Third blog - How I learned to enjoy vegetables

What I thought I knew: I will guess that most of us probably recall that we hated vegetables when we were young. They tasted strange and had weird textures. My mother insisted on salad and a vegetable with every dinner and I probably ate carrots and celery every school day. Our salads, populated by leafy greens, iceberg, little green onions and wedges of tomatoes were always dressed with vinegar and oil. It wasn't even olive oil. By the end of dinner, the salad was limp and inedible, yet my father always finished the leftovers as we were doing dishes. We ate vegetables from a can or from a frozen box. Green peas and lima beans were yucky and the choices available seemed limited. I hated kidney beans, which appeared in mom's chili and sometimes in salads on other people's dinner tables. Vegetables were something to be accepted as inevitable and not something to enjoy. Even the odd bean sprout or mushroom found in mom's Chop Suey seems like a pretty bland memory. There is one delicious exception - corn on the cob. Well two, I also learned to like fresh artichokes, boiled in an inch of water and the leaves peeled off one at a time and dipped in mayonnaise. But I loved corn on the cob. My parents always found a local farmer or market from which to purchase 10 ears for a dollar. Sweet, salted, buttered and almost too hot to touch; chomping across the rows, rapidly finishing the corn before eating anything else and then eating more if available. Unlike many people I meet now, I also had access to avocados, technically a fruit, but too squishy and weird to enjoy as a child. Guacamole was disgusting.

What I know now: Wow, there are so many choices today! Eating fresh vegetables, even kale, can be scrumptious, if not only "good for you." Just last week, I discovered that if I peeled cut up broccoli, all the way up to the florets, that eating them raw was pretty tasty, and not so cabbage and smelly close up to your nose as you might anticipate. Peeling that much up the stem just makes broccoli better. When I was in my 20s, I discovered that my parents were eating fresh green beans, locally grown tomatoes that tasted good and cooking them delicately instead of boiling them to limpness. I discovered later that steaming vegetables allowed me to be more precise about how done I wanted to serve vegetables, and peeling things like brussels sprouts, broccoli and asparagus provided the opportunity for tenderness instead of stringy.

Lately, I've been stir frying any vegetables I have around the house in any combination (except for lettuce) and serving them over brown rice, whole grain pasta or by themselves. Just add spices, cook in olive oil, and for those of us with bad habits, add butter and some salt. I've also discovered that I love vine ripened tomatoes, cut into bite-size pieces, which is almost as important as their flavor. If I have to cut a tomato in my salad to eat it, I sometimes don't bother to eat the thing. I also learned to love onions and peppers, making them a staple in my kitchen along with the romaine lettuce in the crisper and edamame in the freezer. One day, I'll be able to get edamame from my local farmer. . . . Meanwhile, red onions sliced thin and marinated with some salt in freshly squeezed lime juice makes a great complement to tacos and so do fried onions and peppers, as well as roasted peppers and tomatillos made into a sauce. Garlic. Love it, but in moderation.

Salads - well, as an adult, I was introduced to bottled dressings. We did not keep such items in our refrigerator. The options for dressing are as marvelous as they are often disappointing. I found a dressing I like so much that I buy 4-5 bottles from the store that carries them. I make salads that include lots of vegetables and SOMETIMES lettuce. I add walnuts, flax seeds, tuna, broccoli, cauliflower (which is great in a stir fry), bacon (everything is better with bacon even though it's not a vegetable), capers, cottage cheese, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, red cabbage and spinach. I still don't put onions in salad. I like them cooked. As for guacamole, my best friend makes a great dip, no onions, some tomatoes, salt, lime juice, spices and some salsa. I actually eat a little with corn chips now and again.

By the way, what I still know:  I don't like cooked mushrooms. Raw is OK, but really, are mushrooms necessary in my crisper drawer? I still pick them out of dishes, which I order because I like the flavor, just not the consistency. Hope these blogs are consistent enough for you to continue enjoying my words.