GARDEN VEGETABLES AND FRUITS

HERE’S HOW SUNDAY AFTERNOONS GO IN OUR HOUSE: I PUT A BIG POT of water on to boil, dump ice in a large bowl and fill it with water, trim cauliflower, broccoli, haricots verts (French green beans), and any other vegetables we might want during the week, and let the blanching and shocking begin. Next comes the fruit. Depending on what’s in season—lots of citrus in the winter and watermelon all summer long—I prep them so that during the week, there’s nothing more to do than reach into the refrigerator for a snack or quick salad.

This has become a weekend ritual and a huge time saver for my wife, who does the cooking during the week. The payoff is enormous. It takes little more than 90 minutes to prepare for the week—which is minimal when you consider just how little time and effort it will take to make dinner on the weeknights. Most recipes in this chapter take no more than 20 minutes to pull together when you have blanched vegetables on hand.

In my house, we are so much more likely to eat our vegetables and fruits if we have them ready for quick cooking and eating. When my kids come home from school, they snack on blanched and shocked cauliflower with Garlic Yogurt Sauce (here). On those all-too-typical nights when we are rushing to get dinner on the table, there’s nothing like reaching into the fridge and tossing broccoli into the pan at the last minute, just to warm it through. That broccoli is a gift. No chopping, no steaming, no draining—and fewer dishes to clean up. And by just adding crumbled feta and mint to a mix of citrus fruit—all segmented over the weekend—we can have a fresh, healthful dinner salad on the table in minutes.

If you want to eat well, it’s essential to keep fresh vegetables and fruits in your fridge at all times. I am also a big proponent of putting them on the kids’ plates whether they like them or not. One of my strategies is to tuck all the good stuff I can into the dishes I know they love. Like so many young kids, their ardor for rice and pasta is unparalleled. I toss cauliflower in and they barely notice. One of my favorite recipes here is Cinnamon-Scented Cauliflower in Tomato Sauce (here), which I have to credit for putting me on the Live to Eat path. It is one of the few recipes in this book that I’ve taken straight from my Greek heritage because it can’t be improved upon—unless you add raisins, olives, and pine nuts, as I do in the variation. It is a good example of building on a basic recipe to create layers of flavor—a key component of the Live to Eat way of cooking and eating. That same Cinnamon-Scented Cauliflower becomes a soup (here) simply by adding water to the intensely flavored tomato base.

Preparing most vegetables isn’t rocket science, but there’s a particular technique I use that is ideal for making quick, flavorful side dishes. Before adding vegetables to a pan, I heat oil and infuse it with garlic and pepperoncini. This creates an intense layer of flavor to the vegetables without adding much fat or any other unhealthy ingredients. Think of it this way: Infused olive oil plus any blanched and shocked vegetable plus any crushed nut equals an excellent side dish!

Of course, I draw on my Greek heritage heavily when it comes to cooking vegetables, but I have modernized some classic recipes for the Live to Eat diet. For example, my mother always stewed string beans to the point where they almost disintegrated, but I like the texture of the warm blanched haricots verts and the flavor of fresh, juicy tomatoes in my Haricots Verts with Tomatoes and Feta (here). To that end, I skip all that stewing and toss all of the ingredients together in my Red Wine Vinaigrette (here) to keep things bright and textured.

If you have only one blanched vegetable in your refrigerator, make it broccoli. There are recipes here that I hope will make using it reflexive: Warm it and toss with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and salt or grill it to give it a nice smoky flavor. Or, toss it into pasta or an omelet or a frittata. Or dress it in garlic and pepperoncini infused olive oil. Or…