Double duty vegetables

Pregnancy calls out for fresh vegetables to ensure you and your baby get all the essential nutrients. But many women are daunted by the prep needed to put greens, oranges and yellows on the table regularly.

Double duty comes to the rescue with the following recipes:

Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables
Roasted Roots
Curried Roasted Vegetables
Creamy Roasted Vegetable Soup

Web Exclusive Recipes:

Roasted Butternut Squash
Butternut Squash Purée
Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Roasting tips
The secret to perfect roasting lies in your knife. Make sure you cut all your vegetables the same size to ensure uniform cooking. You don’t want the onions to be burning while the potatoes are still rock hard!

Vegetables will roast faster on the outer edges of the pan than in the middle. Rotate from sides to middle and vice versa when turning vegetables midway through roasting.

When roasting onions and leeks, leave the root intact so that cut wedges hold together during roasting. Otherwise, onion wedges separate creating small, thin pieces which tend to burn and char.

Double duty all the time
Get into the mind frame of more veggies with less work. When using cooked vegetables the second time, remember that they only need a light reheat. Too much cooking will result in mushy, unappealing vegetables.

Bake 6-8 whole (with skin on) Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes at 400°F (200°C) for one hour or until tender when pierced with a fork. Serve half with dinner, garnished with butter, low-fat sour cream and chives. Next day, remove skins and slice potatoes. Heat olive oil in a non-stick frying pan, add some chopped garlic, cook until golden, add potato slices and cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with more chopped chives.

Steam up a large, double duty pot of carrots, cauliflower and green beans. Eat half for supper, served marinated in low-fat bottled dressing at room temperature. Next night, fold your vegetables into an herbed omelette with a handful of grated Gruyere cheese.

Put a double duty supply of eggplant, Portobello mushrooms and onions on the grill, basted with olive oil. Serve up half that night with grilled chicken. Toss the other half in into tomorrow’s penne pasta with Italian sausage.

Slice and dice a double duty supply of red onions, cucumbers, red and green peppers and tomatoes. Use half for a Greek salad on the first day, adding chunks of feta cheese and crumbled dried oregano. Day two, pull out the blender and those already-prepped veggies to make gazpacho. Toss the veggies in the blender, adding some low-sodium tomato juice, olive oil and fresh basil and parsley to make this soup – maybe a little paprika, too. Don’t forget to garnish with low-fat plain yogurt or whole grain croutons.