Fit Fare

I have a confession to make. Prior to about 2 years ago, I hated vegetables. I’d eat the occasional salad, or ear of corn, or bunch of carrot sticks, and if you had green beans fresh from the garden I couldn’t get enough of them. I had absolutely no use for the rest of the vegetable family. You see, I had developed a dislike for vegetables in my late childhood years and I just assumed that I would hate them forever.

Well, as it turns out, I’ve grown up. Over the past two years, I’ve eaten more vegetables than probably the ten or fifteen years before that. I actually like a lot of them now. How did I discover this? Well, sheer force of will and an adventurous fiance.

I’ll give you a hint about learning to like vegetables. Start small. I mean that literally. The recipe I’m going to give you today uses baby squash. I love these little guys. First of all, they’re cute. I mean, seriously, who couldn’t love these?

Eating local and organic really helped this process. I have never tasted better carrots than I found at our local farmers markets. Once I happily ate carrots on a regular basis, I branched out further. The roasted vegetable dish I posted previously helped a lot. We started with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Then, as we got bored with that, we added in peppers. Interestingly enough, the peppers I always refused to eat on a pizza were delicious roasted on the grill. Next, I tried adding beets. I admit, I’m still not sold on beets. Though I was able to eat them. Next, we added eggplant and turnips. Wow. But still, I maintained that I didn’t like vegetables.

Finally, this summer, we discovered a new grain that my diabetic fiance could eat. Trust me, I’ll wax poetic (or at least endlessly) about this grain in the very near future, but the point is that I started throwing all manner of vegetables in with this grain. All of a sudden, I really started to like vegetables. Now I almost crave them.

Secondly, if you have to try a new recipe with a new food that you’re not sure you’re going to like, you might as well make sure that the recipe is bite sized. After all, a small bite or two of unpalatability can be endured.

So, here’s the recipe and results.

Baby Squash Saute

1 pint baby squash
1/2 cup chorizo (about 2 ounces)
Olive oil
5-7 Roma tomatoes or three cups of cherry tomatoes
One onion
3 cloves of garlic

Prepare the veggies: Rinse the baby squash and remove any stems. Slice the onion into large chunks and mince the garlic. Chop the tomatoes into large chunks.

Heat a large skillet on medium heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan.

Saute the onion and garlic until the onion is tender, approximately 5-7 minutes. Add the chorizo and continue to saute, stirring occasionally, until the chorizo starts to brown. Add the baby squash and tomatoes.

Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

When you’re done, you should have something that looks like this.

While the chorizo in this dish does not make it the lowest fat dish in the world, you can also substitute ground turkey breast and some spices and add a little more olive oil to the pan. Since my goal with this recipe was to see if I could eat squash, I am happy adding a little chorizo to allow me to eat the squash. In the future, I will gradually reduce the chorizo and see if the recipe still works for me.

Next time on “Learning to Like Vegetables”… I just might tackle the little green balls of death - otherwise known as Brussels sprouts!