# By contrast, what veggie have you grown to like?



## Phil (Feb 12, 2006)

Or one that you hated as a kid, and now have quite often. I used to gag on asparagus. But, mom used to serve them from a can. 

I saw this in a Southern Living mag. About 3 c. fresh asparagus peeled, ends snapped off and cut in one sections.  Sometimes I don't peel 'em. I bunch chopped green onions, 2-3 cloves minced garlic, 2 Tbs. butter, a chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1/2 c. water w/a tsp. sugar. Saute the asparagus in a pan with the melted butter and onions. When onions are about clear, add the water mixture and garlic to the pan and cover for ten minutes, or until moisture has cooked out. Top with sesame seeds and enjoy.


----------



## pdswife (Feb 12, 2006)

Sounds great.


I used to hate spinach... but like you mom only made it from a can.
I love the fresh stuff.  It's so good.


----------



## Sandyj (Feb 12, 2006)

Brussel sprouts. I think maybe my mom might have over cooked them, they were a funny olive green colour and bitter. M I buy the fresh ones when available - clean, cut in half and saute with a little onion and garlic until just cooked. I can eat the whole pan full by myself!


----------



## urmaniac13 (Feb 12, 2006)

Raw mushrooms.
I always loved them when they are cooked, but eating them raw, I thought that was a huge waste of this wonderful food.
Then Cristiano introduced me to this wonderful mushroom salad with rocket, shaved parmigiano (or aged pecorino), lemon zest and bresaola, dressed with dijon with seeds... this completely changed my view about raw mushrooms!! yum!!


----------



## Haggis (Feb 12, 2006)

I used to not like tomato (not counting tomatoes in pasta sauces and stews etc) but I have grown to like it even raw.


----------



## Phil (Feb 12, 2006)

*In the 50's, it wasn't as easy to get around...*



			
				pdswife said:
			
		

> Sounds great.
> 
> 
> I used to hate spinach... but like you mom only made it from a can.
> I love the fresh stuff.  It's so good.


...and canned foods were pretty much the norm. Corn, beans, and peas are much better than the greens. However, I'm not a tremendous fan of frozen veggies. The exception, for me, are peas and beans. I have found that having bacon, ham bone, ham hoc, or some pork fat handy, fresh garlic, green onions and chicken broth, make any frozen peas or beans taste fantastic. Those four items are a must in my kitchen.


----------



## Constance (Feb 12, 2006)

Okra. I never even saw it when I was growing up. My first husband was a Cajun, and when we lived down there, his farmer grandpa gave us some fresh okra, and his aunt told me how to slice it and stew it with tomatoes. When I sliced them, big strings of slimy "snot" came out of them, and I was turned off for years. His folks didn't use okra in their gumbos, or I might have learned to like it then. It's just been in the last few years that I discovered that I do like okra in soups. 
I have eaten it fried, and it's OK, but I'd rather have fried zucchini.


----------



## Debbie (Feb 12, 2006)

Broccoli ...........I would never eat that as a kid, but now I like it steamed and in salads, or stir fry.


----------



## GB (Feb 12, 2006)

Asparagus, spinach, onions, radishes, eggplant just off the top of my head.


----------



## texasgirl (Feb 12, 2006)

I used to hate the smell of cabbage, wouldn't even think of eating it. Now I love the stuff!!!
Same with all cheese that stinks, like, blue cheese etc...Love it now.


----------



## licia (Feb 12, 2006)

We never had cooked cabbage when I was growing up, but had cole slaw a good bit.  It seems like every time I heard about cooked cabbage it was in a mystery book about old boarding houses that reeked of "boiled cabbage". I only cook my cabbage about 5 minutes and it never smells, but it tastes wonderful.  I use only the water that stick to the leaves and add a bit of salt and pepper. It is still crisp and green - makes me think the vitamins are still there.


----------



## kimbaby (Feb 12, 2006)

brussel sprouts, I actually love 'em now...


----------



## Constance (Feb 12, 2006)

When I married my husband, was a meat & potato man. If he had to eat a vegetable, it was peas, corn, an occasional carrot, or green beans. 
His mother wasn't much of a cook, and his first two wives had tastes similar to his own, so I think he just didn't know how good vegies can be! 
I have taught him to eat everything except cabbage. I don't know how a person can love broccoli and brussels sprouts, and hate cabbage. He says it's the smell. I have gotten him to eat a few bites of my spicy North Carolina Slaw, and he says it would be good if it didn't have cabbage in it.


