Ways to
Enhance Your Vegetarian Recipes.   

      
Cooking vegetables can be tricky. Over-cooking vegetables can make them
bland, soggy, and most importantly, can remove the necessary nutrients
that are bodies need to remain healthy.  Boiling your vegetables
is the biggest culprit for robbing cooked vegetables of their nutritional
components.  It also turns this crisp and fresh vegetables into
a lifeless, tasteless form. 

      Vegetables
are essential to the human diet and make up a great part of our daily
vitamin requirements.  There are methods to cook vegetables 
in a manner which does not deplete these nutrients which are listed
below.

Steaming

Steaming vegetables is always
a great way to enhance the flavors of your veggie recipe.  Cooking
vegetables in this manner will leave vegetables crisp and bright in
color.

      If
you do not have an official vegetable steamer, a 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 the pot. Fit the metal colander into the
pot. Start to boil the water. It's that simple!   

Using a Wok 

The secret to how a wok works
is that it cooks quickly and at a very high temperature. Because of
this, vegetables retain their flavors, textures, and colors with only
a minimal amount of nutrient loss.

Paying attention to this cooking
process is crucial because most foods are cooked over intense heat in
a matter of minutes. Again, no matter which method is used, you do not
want to over-cook the vegetable in any way.   

 

Grilling

There's room on the grill for
veggies so why not? Many vegetables grill well, but some aren't cut
out for it, especially those high in water content. Cucumbers don't
make the grade, nor does celery, and lettuce. But even a slightly skilled
backyard chef can do wonders with asparagus, eggplant, onions, peppers,
and even cabbage.  

An example of a delicious
vegetarian recipe using the grill is: 

Grilled Portobello Mushroom
Sandwich

Ingredients:

*1 large portobello mushroom,
cleaned and stemmed

*1/4 medium green bell pepper,
halved

*1 thin slice red onion

*1 whole wheat hamburger bun
(split) or whole wheat sliced bread

*2 tablespoons fat-free Italian
salad dressing

*1 slice (1 ounce) reduced-fat
part-skim mozzarella cheese

 

Preparation:

1. Brush mushroom, bell pepper,
onion and cut sides of bun with some dressing; set bun aside. Place
vegetables over medium-hot coals. Grill 2 minutes.

2. Turn vegetables; brush with
dressing. Grill 2 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Remove bell
pepper and onion from grill.

3. Place bun halves, cut sides
down, on grill. Turn mushroom top side up; brush with any remaining
dressing and cover with cheese, if desired. Grill 1 minute or until
cheese is melted and bun is lightly toasted.

4. Cut pepper into strips.
Place mushroom on bottom half of bun or on a slice of bread; top with
pepper strips and onion slice. Cover with top half of bun/slice of bread. 

Makes 1 Serving