.
When you place the pressure cooker on a burner to cook, the cover has a small hole in its center, a small metal unit with a metal pet is placed in the hole; this little unit regulates the steam in the pressure cooker, so the steam doesn’t build up too much.
Regulate the heat as directed by the pressure cooker directions.
Cook for 1 hour, maybe 50 minutes if 1 hour gets the meat overcooked.
While the corned beef is cooking, start cooking the prepared potatoes, the red potato is a good one for this recipe, and the cabbage in separate pans; don’t overcook the cabbage.
Caution: make sure all the steam is out of the pressure cooker before removing the lid.
Placed the cooked potatoes and cabbage in the pressure cooker with the corned beef, and let soak some. The juice of the corned beef is what makes the cabbage and potatoes taste so good, along with that great-tasting corned beef.
For broccoli and cauliflower cooking:
Prepare them for cooking, then Place them in a pan with some water, add salt, pepper, and some garlic butter or plain butter.
For asparagus cooking:
After they’re ready to cook, place them in a pan with some water, and add salt, pepper, and some garlic butter or butter.
Asparagus, after being cooked, is great to eat by dipping the end of the asparagus in some mayonnaise placed on your plate.
For corn cooking or peas:
Corn can be eaten in many ways, from a can, fresh frozen, corn on the cob smeared with butter, and a dash of salt added.
For fresh frozen, just open the package, place in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and, pepper, ad butter, cover with saran wrap, cook in the
microwave, don’t overcook.
Corn on the cob, place the cleaned cob in a pan of boiling water, and cook until done; again, don’t overcook.
Butter smeared on the cooked cob and added a little salt adds to the flavor of the cooked corn cob.
For fresh frozen peas, just open the package, place in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper, ad butter, cover with saran wrap, cook in the microwave, don’t overcook.
For Brussels sprout cooking:
The little fellows look like miniature cabbages.
Place in a pan with water, ad salt and pepper, with some butter, and cook until done, don’t overcook.
The Green Giant has frozen Brussels sprouts offered in a grocery store.
They’re cooked in a butter sauce and then frozen.
Just place them in a small bowl, and warm them up in the microwave. They’re scrumptious.
Preparing cabbage for cooking or as coleslaw
I learned this from my daughter’s mother.
Chop up some cabbage and put it in a frying pan; add some bacon grease, stir and cook for a few minutes. Then put the cabbage in a pan and add some chicken broth.
Don’t overcook; Chinese restaurants cook their Vegetables to a point when they’re tender but not overcooked.
Cabbage can be cooked in water in a pan on the stove; season to taste.
Cooked cabbage placed in the juice of corned beef is very good.
For coleslaw
Kentucky Fried Chicken has great coleslaw.
Harries Hofbrau, there’s 3 150th avenue below San Leandro, San Jose, and San Francisco. They have excellent coleslaw and Corned Beef, plus other great food; if you want a treat, visit Harries Hofbrau.
Popeyes restaurant has great coleslaw, chicken breaths, mashed potatoes, and other goodies.
Use a recipe book for making coleslaw.
For carrots cooking:
Little carrots are the best to use.
Place the carrots in a pan with some water, and add salt, pepper, and some garlic butter or butter.
Cook until done, don’t overcook.
Carrots salad is yummy.
For zucchini squash cooking:
Zucchini squash can be cooked in many ways.
Salt, pepper, and butter are good flavoring items; check recipes for other spices and ways to cook zucchini squash.
A few years ago, I’d have my daughter buy some zucchini, say around 12, maybe 6 or 8 inches long. Rinsed, I’d cut a little off the ends and slice the squash into 3 quarter-inch pieces, and place the cut squash into 3 different Corning Ware microwaved large bowls.
Season with salt, pepper, and a tablespoon or 2 of garlic butter or butter,
Cover with saran wrap, and place in the refrigerator.
When I wanted to eat the contents of one of the bowls, I’d place the bowl in the microwaved until it was done. Don’t overcook.
I would eat the whole bowl. It was so good.
Cooking with onions or eating raw
Note the onion is a root Vegetable, meaning it grows underground. There are red, yellow, and white onions. Onions are more for flavoring.
But there is the not-too-long thin green onion; it is the top part of a young onion; you can eat it plain with other food; look for it in the produce department.
Onions that are strong and make you tear when pealing will flavor stews and soups very well.
White Vidalia onions that don’t have a hot taste but have the onion flavor are good to add zest to a hamburger or hotdog.
Onion dip is very good with chips; so many ways to use the onion; what a great vegetable.
Cooking with garlic:
Note garlic: is a root Vegetable, meaning it grows underground. Vegetable garlic is a peculiarly shaped flavoring item, with many segments or cloves of garlic attached together.
Each clove has a skin around it that you peel off; then, the garlic segment is ready to use.
You can buy it in a glass jar of crushed garlic from Christopher Ranch. There’s oil in the garlic, maybe to keep it from spoiling. You get more flavor from crushed garlic than garlic salt.
About 30 miles or so from San Jose is the city of Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. Each year they have a garlic Festival, so much food with garlic is made and sold, like garlic bread, for instance, and garlic ice cream; the many items are amazing to eat.
