Get a glass pyrex dish with a lid. Many veggies, you can just throw
them in there and nuke with a tablespoon of water. I do this with an
artichoke regularly, as well as cauliflower or broccoli to be used
further in other recipes. The artichoke is easy enough to even have
with breakfast often. Drain the cauliflower or broccoli and nuke with
some raw cheddar cheese sprinkled on top.
This time of year, I like to mash the cauliflower and then follow a
recipe for leek soup, replacing the potatoes with cauliflower. It's a
very stick-to-your-ribs kind of meal.
Most people are not terribly fond of steamed veggies on a regular basis
though. So stirfry most of them. You don't have to have 10 ingredients
to do a stirfry. Just stirfy one or two things. It's like salads -
yes, they're better with 20 ingredients, but you never eat that much, so
better to just do a few ingredients and do it differently each time.
I often use avocado oil for stirfry, but also have found it's quite
yummy to saute in concentrated homemade broths also. If the broths are
made from pasture-raised animals, I don't skim off the fat, so wind up
with stuff that is very thick and gelatinized with a layer of fat on
top. This makes very flavorful stirfries.
Stirfries are always improved with seasoning, most commonly I use
pressed garlic, minced ginger and soy sauce.
But it does depend. I often fry a big batch of different colored bell
peppers, onions and garlic in olive oil. A bowl of this is nice with
some Parmesan sprinkled on top. Leftovers make a nice condiment for
topping a salad and/or a sandwich.
I also stirfry shredded zucchini and cabbage often, without flavorings.
These makes a nice replacement for pasta and noodles. I like the
zucchini better with tomato sauces and the cabbage with cream sauces
(like stroganoff).
I eat salad a lot more if the stuff is already cut up so I cut up
veggies destined for raw eating as soon as I bring them home. Lots of
various sauces and dressings change the flavors as well - variety is
important so you don't get bored. A nice dressing for a change of pace
is some Greek yogurt with minced shallot and a bit of lime juice.
Roasting veggies is very nice. Roasted veggies are nicely yummy, they
carmelize wonderfully. It works particularly well for things not quite
as fresh and young as you might like. For example, take a pound of
green beans and toss with a TB of oil, put on a foil lined baking sheet
and pop in the oven at 450 for ten minutes. Take them out, stir and
season (salt, freshly ground black pepper and garlic powder is nice) and
pop them back in for another ten minutes. They look awful, but taste
great. You can roast all sorts of non-starchy veggies; this time of
year they're really good.
Bake large veggies to get them cooked easier. Most of us know this
about squash, but it works for eggplant too. Just throw it in the oven
while you're in the kitchen already for a half hour or so. The next
day, stir the mash up with a bit of spaghetti sauce and some shredded
mozzarella and nuke; it's a lot easier than a full eggplant parmesan recipe.
I do an acorn squash now and then also; just cut in half, scoop the
seeds and pulp out, replace with breakfast sausage and bake until cooked
through. Leftovers nuke easily.