Secret To Cooking Vegetables

Vegetables are essential to the human diet. We get a great deal of our daily vitamin content from vegetables. We need to make sure that how we cook them does not drain vitamin contents and benefits of consumption.

Cooking vegetables can be tricky. Over cooking can make vegetables bland and soggy. My belief is that vegetables should not be boiled. Boling not only rob us of vitamin content, it is the main culprit in turning vegetables to a lifeless, tasteless form.

If we cannot boil, how do we proceed?

First option, steaming vegetables is always a good choice. This will leave vegetables full of life. They will be crisp and colorful. It will also not deplete the vegetables of their vitamin content.

By rule of thumb, vegetables will only need a few minutes in the steam.

For those who do not have official vegetable steamers, an easy steamer can be fashioned out a of pot, a metal colander, and a pot lid. Place a small amount of water in the bottom of a given pot. Fit the metal colander into the pot. Start to boil the water. You will begin the see the steam rise. Place your vegetables into the metal colander and place the pot lid over the metal colander and pot. This collection of kitchen items will allow you to steam vegetables as good as any fancy store bought steamer.

Another good option is to cook your vegetables in a wok. The secret to the wok is that it cooks quickly at a very high temperature. Vegetables retain their flavors, textures, and colors with small amount of nutrient loss.

My favorite wok recipe for vegetables is to cook broccoli, carrots, bok choy, and snow peas in a very light garlic sauce. The vegetables remain crisp and the garlic adds just the right amount of flavoring. This combination can be served with any cut of meat.

I hope you will see that secret to cooking vegetables is not to over cook. Vegetables need to remain crisp, full of color. As you learn different tricks to bringing your vegetables to life, these will become the most requested dishes on your dinner table.


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Getting Restaurants in on the Act

Its one thing to move into a vegetarian discipline when it comes to preparing your meals at home.  But things get more complicated when you go out to eat because you must be prepared to order appropriately at a restaurant so you get good foods but foods that are in line with your vegetarian way of life. 

The first order of business that should rank high on your priorities early in your vegetarian career is to find and try all of the vegetarian restaurants in town.  This list will come in handy when enjoying some social time with like minded vegetarians or to eat on the run or from work.  Also these will be the kinds of restaurants where you can learn what kinds of recipes to look for and what you like in a vegetarian order.

But you won't take all your meals with other vegetarians.  If you are like most of us, you share your life with friends, loved ones and coworkers who are not part of the vegetarian lifestyle.  So learning to find good vegetarian alternatives in all of the restaurants is one of the skills you will become adept at the longer you remain a vegetarian which is hopefully for life.  One trick is that if you have a vote in the kind of restaurant to choose, go for Chinese or Italian.  Chinese restaurants often have some great meatless offerings already on their menu so you can order vegetarian and not even raise anyone suspicions. 

Similarly because you find so many dishes in an Italian restaurant that are pasta only, you can order a veggie pizza or just pasta with a nice sauce or maybe some broccoli and enjoy a fine dinner that is totally in step with your vegetarian rules.  Any restaurant that already has a good selection of meatless dishes that are not set apart as vegetarian are a good choice because you can dine with your non-vegetarian friends and family members and not call attention to the differences between you and them.  And since most restaurants have a good salad menu, that is always a fall back in any restaurant situation.

If your vegetarian regimen is vegan so you must also avoid milk, eggs, cheese or anything cooked in chicken or meat stock, you will have to kick your vigilance up a notch. The good news is that the vegetarian movement has become so large and wide spread that many restaurants want to accommodate their vegetarian customers. 

By letting your waiter know of your diet restrictions, he or she can guide you to the items on the menu that fit your requirements.  It is not uncommon to see the manager or chef of the restaurant come to the table to help you make a choice.  Restaurants are in the business of satisfying customers so they want to make sure you are happy with their menu offerings.  And by enlisting the aid of your restaurant staff in a cooperative and friendly way, you send a positive message to your dining companions that you can live a vegetarian lifestyle and still be a happy member of the community in which you live.

Most of us have a short list of restaurants that we frequent often.  But every restaurant you go to wants to be on that short list and make you a valued customer.  So network with your vegetarian friends and do your homework up front to find out which restaurants do well at accommodating the lifestyle of their vegetarian or vegan customers.  Then develop your strategy for handling any situation where you find yourself eating out so you can come out of that experience with a good meal that fits your lifestyle and not miss out on the great social times that we associate with the eating out experience.


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But What if Your Sweetheart Loves Meat?

The vegetarian culture is one that fosters a certain "snootiness" because of our insistence on pure foods.  It is also easy to get a superior attitude because vegetarian living is clearly a superior way to live from a health perspective and because so often our reasons for becoming a vegetarian is grounded in moral, ethical or religious values.  And this is all well and good as long as you are functioning within the vegetarian community exclusively.

But what if your sweetheart is a meat eater?  If the one you are dating, engaged to or even married to is not a vegetarian, that can lead to some pretty delicate moments.  The last thing the vegetarian movement is about is hostility.  So we have to have some guidelines on how to live in peace and harmony if your romantic partner has not joined you in your the vegetarian lifestyle.

