Help me improve my diet! Need to eat waaaay more veg.

[cardifcannonball]

My current diet is appalling and I'm
suffering for it. I need a hand holding through a weekly shopping list and daily meals that are properly veg-heavy. I've never quite managed to, well, manage the vegetable situation in our house. I get frozen peas / broccoli / spinach. Fresh carrots / green beans / mange tout, toms and cucumber, and tinned sweet corn. The fresh stuff often goes off. I dint have a huge fridge / freezer so storage can be an issue.
Give me practical easy meals that are healthy and vitamin packed, please! Preferably ones my children will eat too. Help!

Not much help but I'm the same, especially since Winter kicked in. Feel like I'm on 100% carbs right now! Awaiting enlightenment...

what do you actually eat?

What meals do you enjoy, then we can suggest veggie/ veg heavy versions?

I love a vegetable curry (any veg really, but for example baby corn, mange tout, broccoli, peppers)

stir fry (cabbage, carrot, beansprout, water chestnuts, edamane, onion, peppers)

casseroles (carrot, parsnip, turnip, squash)

chilli (various beans, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, onions)

Yes, what do you actually eat?

We need a list please.

I'm dieting. This is my normal day now:

B: tub with two dessert spoons of oats, handful raspberries, two spoons natural yoghurt, handful of blueberries - made the night before so the oats are soft from the yoghurt.

L: large salad, lettuce, toms, grated carrot, radish, baby corn, jalapenos, cucumber, red pepper with tuna or poached chicken. Tub of chopped pineapple and two spoons of pomegranate seeds.

Snack: three Brazil nuts, three dried apricots, a banana, tub of cherry toms and olives, fun size choc bar

D: baked tomatoes, mushroom and pepper, baked white fish, cauliflower rice or steamed greens.

One easy way to get veg into people is home made soup. Endless variations. Buy a soup book.
Or little veggie fritters are good too. Grate a mix of root veg- I do celeriac, potato & apple, into a bowl. Add a tbsp of oil, an egg, salt & paprika and mix. Grease a baking tray, take a small handful and squeeze some of the moisture out, put the ball of mix on the tray. Repeat with all the mix. Bake in 160 degree oven for 30 mins. Sprinkle some grated cheese on top. Back in the oven to let the cheese melt. Dead easy, moreish, quick and inexpensive.
Carrot, parsnip & coriander is good too. With lots of black pepper.

Be careful about rapid increase of veg if you eat none/very little. It will likely give you stomach issues.

What do you eat normally?

Veg soup once a day. Bang and the veg is done.

I could be wrong but from your OP it sounds like you just by stuff and then try to turn it in to meals. You might have less waste if you do it the other way round, think of your meals for the week and shop accordingly.

I love a good minestrone. You can stick pretty much any veg you have in that and it's really filling.

Stir fried are tasty and colourful too, don't have to be all veg you could include prawns or chicken.

I love roasted Mediterranean veg. Chop up a red onion, red pepper, courgette. Toss in olive oil (and harissa paste if you have it) and roast for 20 to 25 minutes. Lovely with couscous.

Some people are very down on cauliflower but cauliflower cheese is one of my favourite things. We usually have it with bacon.

Lastly, at the end of the week I turn left over veg in to soup and freeze in individual portions that we can take to work for lunch.

Same here OP. I need to find ways to incorporate veg into my regular diet. I'm fine with a roast as i have loads of gravy to go with it but I'm not keen on piles of plain veg and I hate salad and soups. I do actually like veg but preferably with a sauce.

Veggie pasta: onion, courgettes, peppers fried in a bit of oil, add a tin of tomatoes, basil, black pepper and some tahini. Serve with whatever pasta you fancy. We sometimes add bacon to it. You can also add aubergine, leeks or celery.

Creamy pasta bake: fry bacon/onion, then add courgettes/peppers/aubergine. Stick some basil and black pepper in.
Stir in a tub of marscapone and an egg or 2. Add some mozzarella and a bit of creme fraiche. Serve with pasta. It's not particularly healthy but it's delicious!

