My Very Favorite Way to Eat Vegetables

If you want an easy and healthy veggie recipe to add to your repertoire, be sure to check out this six ingredient whole food recipe. It can be adapted with different types of vegetables and add an element of tasty wholesomeness to any meal. Even if you’t don’t love vegetables, this is worth a shot!

Vegetables and I are …. acquaintances. I wouldn’t say we have the best relationship. As much as I want to like them, I just don’t eat them enough and they don’t get me all that excited. I have tried to eat them in a variety of ways (and I will continue to try new cooking and preparation methods). How they are prepared really does make so much difference! Yet time and time, I just can’t come to love them the way I wish I did.

This summer, we planted lots of vegetables in our garden, and I’m hoping that having them close to our kitchen and even closer to our hearts will help us eat and enjoy them more often. Fingers crossed??!

Despite my aversion to many vegetables, I have found one way in which I really love to eat vegetables… spread on bread. It’s a bit like flavored hummus without tahini. Years ago, I started making an eggplant spread that I love. It’s a little labor intensive, but I make it in large enough batches to freeze two or three portions so we can enjoy it over time. I didn’t really consider trying this with other vegetables until I saw edamame hummus in The Forest Feast for Kids recipe book.

Always looking to limit food waste, I set out to see if we had on hand the ingredients I needed to make the spread. We had a bag of shelled edamame in the back of our freezer that needed a little love as well as a dying lemon and shriveling red pepper in the produce drawer of our fridge. We happened to have nearly all of the ingredients in our cabinet except tahini (something we never keep on hand). I skipped the tahini, so I have a hard time calling it hummus, but I don’t really care for buying an entire jar of something when I only need one tablespoon in a recipe. I decided to make my own version of edamame “hummus” using up what I had available, and the result was great!

Loving the edamame spread and the eggplant spread, I’m now on board to try this with other vegetables. It’s such a tasty and healthy way to incorporate a bunch of veggies into a meal! Even my boys like it, which is a real testament to execution of a successful vegetable preparation.

As I mentioned above, we happened to have a lonely, shriveled red pepper that was on it’s way out. I roasted it and added it to the spread, though it’s definitely optional. I don’t think it added much to the flavor or consistency, but it definitely adds a few more nutrients and keeps one more thing out of the trash.

If you need me, I’ll be toasting up crostinis and slicing cucumbers to shovel this edamame spread into my mouth.

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Fresh Edamame (and Roasted Red Pepper) Spread

Yield: 16

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients

• 2 cups edamame, thawed, shelled
• 1 red pepper, roasted (optional)
• 3 tbsp lemon juice, of 1-2 lemons
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp lime juice, of 1/2 lime
• 1/3 cup olive oil, extra virgin
• 3/4 tsp cumin, ground

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients edamame through lime juice in a food processor. Mix on high until all  ingredients are smooth and combined
2. Add olive oil slowly while mixing until you reach your desired consistency. 
3. Add cumin in food processor. Mix and serve with vegetables or toasted crostini. 

Notes

The roasted red pepper is optional. To roast the red pepper yourself, place on a pan in the oven. Bake at 500 degrees for 35 -40 minutes, rotating every 10 minutes or so. Outside should blacken. 

Remove the blackened pepper from the oven, wrap in foil for 20-30 minutes to allow it to steam and soften. 

Peel skin off of pepper, remove stem and seeds, and include the pepper in the initial set of ingredients added to the food processor. 

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 16 Serving Size: 1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g

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