The Vegetable Project!

Growing up vegetables were never introduced to my sister and I. My parents do not eat vegetables, therefore vegetables never even stepped foot in our house. I was never forced to try them and the end result was that my sister and I HATED vegetables.

Now that I am a mother and I am married to a man who eats vegetables, I feel obligated to set good examples for our children, but how do I expect my children to like vegetables if I'm not eating them?

I've decided that I am going invite vegetables into our house and I am going to learn how to eat them with my children. I am going to experiment with several vegetable recipes over the next few weeks and I am going to blog about them in hopes of finding some delicious recipes that my family and I will love and inspiring people who do not like vegetables to give them a try.

The first recipe I tried today was mashed potatoes with broccoli and cheese. You can use this recipe Broccoli and Cheese Smashed Potatoes or if you use boxed potatoes follow the instructions for boxed potatoes and add steamed broccoli with shredded cheese.

These broccoli mashed potatoes were a hit. My whole family loved them and Nadia had seconds and enjoyed all the broccoli chunks. I will definitely make these again and I give this recipe 5 stars! 

I also made fresh french style green beans -- Italian style. I steamed them and then added:

1/4 cup of Italian breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp of garlic powder
1/4 tsp of dried oregano 
salt and pepper to taste

Mix these ingredients together in a bowl and saute them in 1 tbsp of butter until the crumbs are nice and toasty. Once finished toss steamed green beans in bread crumbs and top with powdered Parmesan cheese and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. 

These green beans were a hit with my husband. I give them 3 out of 5 stars because they tasted really "green" and I have yet to appreciate fresh green beans, but I did finish my serving. Nadia tried one and did not like them too much either. If you like green beans then I think you would love this recipe.

I look forward to trying new vegetable recipes.

Enjoy!

-Leenie