Fish bake: cook smoked fish (mostly basa fillets for us) in a bit of milk. Lightly steam some cauliflower and broccoli. Flake the fish and put in a dish with veg. Make a cheese sauce with the milk from the fish and pour it over. Grate a bit of cheese over (or put a layer of sliced potatoes first) on the top and put in the oven for 15 - 20 mins.

Stir fry is another favourite - works well with most veg - I love a bit of pak choi in mine but mangetout and baby sweetcorn are favourites here too.

We also add plenty of veg to chilli, shepherds' pie, curry etc and I often use passata instead of gravy in the shepherds' pie just to boost the veg content.

Obviously i dont know what kind of things you like but heres some suggestions. I've been making soup in the slow cooker you could look on pintrest they have hundreds of recipes. Also if you do stew type meals you can bung loads of root veg in. I usually do mash with normal potatoes plus either sweet potato or some kind of squash. We have a squash box at the moment so using lots of squash. I made Shepard pie with carrots with the mince then used squash, sweet potato and normal potato for mash then broccoli on the side. I use my slow cooker a lot and put meat and loads of veg in to make hot pots , stews ECT I also do things like ribs in it with chopped veg and tomatoes to make a sauce. You can get loads of veg in a tomato sauce and have with pasta ECT. If you like smoothie you can get lots of fruit and veg in that way. I've started having yoghurt with almond butter, Apple and nuts in the morning, O also make pancakes with mixed frozen berries in or savoury ones with finely chopped veg and cheese in. Curries are good for getting loads of veg in plus lentils. You seem to by salad stuff so I think you could use that in pittas , with dips ECT.

It’s so hard in winter OP
I was plant based this summer and felt great but struggling this winter and a bit of weight has crept back on

Lots of vegetable soup
Lentil and vegetable stew (add in small pasta if the kids like it )
Pasta with tomato sauce
Sandwiches with vegetable sticks and dessert of fruit
Porridge with sultana and grated apple
Pasta with fresh pesto , peas and broccoli
Roasted new potatoes with rosemary and garlic
Grated carrot salad with fresh herbs and roasted nuts

Have you a decent greengrocer near you ? Go and fill the fridge up !

Soups:
leek and potato
butternut squash and pepper
minestrone
etc etc

We have veggie Thursdays and more often than not, we have a veggie dish on Tuesdays too.

Meal planning:
-roast on Sunday with roast veg or two different veg

• cold cuts Mon with copious veg or salad
• Tues; some sort of veggie pasta - classic tomato or broccoli, pea and pesto with parmesan
• Wed- tray bake of sausages or chicken pieces with roast veg (baby toms, onions, peppers, green beens, squash, cauliflower - whatever you want to put in there - or a mix of root vegetables such as parsnips, carrots, celeriac, garlic)
• Thurs - veggie casserole or curry
• Fri - fish with veg (pieces baked in foil in oven, or fishcakes with peas and sweetcorn or fish pie with pea and potato mash)
• Sat - homemade pieces with selection of veg of choice and home made tom sauce

I dont know about you but I always used to forget about veg until it was too late. So 2 minutes before dinner is ready I would think "crap I haven't done any vegetables" and then end up with peas again be cause they are the quickest.

I have started meal planning and we are eating much more healthily. I do the plan on sunday and shop on Monday so i only buy the veg I actually plan to use. Less waste and healthier dinners.

I also recommend the Ella's Kitchen recipe books (the red one). They are recipes for toddlers/kids so many have lots of veg in but they're quite tasty and also give you ideas how to get kids involved. Many of their recipes go on my meal plan!

I suggest getting a stick blender and using your veg to make sauces and soups. So say you're making a pasta meal then you have a fresh sauce made with [tinned?] tomatoes and fresh veg, veg curry is good and soup is easy peasy to make, cook veg, blend, serve, yum, for added coolness make some soda bread to go with it, less than an hour from start to eating, what's not to like.