Of course, one resolution is for your sweetheart to become a vegetarian with you.  You could go with the  argument of, "well if you loved me you would give up meat."  But forcing someone to join the vegetarian community out of guilt is a terrible reason to make that change of life.  Your sweetheart will just resent giving up a food he or she loves and will probably cheat and eat meat when not around you.  That kind of tension, resentment and deception is no grounds for a long term love affair.

A better way is to come to terms with your differences, find ways to live with them and then see if down the road, your sweetheart might convert of his own free will.  The first step, as is true of any conflict in an intimate relationship, is to talk about your differences openly.  Sit down and talk about where each of you is on this issue. Agree to disagree.  But also agree to find compromises and not to hold the other in contempt or to mock the other for the life choices he or she has made.  By reaching a loving agreement, each of you can allow the other to be who he or she is and the romance can continue as the dietary dispute is resolved peacefully.

Together you can look for restaurants that offer both vegetarian dishes and meat dishes so each of you can get what you want.  Now you don’t have to go to a restaurant that shouts in its advertising "We Serve Vegetarians!"  All a good restaurant needs is a few good menu entries that are meatless and you can find what you want while your sweetheart enjoys a meat dish.  Most good restaurants offer a tempting salad offering that you can customize so any meat, bacon bits, boiled eggs or even cheese are left out.  By working together to build a good list of restaurants both of you can enjoy, you have a compromise for date nights that will last a long time.

Finding ways for both of you to enjoy your diet of choice is a good long term step.  But your loved one may have a misconception that vegetarian food can't taste good.  So make a deal that he or she might try it one night.  Then you can put your best foot forward by preparing a sumptuous vegetarian meal that nobody can resist.  But be aware that if you do try to make such a deal, you might have to agree to let your sweetheart try to convert you back to the meat eating world with a sumptuous home made meat based meal.  If that is not ok with you, don’t make the deal.

Above all, don’t mock or look upon your sweetheart's choice of diet with distain or disgust.  Don’t make the "eww" face each time your date has a hamburger or a hot dog.  Come to the point that you can live with meat eaters and not feel repulsed when others eat the foods you don’t approve of.  After all, you would not your date to make the "eww" face when you had a tofu burger or a big plate of steaming vegetables instead of meat.  So treat each other with respect and love. Over time that approach will result in the best long term love affair and maybe even see you come to a time when he or she sees the light and joins you in the joys of vegetarianism.


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Be a Good House Guest and a Good Vegetarian

When you are learning the ropes of your new lifestyle of being a vegetarian, every aspect of life will be affected.  From work to home life to eating out, you have to have a strategy for how to maintain your vegetarian discipline and still enjoy these different situations of life that are important to you.  One of the situations we all find ourselves in, albeit perhaps infrequently, is when you are a house guest of a friend or relative.  In that situation, you are going to find yourself under the hospitality perhaps of a person who is not a vegetarian.  So you have to find a way to keep your diet healthy and proper and still be a good house guest.

While your desire to live a life free of the eating of meat and perhaps a meat byproducts like eggs and milk is not a eating disability, it is an eating limitation.  If you had a food allergy, perhaps to shell fish and you were going to stay as a house guest with someone, you would not feel any guilt letting them know your problem.  If you can put your vegetarian lifestyle in that context and prepare for your visit accordingly, there doesn’t have to be any "stigma" or guilt or problems bringing up your dietary needs with your host.

Your host, after all, naturally wants you to enjoy your stay in their home.  Anyone who is hosting has a natural instinct to make your stay comfortable and perfect.  You can capitalize on that instinct and be polite about the desire your host has to make your stay go well but working with your host to let him or her know about your vegetarian diet and how it might impact food planning.

When you get the invitation to come for a stay, that is the time to discuss what you can and cannot eat in your vegetarian discipline.  If you just avoid meat and not dairy and meat byproducts, it is very likely your host or hostess can prepare their regular meals but also put together a small main dish that fits your diet needs.  And you can enjoy the vegetable side dishes all you want so by working with your hosts, you can easily integrate how you eat into their meal planning and not disrupt the visit.

But also be aware that there are items that your host may not supply that you may wish to bring with you or go get after your arrival.  If you need soy milk because cows milk is not part of your diet regimen, by all means bring that in so your hosts are aware you are taking care of your own needs.  Just let them know what you are providing for yourself and if the communication goes well, you can be accommodated and your hosts will be grateful that you did not see it as their job to provide for every aspect of your vegetarian program.

The other side of being a good house guest and not letting your vegetarian way of life be a problem is to be both open about your discipline and not judgmental or "preachy" to others about the fact that they have not made the same diet decisions you have made.  In fact, you might even offer to prepare an entirely vegetarian meal for the host family and your own one night just to demonstrate to them just how delightful and tasty meat free eating can be.  You may be surprised just how interested and fascinated your friends and family are about your diet and why you are a vegetarian.  And by being friendly, open, loving and easy to talk to, you make the visit more interesting, fun and warm and you may even be able to educate your hosts and maybe your own family about why your vegetarian way of life is a good one.


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