To ask how you cook your veggies

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I'm shit at cooking veggies. Either too mushy or undercooked and tasteless/burned garlic/ovrsalted. Always something wrong. I'm not a bad cook generally but have no idea what to do with a pack of broccoli or green beans or carrots.

Your fail safe tips and recipes please!

Hugh Fearnely Whittingstall’s Veg book is amazing.

Courgette is cut into chunks and stir fried. A tiny dash of oil first just so they can move un the pan, salt. As they wilt add a fat clove of garlic, chilli flakes, black pepper. A knob of butter and then sping onions sliced longways. Saute bit more.

Kale is tipped into large bowl and boiling kettle water over. Leave for 5. Drain, saute in after a sliced red onion gas caramelized. Add seasoning.

I always slice carrots into coins and steam. In occasion I'll roast till galf soft then add butter, wholegrain mustard and honey. Finish off in oven.

Sweet potatoes cut into cubes and roasted with maple syrup and chilli flakes.

Swede mashed/pureed with butter and herbs.

We do like our (big flat) mushrooms grilled til half done, then add garlic butter, fresh parsley and small squeeze of lemon, black pepper. Finish off till juicy and fragrant.

Leeks are nice sauteed in butter and sage or thyme.

Corn in the cob is lovely with butter and a spoon of smokey chipotle paste.

Roast okra is very good. Buy frozen sliced baby okra and bung in the oven. It's tasty and simple.

I'm on the hunt for simple eggplant recipes if someone can share (pretty please). Plenty of eggplant as a main course ingredient but I'd like something I can rustle up in a short no fuss amount of time.

Look forward to marrow season as I roast that in slices with oil and maple syrup and chilli and really enjoy it.

I only seem to bung capsicum into stirfrys, or chilli and sometimes roast (mainly eat them raw) what can I do to make them interesting?

Does anyone know how to make a really good colslaw EXCEPT that in place of mayo I want a tangy vinaigrette type dressing with all the different veggies in the mix. I had something like this when I was about 12. It was that good I always remember it now and then. It was a Safeways' product I think..anyway I'd love to recreate something like it.

I steam vegetables usually.

I always microwave my veg in a Sistema bowl with a small amout of water in the bottom. cook for 2-3 mins shaking up halfway through. Carrots taste so much better, and sprouts cook all the way through without going soggy. All veg tastes better IMO.

I steam most vegetables mostly, although I microwave frozen ones.
I cook them plain, then add any salt or butter.

Last week i was given lots of beetroot - I roasted it, mixed with roasted butternut squash - great with a crumble topping with lots of walnuts, also the two veg together with feta cheese and a dash of maple syrup (and more walnuts!).
Ate the last of it today with mackerel.

Eggplant (or aubergine!) - slice into discs, season, drizzle of olive oil, roast on a griddle. Eat or use as the base for eggplant parmigiana

Eggplant - cube, fry in olive oil with salt pepper and rosemary. Make sure you don’t cook it until it turns to mush.

Also, of course, ratatouille.

I find vegetables cooked with butter/ honey/ cheese kinda defeat the object. They’re supposed to be good for you, feel like I’m undoing the good with unnecessary calories and fat Appreciate that might be a bit perverse if it means you don’t end up eating any....

Coleslaw with tangy non-mayo dressing: I’ve had something similar. The base will have been vinegar (something mild, maybe red wine vinegar) with mustard seeds and maybe honey. I’m going off my memory, this ain’t no recipe!

Add to tray, grind a bit of salt, pepper, harissa/peri peri/herbes de Provence (depending on accompaniment flavours), drizzle in oil and roast in the oven on 190.

Check every 10 mins until done

Lots of great ideas. I do occasionally roast cauliflower but haven't tried anything else. And have never steamed a veg in my life! Looks like I need to get a steamer.

Thanks guys!

Growing up in the 70s, my mum used to ‘pressure cook’ her vegetables - invariably swede, carrots and potatoes - in a huge pressure cooker that sounded like a defusing bomb when she took the lid off and reduced the ‘vegetables’ to three piles of cardboard flavour watery purée. All mod cons.

Bleugh! Yes my mum used to pressure cook regularly too! Usually potatoes, carrots and white cabbage all cooked together, all tasting of cabbage.

I steam veg in a covered pan of water boiling about 1-2cm deep for about 5 mins, you don't need a steamer.

Our favourite is roasted, lots of mixed veg with olive oil and seasoning. We tend to add flavoured meat on top, eg bbq pork or cajun chicken.

Those of you who are steaming veg in pans or bowls in the microwave, is the veg in the water or above it, in the steam?

If it's above the veg, what are you using to hold it up there? I'd like to try steaming, but don't want to be buying yet another kitchen gadget.

You can get a metal thing that stands in a pan so the veg isn't in the water........or I suppose you could try with a frying basket type arrangement in a pan that was deeper than the basket ?
However, for the regular use they get, an electric steamer is well worth the money. You can do 3 or 4 different veg without using any of the burners on your hob - an extra bonus when cooking for larger numbers.
We've used ours for 20 odd years.

My youngest dc was fascinated by someone putting veg into a saucepan a few years ago

Those of you who are steaming veg in pans or bowls in the microwave, is the veg in the water or above it, in the steam?

Above, in one of these. i don't know where it came from DH had it already when I moved in.

Same as phone. I got mine in one of the big supermarkets, probably Sainsbury’s.

There are very few veggies that are not improved by roasting.

100% everything roasted.

I don't understand people who boil vegetables. You're just getting mush and all the nutrients end up down the sink with the water

You're just getting mush and all the nutrients end up down the sink with the water

If you’re getting mush, you’re boiling them too long.

Tell my MIL that @PurpleDaisies 😂

A stir-fried medley is very tasty and you can use whatever you have, carrots, cabbage, celery, mushrooms, peppers, cauliflower or broccoli florets, anything.
Make a simple sauce with 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp soy sauce.

A little oil in the pan, pref. sesame or stir-fry, but it’s not critical, add some crushed garlic, plus ginger and chilli if you like, stir fry the veg for a minute or two, add sauce, cook a further min or 2, serve.

Goes perfectly with egg or chicken fried rice.

Thankyou Phonelock - that's what I was trying to describe

Surely this is just an issue of cooking them for the wrong amount of time, not the cooking method itself? For example you can boil, steam, roast or stir-fry carrots. All will taste nice, as long as you don't over or undercook them. Either look up how long to cook them for, or adapt the cooking time to how you like them done. Make a note so that you'll know for next time.

If they are normally green - so beans, cabbage, peas, broad beans, broccoli, asparagus, etc - they get chucked into rapidly boiling water and taken out the moment the colour goes what I'd describe as 'luminous'. The same applies for yellow (so sweetcorn).

If they are normally white, so potatoes, cauliflower, parsnips, the best way is to steam them for a 'natural' flavour without going soggy or to roast them.

If they're orange (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes), they're equally good whether steamed or roasted.

The best or easiest steaming method I found was a tiered steamer. Meant I could pretty much leave everything to get on with it without taking up half the kitchen - put the densest veg (so potatoes, for example) nearest the steam source.

@BarbaraofSeville

The steam bags don't need any water added at all - the water that remains on the veg after washing them is more than enough.