----------



## Shunka (Feb 12, 2006)

I think that after I got married, I learned that I started to like more veggies because I was cooking them the way I _wanted_. Asparagus, spinach, peas, sauer kraut and even carrots were the ones I stayed away from. Now I eat all of them quite often!!  Most of the veggies that y'all didn't like (broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, etc.) I always loved; even as a kid.


----------



## MJ (Feb 12, 2006)

Mushrooms. 

I found out that they taste pretty good on a pizza though!


----------



## Robo410 (Feb 12, 2006)

It's the truth, when you learn to cook the poor veggies the right way, they taste really great!  My veggie conversion started early...always likes peas (frozen) and string beans (canned) corm and potatoes, but the rest were horrid unless fresh.  Even those purple bowling balls called rutabagas are yummy fixed right.  

Roasting does a lot for veggies...concentrates the flavors, caramelizes the sugars, mellows the sulfurs and acids.  

My most recent converison was beets a few ago.  Had them in a pasta at a great fusion restaurant.  awesome...sweet, blended nicely with the tomato sauce, etc.  also nice with nuts and cheese in a salad.


----------



## sattie (Feb 12, 2006)

*Phil*

As a kid, I hated peas, carrots and corn.

Peas did not stand a chance... so to this day they are still off the list.
Carrots.... love them raw, but will not eat them cooked.
Corn... big winner here... I love corn, from the can, from the cob, under a tree, in a barn.

I really love taking corn ears and rubbing them with a mixture of butter, garlic, herbs and salt and grilling the holy tar out of them till the get that nice charred look.  Man, talk about gooooooood!


----------



## Phil (Feb 12, 2006)

*Let's work on the carrots....*

Have you steamed them and slathered garlic butter on em'?


----------



## auntdot (Feb 12, 2006)

My diciest (sorry, don't know if that is a word) veggie is Brussel sprouts.

Take them, put them through the mandoline, and saute them in butter with some shallots and I will eat them.  But they do not make my happy.

Even toss in some crumbled bacon, and still not a sale.

I like most cruciferous veggies though, it is just the sprouts that I cannot appreciate.

Were it not for Mrs. Auntdot they would never appear on our table.  But she loves the doggone things.

And I eat a bit.

Mix them into the mashed tatties and you can hardly taste them.

Don't know of a breed of dog that likes the sprouts, but if there is, please, clue me in.


----------



## Shunka (Feb 12, 2006)

Most of my 9 dogs like sprouts!!  Even a couple of my cats do; not to mention the two burros in my avatar here too!! Of course they love cabbage; raw or cooked too. They very seldom get any as I or the hubby tend to not leave any for leftovers!!


----------



## sattie (Feb 12, 2006)

Phil... never have steamed them... but it sounds like it would be great!

auntdot... my dog Binks (see avatar) he is a veggie dog... he would eat them.  I can not chop up any veggies without him racing out to the kitchen to beg for some scraps.  He likes raw cabbage, broccoli, tomato, potato, corn, squash, I really have not found anything he wont eat.  My guess is he would eat the brussel sprouts.

I like brussel sprouts, drowned in butter and cumin... they are tough to eat at times!


----------



## corazon (Feb 12, 2006)

Same as pds, I hated cooked spinach.  It made me gag.  Oddly enough, I love it now and dh can't stand it.  I suppose I'm destined to not eat cooked spinach.


----------



## Suus (Feb 13, 2006)

Beetroot was my no go vegetable. As a child, I used to stay over for dinner with a macrobiotic family every Tuesday. Which was beetroot day... cooked, in the skin, whole on the plate with no salt or whatsoever. I have never been a fussy eater, but the beetroot made me gag.
This summer I tried a bit my great-aunt made, first cooked, then sliced, then sautéed in butter with a little onion. And salt.
I really liked it, I feel like I'm cured!


