DO NOT “OVERCOOK” VEGETABLES

We have become accustomed to thinking since the time of our grandmothers that some foods must be cooked a long time. The longer you cook them, the more nutritional content you lose during the preparation of dishes. If the vegetables are still a little “firm” when you bite through them, there is nothing wrong with that: quite the opposite - you will see how much more taste it contains. Each vegetable has its own cooking time; you can braise some really quickly, some can be added to freshly cooked vegetables, and some must nevertheless be cooked a little longer. On no account should you overdo your cooking to the extent that the vegetables become a pure “mush”. Quick and still “firm” will be our guide.

VEGETABLE PURÉES

When making your culinary creations, you are likely to encounter challenges of what to serve as side dishes to more conventional meals (meat), as we are accustomed to have potatoes, rice or pasta as a side dish. Try different vegetable purees. Purees made from cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, kohlrabi or pumpkin are excellent additions to such dishes. You can add a bit of strained chickpeas or some boiled potatoes to your cooked vegetables. Mash it all together as a plain puree and dilute it with water in which you cooked the vegetables. Add spices to taste so that they match the vegetable base of the puree. Such a puree can be safely served with meat or other vegetable dishes.

DISHES BAKED IN THE OVEN

With the thousands of routines of your daily life, you probably also worry about how long preparing freshly cooked food will take. The simplest dishes are those from the oven. Any vegetables, with the addition of chickpeas, soybeans, beans or grains can be prepared in the oven, while vegetables baked in the oven assume a different flavour. Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, eggplant, asparagus, cabbage, pumpkin and zucchini are all delicious dishes, easy to prepare in the oven, and the baking time in most case does not exceed 30 minutes. All you have to do in order to make your random combination is to place it on the baking tray, without using too much oil, but only sprinkling it with oil and placing it on baking paper.

Optionally season it and put it into a pre-heated oven.