As you drive from Gilroy on highway 152, you pass some miles of farmland growing crops. Then you drive over Pacheco Pass, a mountain range around 3,000 feet high; on the other side is a huge reservoir. Passing it, you come to the I-5 freeway.
Gilroy has a Park great for kids and adults alike; rides, etcetera, and admission are nominal.
The Dutch Oven, cooking with:
This cooking pot is large and made of cast Iron with a cast Iron lid. If you want to cook a chuck beef roast, for example, about 4 pounds.
With a boneless chuck roast, cut 4 slices around it, and insert a garlic clove in these slices.
Place in the Dutch Oven on the stove and cook until done. Along with the roast, you may want some potatoes, small carrots, celery, and red onion, and decide how to cook.
This should give a nice dinner, very flavorful.
The Dutch Oven has been used for cooking for eons and does a great job.
Mushrooms are great for enhancing a dinner:
At the Sizzler restaurant, some sliced mushrooms can be added to Rice Pilaff in your dinner for only 2 dollars; they’re so good.
The mushrooms may be covered with garlic, butter and salt, and pepper.
Caution: Only eat mushrooms bought at the produce area of a grocery store. Picking wild mushrooms is a danger, as many people have
died eating wild mushrooms they’ve picked, unmistakably that were poisonous ones.
They are recipe books with many ways to prepare mushrooms that you’ll like.
Here’s a recipe for mushrooms my daughter Cherie uses.
- 2 pounds of mushrooms
- A cube of butter
- A cup of wine, whatever you have, you could have a preference
- Some Kitchen Bouquet
- Say an hour on low
- Why an hour is to get the liquid wine down to a nice sauce
This recipe for mushrooms is great.
Recipe books are great to have, as you will note, how great dishes can be made from a proven Recipe. It’s nice to have some Recipe books you’ve collected that give you some ideas on different dishes, and of course, you can make a change to the Recipe if desired.
A lot of vegetables can be considered a side dish:
They have the nutrients to keep the body healthy: and, of course, if prepared well: make dinner so much better.
I remember when I was a kid, I didn’t like peas, but now I love them, especially fresh or fresh frozen.
In the produce section of a grocery store, when in season, fresh snap peas are great to eat; try them.
Dinner time in a household is a great time to enjoy; I can just see one of the young ones saying, pass me some more Vegetables, mom.
I like to have some fun with a couple of Vegetables in the way I pronounce them, the Potato and tomato: For the Potato, potahto, spuds, or taters. How about the tomato, let’s see, tamato?
Since I mentioned the tomato, it is used in so many ways, tomato juice, tomato soup, salads, diced or sliced on hamburgers or hotdogs, and spaghetti sauce; Italians are known for their great food, tomato sauce is used a lot in their scrumptious Recipes.
Celery:
Celery is a tasty Vegetable. Break off leaf stalks from the celery stalks; the leaf stalks are sort of channel-shaped; cut them into short pieces, say 4 or 6 inches long, and fill them with a nice tasting mixture. I used to mix some sour cream together with, say, ranch dressing. It was good for a filler, also some people like peanut butter to fill the celery with.
The cucumber:
The cucumber cut into a few thin slices is good in a tossed green salad.
Cut into long pieces; it’s good to dip into a good-tasting dip.
Cooking with flavor:
Cooking with flavor gets us into using various spices and certain Vegetables, added to the meat we use, sausages, Oh so much more.
The tomato, along with the potato, is two of the most used Vegetables; how they’re used is fun to talk about.
A famous restaurant I like to dine at is Olive Garden:
They have a great menu, but I usually get Angel hair spaghetti and Italian sausage.
Their menu calls it pasta instead of spaghetti, which is misleading.
You can get their spaghetti with a number of different sauces. I like their marinara sauce plane, it’s a tomato sauce, along with Italian sausage.
Another restaurant is Panda Express.
Started by a man and his wife and a father some years ago; there’s one in Fremont, California. They are a fast food chain with fabulist Chinese food and are located in other cities and countries.
Their Chinese food is different from Chinese restaurants that I’ve eaten in past years, which was great, but they’re also great.
Now let me comment on some of Panda Express’s great food.
- Honey Walnut Shrimp
- Orange Chicken,
- Chow mein
- Beef Broccoli,
- Green beans and Chicken,
- And, of course, more.
At Panda Express’s restaurants, you walk up to a counter where the food is separated by glass, you point to the food you want, and a person at the back of the counter puts the food into a box. Then walking to the pay area, you pay for the food picked out, the box is given to you, and you are on your merry way home.
My daughter Cherie brought over a great dinner the other night, A New York steak and a baking potato along with sauteed onions:
- The New York Steak she seasoned with Lawrys Seasoning Salt and garlic salt was great.
- The baking potato she but up and seasoned.
- For the sauteed onions, she used red onion and fried some in a skillet.
- I raved about those sauteed onions.
The red onion, when you’re cutting up one on a cutting board, will probably draw tears but will add great flavor to a stew or some soups. The red onion also will make great sauteed onions to add more flavor to a steak.
Here’s a great idea for lunch tomorrow:
Have a salad with those Vegetables that make a great salad, and start planning on which Vegetables you’ll have for dinner that night.