I havre been eating raw cabbage as my late night snack-its crunchy,and gives me a full feeling (before I was munching on potato chips,, crackers, popcorn). But now I feel good about saving calories and eating healthy..

I love finding creative ways to use veggies. Like mock mashed potatoes made out of cauliflower and pizza crust made out of zucchini!

I've been root mashes instead of mashed potatoes - favorites include parsnip apple mash and celery root mash (also with apples). The flavors are outstanding, and these side dishes are a snap to make (and easy to prepare while you've got other things on the stove.

In the summer, there really is nothing better than a head of iceberg lettuce, sliced up with the bread knife. It's cold and low in calories - the perfect snack.
Celery and peanut butter is a classic.
I've started to mix in other vegetables where I'd normally just have a standard white potato. Over the summer - and I have to do it again this winter - I made squash and carrot gnocchi in place of the standard potato gnocchi. I'm still perfecting my gnocchi technique, but I really enjoyed the look of bright orange pearls mixed in with a spinach and tomato sauce.
Mmm.
Now I'm hungry for some vedge.

I steam broccoli then throw chuncky tomato sauce over it ~ sounds like an odd combo but it tastes great!

Staceyann Dolenti

I make crispy Kale Chips for late night snacks, and slow roast roma tomatoes for tomato snacks that are like candy!

I love number 3... if I clean and prepare the veg on Sunday after coming home from shopping I'm much more likely to use on a weeknight. It's easy to throw a salad together when it is all ready to go!

I pretty much always have a big salad at some point during the day--either lunch or dinner, sometimes even a snack if I'm really hungry. Instead of lettuce I use raw chopped cabbage and add to that a couple chopped carrots and green onions (or whatever veggies are lying around, like celery or that half an onion left over from a dinner prep the night before, maybe I'll toss in some walnuts too). I make a dressing--either balsamic or tahini/tamari based, toss it, and I'm set with veggies for the day.

If you don't have chips or cookies in your house, but you do have cleaned slices of carrots, celery and bell pepper, you're much more likely to snack on those when you're hungry. Also put these washed and chopped veggies in a baggie and grab them on your way out the door. It'll stop you from buying snacks out or feeling like you're starving when you get home. Off to make a potato, onion and spinach tortilla! :)

The suspiciously named crisper drawer actually keeps veggies with a higher water content... crisp! Move salad leaves, cucumbers and the like to the main fridge at your peril --- if you don't use them the same day, they'll be limp, sorry and sad.

I threw some frozen peas in a little dish and brought them to work for a snack. They were a nice little treat. I've also been making a lot of smoothies lately - today's included almond milk, spinach, parsley, flax seed meal, and frozen bananas, blueberries, and watermelon.

I eat a large salad for lunch most days of the week and if its really cold outside, a vegetable based soup. Dinner is usually centered around veggies with meat as the side show.

I read a nutritionist's advice recently that suggested buying naturally bite size produce that won't need the extra step of chopping or trimming, such as tiny potatoes, snowpeas or baby spinach, etc.

In Late Fall & Winter, I make huge pots of minestrone soup, sometimes authentic and sometimes a market/garden mix. I eat it chunky, pureed, I'll even puree it until it's silky smooth to make it a sauce for other dishes, it seems different all the time because I add other flavors to tweak it at each serving. In Late Spring & Summer, it's gazpacho, and I do the same.

To eat more cabbage I make slaw, but I change the flavorings, sometimes it's a Chinese dressing and another time Indian.

When I make pasta, I make the pasta more of a condiment, I make the bulk of the dish veggies. Somehow, psychologically, I still think I'm eating pasta but I'm really eating veggies with a tiny side of pasta. I also bought one of those vegetable turning slicers (typically called a Benriner) and I make shaved vegetable strands that mimic pasta so that gives me many more options to get veggies in. That slice works well on carrots, all types of larger potatoes/sweet potatoes/yams, eggplant, cucumbers, turnips.

And I always seem to love Vikas Khanna's vegetable recipes, especially his Tree of Life Cauliflower, you'll see a video demo of the recipe here (it's the one where he was on M*rtha Stew*art):

http://www.vkhanna.com/Television.htm

I'm eating a box of Annie's macaroni, but I filled it with (frozen) little peas and corn, quick, always on hand, and satisfying. We eat fruit of all types and raw salads for supper frequently, also stir fry with bok choy and vegetables on brown rice or ww spaghetti, or sauce made of mushrooms, eggplant and artichokes, soup with canned beans and pumpkin added.

i totall think that smoothies are underrated... they don't have to have frozen fruit, you can blend in basically anything you want and it will taste good, and like the article says, you can "hide" veggies in them like spinach and get oodles of vitamins without any taste difference (though, the green color mixed with bananas and strawberries TOTALLY makes it look unappetizing, so just put it in a mug or something :P)

I'm in the same boat, I honestly love vegetables but can find them challenging when I'm short on time so these tips (to pre-prep stuff when you DO have time) are invaluable. And though the CSA idea is noble - I'm in one, too, and do manage to get through it all on principle - it doesn't solve the rushing-out-the-door problem and there's something to be said for stocking the house with things that you just plain LIKE.