I struggle with this for DH, who would live on poached eggs, smoked salmon and baby spinach given the choice.

Buttered leeks. Dead simple and tasty

I do a tea called ‘random fridge crap’. Based on a quick onion, mushroom, garlic base with either fresh (if they are randomly in the fridge going bad) or tinned tomatoes or passata. Sometimes a bit of chorizo, sometimes chicken breast, sometimes bacon. Chuck any other veg in that’s going bad, or a tin of green beans or sweet corn. If there’s cheese that needs eating, it gets bunged in the oven covered in cheese. If not, it’s with pasta as a sauce. Oh yeah and yoghurt or creme fraiche if there’s some there. Loads of veg in a simple tea.

Add mushrooms to anything saucy. Bulks it out and adds a veg.

Beans on toast - that’s a veg. Or beans, tomato and mushrooms with your fry up.

Carrot and cucumber sticks to graze on if you need snacks.

I also make a big pot of salad really simple - dice up cucumber, tomato, peppers and onion, add garlic, lemon juice or oil/vinegar, sometimes a chili) and grab a big spoon with tea, or box it up with a chicken breast for lunch. Lasts a couple of days and even DH will do the same and he’s a veg hater, but likes easy to grab food.

As others have said - soup. Curried butternut squash soup is a winner here.

You didn't mention onions on your list. Everything tastes better with onion or shallot in it imho!

They can be stored in a cool cupboard although I do keep mine in the fridge.

Quick add on veg could be grated carrots. Dress with a bit of (cider) vinegar if you like. It's sometimes the closest I get to salad this time of year. I also buy cherry tomatoes as the big ones go tasteless by now. I do buy mini cos lettuce for a bit of raw greenery but it's not so nice now either. It's there for sandwiches and garnish though.

Veg soup, casseroles right now.

I have a pan with a steamer that I use more often than not. Makes cooked carrots nicer then you can add in broccoli, cabbage or green beans a few minutes before the end. For kids I add a bit of salt and butter to the greens to help them along!

I'd recommend

1. Extra vegetables in your sauces: finely chopped carrot, celery, red pepper, mushrooms in your bolognese sauce, peas in fish pie, extra vegetables in curry etc.

1. Stir fry packets. Lots of supermarkets have them, and nice sauces to put in them. Fry some chicken (then take out of pan), stir fry the veg, add the sauce and cooked chicken. Tasty.

1. Work out which salads you actually like. I like hardly any (about five). There's no point buying salad ingredients if you'll never eat them, so it's worth finding out...

Also don't panic. You don't need to go from 0 to 100 in a week. Try to try one new thing every week if you're busy, and decide if you like it, or how you could modify it to make it better for next time. Write things down if you're likely to forget. You can do it!

I agree with preparing the salad. I have salad veg washed drained and ready to go in a box in the fridge. Otherwise yes I can let it moulder.

I love veg and could easily go vegetarian if it weren't for my dc. They aren't anti-veg per se, they just have a fairly limited list of veg they like, and would definitely dislike pretty much any vegetarian dish I can think of (they like their veg plain cooked as a side).

What we do eat is loads of salad, crudités etc because it's easy. Salad never moulders in my fridge, in fact it's the thing we most often run out of! Salad in packed lunches, salad as a side dish, crudités and hummus as a snack. My lunch is mostly a huge bowl of salad (nice dressing, roasted peppers from a jar, olives, pulses, plus usual salad veg, plus tuna/cheese/cold meat/hatd boiled egg etc).

Knitting:
I actuall find a big salad for lunch where I add in those sorts of things like pulses, jarred peppers or artichokes a great way of eating more veg.

My kids won't partake though. So for snacks fior them it's crudités and hummus ( well one likes hummus the other wont touch it) and separated veg are preferred. The youngest now will leave mushroom or pepper at the side of their plate but it does dampen down any enthusiasm in recipe experimentations!

I blitz an onion and pepper sauce to serve with chicken as a form of chicken paprikash. They all like that. I find it a bit long winded for everyday.

I second the suggestion of getting a stick blender!