What veg do you serve?

[Foldinthecheese]

I feel like I am pretty unadventurous (or maybe just lazy?) with the veg I serve. Through the week we typically have green beans, broccoli, peas, carrots, sweet corn, and sometimes peppers and onions in fajitas, or cucumber and tomatoes (aware not actually a vegetable) to accompany pizza or similar. Is this sufficient? We aren’t huge veg lovers, and I prefer to serve these as they are easy to prepare and happily eaten by everyone, but I worry that I should be offering more variety. Children are DTs 4.5 and DD 1.5, with one of the twins being a bit fussy.

It's fine.

You could try adding spinach to things. A lot of spinach cooks down to nothing. Beans and lentils count as veg.

All the ones you have.
Sometimes chopped leeks cooked in some butter with grain mustard and a splash of cream.
Also sliced spring greens cooked in oil or butter with a crushed clove of garlic.
Not that healthy but really nice for a change

Greens like kale or Savoy cabbage. My 7 year old loves cabbage sautéed with garlic and butter. Roasted cauliflower is also really nice.

Sounds like plenty to me.

I get a veg box and we eat what's in that. So this week:
lettuce (a bowl of shredded on the table with everything)
carrots (raw as snacks, grated into a chilli, coleslaw, salad)
baby turnips (sliced into a stir fry and coleslaw, salad)
kohlrabi (grated into coleslaw)
new potatoes (not sure yet)
courgettes (grated into a chilli)
lots of chilli, garlic, ginger and fresh herbs

I also grow a bit of veg, so this week we've also had spring onions in various things.

I use a lot of vegan recipes to make sure we get lots of veg on the table, even though we're very much meat eaters.

My dc only eat

Peas
Sweetcorn
Broccoli
Peppers
Carrots
Cucumber
Plain lettuce

I'm happy enough with that..

Many of you sound like you are much better at cooking than I am...

I hardly have meals with the veg separate. Some of my regular meals are...tuna pasta bake with cream cheese, tinned tomatoe and brocolli. I make carbonate with sweet peppers and mushrooms. Curried rice and chicken with mixed beans and carrotts. Spag bol with celery and carrotts. Pasta with a sauce made with grated courgettes.

I tend to bulk up meals with veg. So for chilli I would add sweet corn, mixed bean salad and chick peas.

For spaghetti Bolognese I would add Mediterranean veg (courgette, onion, peppers and tomato) as well as tinned.

With Chinese I will add mange tout, sugar snap peas, pak Choy and baby corn.

But we do eat what you’ve listed too. We also have salads too.

I love veg as does my daughter so try to include it in a lot of meals.

It's fine I would say. DS is who is 12 months I add spinach to meals, baby corn, peppers, onions, carrots, mushrooms, tomato's to name a few. His favourite food is actually cucumber and tomato's

Sounds perfect! I usually add my vegetables in to dishes eg bolognese/ curry / stew but if we are having something like pizza or pesto pasta I’ll have peas/ sweet corn / cucumber on the side.
One of my dds is good for eating veg but the toddler isn’t so I have to hide it in everything!
Spinach is good for bolognese and curries as it’s easy to hide!

Sounds fine to me. Fussy DCs really limit what you can serve... my big ‘wins’ have been:

• raw peppers (NOT green!)
• sugar snaps and mange tout
• mini corn/baby corn - whatever you call it.

That’s it. But they eat buckets of cucumbers and cherry tomatoes and that’s fine. They won’t get scurvy.

I do add things like courgette into bolognese or chilli, but I suppose I don’t tend to make those so much at this time of the year. Mange tout might be a good one to try.

I don’t really serve veg as a side to the meal, we tend to have meals where it’s all cooked in so tray bakes, curries, soups, stews etc. I find them easier to cook plus you can hide loads of good things in them. In a typical weekly shop we’d get carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, potato, tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, chinese leaf, cucumber, celery, leaks, spring onions, maybe sweet corn and peppers. As pp said lentils and beans, chickpeas etc are great - they’re also cheap and mean you can use less meat (if you eat meat).

It really depends what we’re eating. I buy frozen veg that can be steamed, use a lot of peppers and mushrooms in things like chilli, curry, bolognese etc.

Tonight we had a risotto with chorizo, red pepper, frozen peas, and an onion - not great! Tomorrow I am making a pasta bake with broccoli, courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, butter beans, onion, and peas.

My DC are ok-ish with veg but reject anything onion based. But they don’t notice if it’s blended.

So I sweat/gently fry onion, celery and leek, sometimes with carrot depending what I’m making. Then blend it and use it as a base for a lot of meals. I always make a big batch and put all the extra portions in the freezer which makes cooking much easier and gets more veg into meals.

Also as pp said lentils and beans are great. They count in your 5 a day, are cheap and are versatile.

@Foldinthecheese

Many of you sound like you are much better at cooking than I am...

Ha, I'm a very basic cook. If I ever get rich, the first thing I'm getting is a chef to just sort of loiter in the kitchen so I never have to cook again.

I hVe fussy dcs, so veg on the side is obligatory, sometimes, so we can all have the sane meal but they don't have the hated veg.