Friday, April 20, 2012

Produce Power... Are You Eating Your Freggies?

Adding color to my meals with fruits and vegetables, aka freggies, is easy for me. I am a volume eater and regularly rely on things like spinach, kale, and a variety of lettuces to add bulk to my salads... and I adore raw, crunchy veggies like cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, jicama, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and so on.

I also like vegetables that are lightly steamed or gently stirfried al dente.

When I was a kid I didn't think I liked any cooked veggies other than peas, corn and carrots.  My Mother, bless her, overcooked everything and I didn't know that broccoli and brussel sprouts were not supposed to be limp and grey-green and mushy!

As a young adult, cooking and fending for myself, I learned to eat a wider variety of veggies, first by eating them raw, and then learning to steam or poach or roast them.... this is true of mushrooms, asparagus, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, beets, parsnips, and even brussel sprouts.

I have always loved apples and bananas and pears... and I have added kiwis, grapes, oranges, and peaches to that list, too... oh, and all kinds of berries.

It was a fun and boisterous meeting. There were lots of ideas floating around about how to get our family members who are veggie-phobic to eat more of them and to try new ones.

One of the things that I enjoy, with some of my online  buddies from across Canada, is to play what we call the Rainbow Game.  We challenge each other to have at least one fruit or vegetable from each of the colors of the rainbow, over the course of the day.

Why, yes, in case you are wondering, red wine does count!

We also change it up sometimes by placing our focus on a particular color.  For instance on a green day,  I might have spinach and peppers in my morning omelet, kale chips at lunch, edamame for my afternoon snack, and broccoli at dinner... you get the idea.


I am so excited that we have decided to plant some vegetables and herbs in the containers that we bought for our balcony at the apartment..  I used to have a big garden when we lived in a house, before we moved onto the boat, and loved to grow my own herbs and veggies.  We also had apple trees and hazelnut trees in the yard. And even on the boat, I grew basil in the summer in a pot in the cockpit, and also sprouts in jars.

Do you like freggies?  What are you favorites?

Do you have fruit or nut  trees, or grow any herbs or vegetables?

Do you grow sprouts?

Other than tomatoes, which I have definitely decided on, any advice for me about what food plants grow well in container gardens?


6 comments:

  1. I still remember that blog post you did (almost a year ago?!) on my blog about the rainbow of fruits and vegetables! I want to try to grow a garden at some point but so far I haven't. I always say this year will be the year!

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  2. I had a monster garden before we moved. I miss it! Now the wildlife is so, well wild, I'm limited to containers on the deck. I do a bunch of herbs like basil, chives, sage, thyme. I do tomatoes and peppers and under plant with marigolds to keep pests away.
    I'd love to more this year but we'll see.
    Growing up I swear the only veggies we had were out of a can. Yuck.

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  3. Strawberries! They love containers and are really easy (even I have been known to grow them!).

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  4. One of my goals is to have a little garden in my backyard and to grow my own veggies...but I still haven't done it. I need to start simple with just a thing or two because maybe it's just a little too intimidating for me.

    Love the colorful foods idea :) Sounds super healthy!

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  5. I love all freggies. I always wanted a garden, but I move around so much it has not been possible. As soon as I am more grounded, I am definitely going to have one!

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  6. Love this post too, Elle! I am always happy to have some time to catch up on your blog.

    We have container gardens since we are renters and we have found success with peppers (all kinds), tomatoes, and even strawberries. We want to try some new things this year too. We had some success with lettuce, but I think it needed a little bigger container.

    On a [kind-of] side-note, I had the NEST fresh, sauteed spinach yesterday. It was so flavorful and rich. I think it had a little olive oil with it (not butter), but it was just perfect. I need to figure out if that will grow in containers. Please post pictures when things get growing - would love to see them! :)

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