A few years ago, I arrived in LA to visit my best friends who announced they had just begun the South Beach Diet and warned me that our dinner would be heavily weighted toward the vegetable group.  See, cooking and eating had always been a huge part of our relationship, great food, great company, great times.  We’ve gone through countless phases:sushi-making parties, Superbowl fare, bagel mania, custom fajita buffets and after discovering a Belgian waffle iron – waffles for every meal… All of the above and more, but all pretty much devoid of vegetables.  Despite an emphasis on veggies, our dinner that night was EXCEPTIONAL!  Delicious, comfortably filling, colorful, and nutritious. We made pistachio crusted chicken breast tenderloins, oven roasted red peppers, and a killer green bean dish with a side of broiled tomatoes with parmesan.  Three quarters of our plates were full of red and green veggies slightly crunchy, seasoned perfectly, and I fell in love with vegetables for the first time.  Ever.  One of my friends said aloud, “you know, I used to think I hated vegetables.  Now I realize I never had them prepared correctly.” And I couldn’t agree more.

A lot of us have memories of mushy cooked broccoli, steamed Brussels sprouts and grody canned asparagus, unfortunately not seasoned well, if at all.  We choked them down so we could be eligible for dessert, but now that we’re adults, we bring our experiences with vegetables as kids into our everyday practice and it’s easy to leave them out.  Just go to any restaurant.  There’s usually only a small selection of entrées on any given menu that contain a proper serving of vegetables.  We should be having vegetables with every meal.  Even breakfast.  They should make up half our plates.  Especially the dark green leafy ones like kale, Swiss chard, spinach, asparagus and bok choy.  One of my favorite ways to make kale is to first buy either the curly or the flat organic kale and rinse it really well and rip it into chunks, getting rid of the super tough parts of the stem.  I saute a quarter of an onion in a saute pan with some grapeseed oil for about 3 minutes until it starts to get a little brown, then throw in the kale and cover it up for 7 minutes or so, steaming it until it softens up and reduces.  Then I toss in a few cloves of fresh sliced garlic and let that cook up another minute.  Add a dash of sea salt and some pepper and voila!  It’s quick and easy to prepare while you’re waiting for your main dish to cook in the oven.

Asparagus is another one that’s quick and easy and SO good.  Wash up and trim the tough ends off a bundle of organic asparagus, maybe 30 stalks for 2 people and get some grapeseed oil hot in a saute pan at medium high heat.  Toss in your asparagus with a little salt and pepper and turn down the heat to medium. Once the asparagus cooks to a BRIGHT GREEN, you’ve reached your endpoint (maybe 5 minutes).  Splash a little balsamic vinegar in over the asparagus and let it simmer up as you turn the heat off.  Toss the asparagus around in the vinegar and they’re ready to eat! The asparagus should be a little bit crunchy and tangy from the vinegar.  Balsamic vinegar can make even your worst nightmare vegetables tolerable, if not your new favorites!  Give it a try!

I hope you can rediscover vegetables if you haven’t already!  They do some wonderful things for our bodies.  Let’s repay them by seasoning them and cooking them deliciously! Happy veggie-eating!