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"V Is For Vegetables 4"

 V is for vegetables, and what a lot of those we have to choose from!  Not only do we have home grown varieties but many, many imported vegetables that would never have been seen a few years ago.  There is a big drive now to reduce the ‘food miles’ by buying locally grown produce instead of items that have travelled a great distance before arriving on our shop shelves.  One of the best places to buy freshly grown local produce is your local farmers’ market.  A search on the internet will give you a directory of farmers’ markets in your local area, or look for local farm shops that sell produce grown on their own land.



Vegetables can be eaten raw, as crudites often served with dips, or can be cooked in a variety of different ways.  Steaming is the best way to cook most vegetables as this method preserves the goodness that is otherwise lost by the direct contact with water that you get from boiling.  Roasting is another way to cook vegetables, and also frying as in stir fry.  You should never over cook your veg; al dente, or firm to eat, is the ideal as more goodness is left in the produce.

A really tasty vegetable recipe that is high in iron is spinach with chickpeas.  Heat a little oil in a frying pan and cook 4 crushed garlic cloves and half a diced onion until they are translucent.  Stir in 300g of spinach and a 400g tin of drained chickpeas, adding half a teaspoon of cumin and half a teaspoon of salt to the mix before lightly mashing the chickpeas as they heat through.  This is great as a side dish accompanying pork chops and is served in many Spanish tapas bars with crusty bread.

Words beginning with V not immediately associated with food and eating include:

  • vandyke, which is to make a ‘v’ shaped cut or a zig zag pattern around the circumference of a fruit of vegetable.  It is also said to be a dish made with triangle shaped toast, pastry or potato eaten in 17th century England, the name referring to the pointed beard of popular artist Sir Anthony Vandyke (1599 – 1641),

  • venus, a commonly used name for a cockle amongst shell fish sellers, however the venus is actually a clam, not a cockle.

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