ecobites

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Exploring new veggies at your local farmers market is a great way to shake up weary taste buds while adding healthy vitamins and antioxidants to your diet.

Look for arugula, bok choy, chayote, leeks, radicchio, daikon, and Swiss chard.

Other more "exotic" choices that may be more difficult to locate include taro, cassava, yucca, Jerusalem artichoke, burdock, jicama, banana squash, kabocha, and manioc. Taro is a favorite tropical veg, steamed in coconut milk with banana and spices. Cassava can be cooked like a potato and is great as chips.

If you do find these harder to find vegetable options, consider freezing some for later use. Another option, if you have a green thumb, is to grow your own.

Broad beans followed by potato.

Mine would have to be the tomato all the way. I just I was not allergic to them. (as if that would stop me)

I used to dislike Brussells Sprouts now I just love em. I think my dear mother who was a great cook, except for the boiled sprouts turned me off them. Got some Brussells Sprouts from the local organic co-op and they had some recipes attached, my fave now is to pan-fry with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt until they're brown and crispy on the outside. Love them in curries, where the spices infiltrate and soften the sprout, creating a wonderful flavour.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the humble Onion! (Or maybe they have, but I missed it) I think all my favourite dishes have onion in the recipe, might make you cry but they're a versatile kitchen staple.

EcoDave you are so right the humble onion is just so versatile and my good wife says they dress up a plain dish - like adding to mashed potato. We are harvesting aerial potato (a yam) and cocoyam, which can be diced, boiled or mashed and teamed with onion, like potato. Pureed cocoyam makes a great soup.