Vegetables

This is typically a Mauritian condiment that can be served with rice, fried fish or lentil stew. - Kelly L. Rajahpillay, office manager for The Presbyterian Church of Hagerstown. For more information about the church, call 301-739-6337. Pickled mixed vegetables 3 cloves garlic, finely minced 1/2 to 3/4 cup of olive oil, or more as needed Salt to taste 3 tablespoons ground turmeric 1 1/2 tablespoons ground mustard 3 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks 1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into florets 1/2 pound of green beans, sliced lengthwise into thin strips 1 small head of cabbage, finely shredded 1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, sliced lengthwise (see cook's note)

The list of reasons to eat veggies is a long one: Vegetables play an important role in weight management.   They are naturally low in calories and cholesterol, are fat-free and packed with health-enhancing phytonutrients.    Veggies help protect bones and prevent strokes.  Green leafy vegetables are closely linked to heart health.  Yellow-orange and green veggies reduce the risk of diabetes. Summer brings another important reason to eat more veggies.

War Memorial Hospital's Center for Rehab & Wellness, 261 Berkmore Place, Suite 2A, Berkeley Springs,will offer a free nutrition program, "Plan 5 a Day with Vegetables and Fruits" at 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 25. Sara Kuykendall, a registered and licensed dietitian, will discuss tips for including fruits and vegetables in meals and snacks. The class is open to the public, but registration is required. For more information or to register, call 304-258-8377.

Kids need their vegetables.  Choose My Plate ( www.choosemyplate.gov ) recommends that 2- and 3-year-old children consume 1 to 1 1/2 cups of vegetables each day. For children ages 4 to 8 years, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups of veggies is recommended daily, depending on calorie needs.For the active 9- to 13-year-old, up to 3 1/2 cups of vegetables are recommended daily. Even for a vegetable lover, this can be a daunting task.  Studies have shown that American school-age children typically consume approximately 3/4 cup of vegetables daily, less than half the recommended amount.

March is National Nutrition Month, so the American Dietetic Association has chosen the theme of "Eat Right with Color" to help people choose more nutritious foods. An easy way to pile more color onto your plate is by incorporating brightly colored vegetables. Not only will a colorful meal be more appealing to the eye, but it will also increase nutrients essential to good health while providing minimal additional calories and fat.   Vegetables are a good source of dietary fiber, which is beneficial to the body in many ways.

With an abundance of fruits and vegetables available now, it's easy to get your recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Grilling fruits and vegetable will enhance their flavors and add interest to any meal. Grilled fruits and vegetables add color, texture, flavor and nutrition without adding many calories. Grilling enhances the unique flavors of the fruits and vegetables and caramelizes the natural sugars, giving them a more complex flavor. Grilling fruits and vegetables is easy.

It's winter. Time to try new ideas for getting vegetables in your children. I know what parents go through to get kids to eat vegetables. I was a kid once, and I hated finding vegetables I didn't like hidden in my food. I love pizza, but if a pizza had onions visible on it, I didn't eat it. If beef stew had green beans or peas in it, I plucked them out. Mushrooms in my soup? No way. Now I'm older and my tastes have matured, and I find many vegetables delicious. Still, there are times when I don't have time to chop veggies for a big salad or cook up a soup or stew.

The outdoor grill is not just for meats, poultry and fish. Grilling also works well for an assortment of fruits and vegetables. The next time you're wondering what to serve with barbecued hamburgers, steaks, chicken or fish, look no further than your own garden. Grilling fruits and vegetables is an easy way to add color and variety, as well as nutrition, to any grilled meal. All kinds of vegetables can be grilled. Beets become sweet. Potatoes get crispy on the outside and stay sweet and moist on the inside.

Asparagus is a vegetable made for kids. Like bananas, asparagus stalks have a playful shape. Like carrots, asparagus may be eaten raw or cooked. Like broccoli, asparagus has two distinct parts - a fleshy stalk and a tip with more flavor. And like sweet potatoes or beets, asparagus can be taken in either a savory or sweet direction. Start slow Asparagus stalks are the fresh shoots of a plant that, when full grown, resembles a lacy Christmas tree with red berries.

Think back to when school was in session; you're walking back from the lunch line to your table, and you see that most of the kids in the cafeteria have bought lunch today. You sit down to eat your pizza, and notice that most of the kids around you are avoiding the fruits and vegetables on their trays. You think nothing of it; this happens all the time. It's true; this sort of stuff does happen all the time, but you don't have to take my word for it. I asked Barbara Cecil, a Washington County Board of Education employee and mother of teenagers.