----------



## buckytom (Feb 13, 2006)

gb, you must have a big hat... 

it makes me crazy, ever since i've started growing asparagus crowns (the root system, or rhizome) for people to use the "snap" method of cooking aspari-grass. you are wasting so much of the useable plant. i guess because i've busted my butt digging deeply into my limited garden, ensuring good drainage for them next to plants requiring better watering, that i do not want to waste a fraction of the edible shoots, what we commonly know as asparagus spears or stems. forget snapping them, unless a minute extra of your time is that freakin necessary, as in a busy professional kitchen. 
now, yes, the ends of commercially produced asparagus are more woody, but if you grow your own, or have a good supplier or greengrocer, all you have to do is slice a bit of the slightly dehydrated end off, and when ready to employ, just peel the green skin off the lower part of the stem. underneath is a quite tasty and tender white-ish/greenish part that shouldn't be discarded for lack of effort.

btw, did you know that white asparagus is just simply regular asparagus that has been deprived of sunlight so as not to allow the production of chlorophyll?
if you want to harvest white asparagus, just build a box and place it over the soil where the crowns are planted. the asparagus, even without sunlight, is so prolific that a healthy crown will still send up shoots, however they will break the soil and grow pale white. it's best tocheck on and harvest them after dark as any sunlight will affect the color.


----------



## Piccolina (Feb 13, 2006)

Suus said:
			
		

> Beetroot was my no go vegetable. As a child, I used to stay over for dinner with a macrobiotic family every Tuesday. Which was beetroot day... cooked, in the skin, whole on the plate with no salt or whatsoever. I have never been a fussy eater, but the beetroot made me gag.
> This summer I tried a bit my great-aunt made, first cooked, then sliced, then sautéed in butter with a little onion. And salt.
> I really liked it, I feel like I'm cured!


 I'm with beets too, the only way I ever recall my mom making them was pickling up a huge batch about once a year and the smell was just awful (though I'm sure that they did actually taste good) so I was really put off by them. In the last few years I've played around with beets (roasted, raw in salads, etc) and found they are really quite nice.


----------



## thumpershere2 (Feb 13, 2006)

Brussel sprouts, peas, asparagus. Now I usually like all veggies. Eat more fresh veggies now then when I was a kid. then we always had canned veggies.(yukkkk)


----------



## Phil (Feb 13, 2006)

*You need a steamer or...*



			
				sattie said:
			
		

> Phil... never have steamed them... but it sounds like it would be great!
> 
> auntdot... my dog Binks (see avatar) he is a veggie dog... he would eat them. I can not chop up any veggies without him racing out to the kitchen to beg for some scraps. He likes raw cabbage, broccoli, tomato, potato, corn, squash, I really have not found anything he wont eat. My guess is he would eat the brussel sprouts.
> 
> I like brussel sprouts, drowned in butter and cumin... they are tough to eat at times!


..use the microwave. Although I think the the insert in the pot with water is best. When you boil veggies, a lot of flavor is lost when you pour the water down the drain. Veggies burst with hidden flavor when you steam them. I wouldn't touch cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, twenty years ago. You'll be pleasantly amazed at how vegetables tase when you steam. Re: brussel sprouts being tough. I read somewhere that you cut an X in the bottom of them before cooking, and it makes them tender. Your poocher is quite simular to my Cairn Terrier, Dixie Lee. She will eat anything. Does flips for strawberries, bananas, pecans, and peppermint. The dog loves to eat.


----------



## sattie (Feb 13, 2006)

*Phil*

Thanks for the tips.  I hate to boil veggies, so steaming is on my list of "treatments" for veggies.  Not sure about the sprouts either, I don't think I have ever cooked them fresh.  So I will have to keep it in mind when I do by fresh sprouts.

Yea, sounds like our dogs would love to be vegitarians.... more like whatever you feed me tarians!


----------



## Jikoni (Feb 13, 2006)

Cabbage! Hated them. We rarely eat them at home, but eat them almost daily at school, the cooks boiled the lives off them, then put a wee bit of salt to taste and a drop of cooking oil.I only eat because I had no choice. Now I love them as I prepare them in garlic and tomatoes. Even my DH prefers my version when we have an irish dinner of boiled ham, cabbage and mashed potatoes.


----------



## succ33d (Feb 13, 2006)

Spinach and onions. Hated them as a kid, but now I really like them both.


----------