My tip comes from my recognition that when I'm STARVING, along with my wanting something fast, veggies are simply not as appetizing as fattier, carbier options like noodles or a grilled cheese. So the solution is not to get starving in the first place. When I munch all day long (even on veggies - I like bell peppers and cucumbers eaten out of hand), a veggie intensive dinner still sounds great.

I like to think of vegetables as little pieces of art. The color combinations are endless; carrots and broccoli, roasted beets with goat cheese, butternut squash and peas, orange and yellow peppers mixed with tomatoes, mushrooms with shallots and garlic, etc. Whatever is in the crisper drawer, or not, is fine

I thought I ate a lot of vegetables until I did Whole Living magazine's new years cleanse. relying on them [veggies] almost entirely for a couple weeks was a great way to force me out of my routine and pick up some new ideas. and now I truly can't get enough of the steamed squash and broccoli with tahini dressing on a bed of raw cabbage.

this is some good advice, particularly #4, seems obvious but took me awhile to finally ask myself that and apply it to my diet. i found out i most enjoy veggies mostly raw or still very crisp so I have been mostly eating them lightly sauteed, raw with dip, or just a bit steamed. My favorite way to enjoy a bunch of veggies is to make a nice curry and serve it on lightly sauteed onions, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers or whatever i need to use up! its delicious and serves as a nice "base" much like rice normally would. I have found there really isnt a single veggie that is not tolerable to me when prepared in the right way.

Also try different cuisines, growing up very meat and potatoes american mid west diet with the occasional side of canned plain veggies didn't do it for me. Try them stir fried, curried, or chopped up raw as a salsa or marinated salad. Yummmmm

I like it when coworkers comment on the color of my smoothie in my canning jar. It gives me a chance to tell them I put kale and tofu in it. People are more willing to try new things if they see someone they know doing it.

Thinly sliced kohlrabi "chips" (chip sized slices) are the perfect vehicle for hummus or really any dip. Only caveat is that it oxidizes rather quickly so best not to prep ahead.

These are great tips! I'm guilty of never taking the time to prepare a bunch of veggies at once at the weekend, even though it really helps during the week..

I try to have a small bowl of soup with dinner or never have a meal without a side salad. Another way is to add 2-3 more veggies (carrots, peppers, a leek, etc.) so anything you're cooking: pasta sauce, stew..

really yummy meal is roasted root veg (carrots, beets, parsnips are my favorites + some red onion) with a bit of thyme, oregano, red wine vinegar, and feta mixed in. it's great warm out of the oven, and even better having cold for lunch the next day. i mix up the veggies or the seasonings, but having the little creaminess of the feta always makes it delicious. and it's so easy to make a few days's worth of lunches all at once.

Being vegan I eat lots of veggies both cooked and raw. One of my favorite veggie tips is Trader Joe's blend of frozen roasted peppers and onion. In a pinch it can be mixed with brown rice, in a corn tortilla with refried beans, with pasta and fresh tomatoes, over a baked potato, ect. This is a staple in my house. You never know when you need a quickie!

We all need to do this!

I eat rice every day, making up a big batch of it twice a week. I always add a generous amount of frozen veggies each time. So I'm guarantee a couple of servings of veggies with my carb.

I recently made my standard chicken enchiladas and sauteed a bunch of shredded carrot along with the onion. I literally could not tell the carrots were there.

Add pumpkin puree to soups, and tomato sauces. It's amazing how the various seasonings and flavors mask the slightly sweet pumpkin taste. The pumpkin adds so much and will also help make it a bit thicker. It's lovely and one of my new favorite ways to put veggies in everything.

Like, Kate (NC), I also toss peas into mac&cheese for my Kiddo. My favorite way to pack a veggie punch is to add a puree spinach, carrots, and any other vegetables I feel inclined to add, into my marinara sauce. We use it with any number of pasta/polenta dishes and also as our pizza sauce. I know that a homemade pizza is still serving up a healthy portion or two of veggies.

I have a few questions about CSAs:
I assume you have to go to the farm to pick up your box. The closest CSA to me is 45 minutes away. Is it worth driving (and using all that gas)?

Is is worth it for a single person? Are different sized boxes available?

Thanks!