This fresh, flavorful recipe is easy to make - if you are quick with a knife. I suggest using a very sharp knife, not trying to use a food processor or chopper because you run the risk of creating watermelon soup. Simply take a large slice out of a watermelon, about 1 to 1/2 inches thick, and cut the melon away from the rind and into small dice. The idea is to create a 3:1 ratio of watermelon to onion and pepper. If you have fresh corn, use one fresh, cooked ear, and cut the corn away from the cob. If you don't have or can't find fig balsamic vinegar, use a quality-aged balsamic.

So, you want to start a vegetable garden. Good for you. Growing your own food is healthy and deliciously rewarding. Nothing, but nothing, tastes better than a tomato fresh from the vine. Let's cover the basics. The first is location, location, location. As with real estate, location is crucial. You want your vegetable garden in full sun, near a water source, and in a relatively flat, dry area. Start small. Most newbies think too big and get overwhelmed. You can grow more than 80 pounds of vegetables in an 8-foot-by-8-foot area.  What should you grow?

The Washington County Master Gardeners will hold a workshop on starter vegetable gardens Saturday, April 20, from 9:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. at Washington County Agricultural Education Center, 7303 Sharpsburg Pike in Boonsboro.   Participants will learn how to grow vegetables in small spaces including containers, raised beds, lasagna gardens and bags of soil. The workshop will cover soil testing, site evaluation and timing for best results.   The cost for the hands-on class is $10, which includes take-home seeds and a plant.  To request a registration form, call Diane at 301-791-1304 or send an email to dwoodrin@umd.edu .

It's winter. Time to try new ideas for getting vegetables in your children. I know what parents go through to get kids to eat vegetables. I was a kid once, and I hated finding vegetables I didn't like hidden in my food. I love pizza, but if a pizza had onions visible on it, I didn't eat it. If beef stew had green beans or peas in it, I plucked them out. Mushrooms in my soup? No way. Now I'm older and my tastes have matured, and I find many vegetables delicious. Still, there are times when I don't have time to chop veggies for a big salad or cook up a soup or stew.

On Nov. 17, the Waynesboro Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1 State Hill Road, held its 30th annual Festival of Praise, where the congregation brings a food offering to the front of the church.  In advance, the front of the church is decorated with large boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables and a Christmas tree decorated with paper angels, each angel containing the name of a child and what they would like for Christmas. “It's an amazing thing,” said longtime organizer Paulette Alexander of Shady Grove, Pa. “To see all the church members - adults and children alike - carrying their bags of groceries to the platform.”   As the church members bring their food gifts, and offerings, and thank-you notes, they also take a name or two from the tree to provide clothing and toy gifts for each child.  This year, the church provided for about 20 families and 44 children.

Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series of stories on children eating vegetables. The series explores ways to highlight vegetables' flavor and appearance as a way to work around the resistance some kids have to eating vegetables. I've never been a big fan of turnips. Mainly, I just haven't eaten them much. I don't recall my mother serving them when I was a boy in central Ohio. But when Thanksgiving rolled around last week and my wife put me in charge of mashed potatoes, she asked me to try something new: add turnips to the spuds and mash them together.

Are you eating as healthfully as you think you are? If your weight loss has slowed, or even stopped, then there's a good chance that you haven't been. I'm going to end the confusion, and guessing, once and for all. In this week's column, I'm going to share my five steps to building a healthful meal. If you stick to this plan you'll know that your meals are healthful and goal supportive. And as a result, you can expect consistent, and healthy weight loss. Here are my five steps to building a better meal: Step 1: quality ingredients These are the building blocks to a healthful meal.

Now is the time to enjoy fresh apples, sweet potatoes, squash of all kinds and pumpkins. Abundant supplies of the freshly harvested fruits and vegetables usually mean that the foods are seasonal and reasonably priced.  Apples truly are one of the season's nutritional bargains - they are fat-free, sodium-free and cholesterol-free, high in fiber and low in calories. One medium apple has about 80 calories. You can go to the Maryland Apple Promotion Board ( www.marylandapples.org/varieties.htm )

The 2012 High Tunnel Growers School will teach new growers the latest techniques to produce high-quality, high tunnel-grown vegetables. The program will be Tuesday, Nov. 13, and Wednesday, Nov. 14, at the Penn State Lancaster Center, Lancaster Farm and Home Center Building. The program costs $145 and includes all program materials, lunch, morning and afternoon breaks and a CD or DVD of all presentations, handouts, and some publications. Registration is required. For more information, contact Steve Bogash at the Franklin County Cooperative Extension office at 717-263-9226, ext. 230, or email smb13@psu.edu . To register, contact Jennifer Wetzel at 717-263-9226.

Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series of stories on enticing picky eaters to eat vegetables. The series explores ways to highlight vegetables' flavor and appearance as a way to work around the resistance some kids have to eating vegetables. Doesn't everybody like pumpkin pie? Why include pumpkin in a series of stories about picky eaters? There's much more to pumpkin than pie. Pumpkin is a member of the squash family, and, like other squashes, it can be made savory or sweet.