National Eat Your Vegetables Day - June 17

It is June and fresh rules! Vegetables are the cornerstone of our diets. They provide tons of vitamins and nutrients.

So let's observe National Eat Your Vegetable Day by doing some fun things.  Since  June is National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month this is one way to celebrate vegetables.




So in appreciation of the observance of this day, replace some of those snacks with some veggies.

What do you think is the best way to celebrate  "Eat Your Vegetable Day"?  Please share anything you want, pictures, recipes or tell us how you spent your day!

Here is a youtube about National Eat Your Vegetables Day

I think my peas need to get with the program. This is all they made today!

(Gotta love how the radish flowers, and not the peas are in focus. Thanks, Cheap Camera!)

My family is a big fan of cabbage and most leafy vegetables. We have a large container (probably two gallons in volume) that we fill at least once a week with a mix of prepared leafy greens (kale, chard, sweet potato leaves, cabbage). During the week we pull the greens and add different toppings depending on the rest of the menu. Somedays it will be a sweeter salad filled with fruit and nuts. Others it will be vegetables like bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. Somedays it will have meat, eggs or cheese to make it into the main course. Only having to prepare the greens once a week and keeping a little bit of variety keeps us from getting tired of the salads.  I will point out that these are all mature leaves. Baby greens just aren't as rombust, not only are they lacking in the flavor we've learned to love, they just don't keep as nicely in the fridge after you wash them. It's similar to why we don't eat much actual lettuce.

We've found napa cabbage works as a very good substitute for iceberg lettuce. It keeps much longer without getting limp and soggy and has a very mild flavor for a cabbage. When we're not making cabbage based dishes we can have a whole head last in the fridge for easily a month, even as we're cutting into it. It makes great lettuce wraps also. I like to include a bed of shredded cabbage under rice when making dishes that call for a meaty topping. It's a nice sweet and crunchy contrast to the rest of the dish and helps reduce the amount of carbohydrate rich grain I'm eating. Believe me, I need every bit of help I can get in that area.

Here are some songs:

The Vegetable Song

Sung to: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"

Carrots, Peas, and Broccoli,
Vegetables are good for me.
For my snack and in my lunch,
Veggie sticks are great to munch.
Carrots, Peas, and Broccoli,
Vegetables are good for me.


The Good Food Song

Sung to: "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"

Vegetables are good for me,
EE I EE I O
And so I eat them happily,
EE I EE I O
With a carrot, carrot here,
and a carrot, carrot there
Here a carrot, there a carrot
Everywhere a carrot, carrot.
Vegetables are good for me,
EE I EE I O.



Vegetables  

Sung to: "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

We are pumpkins, big and round
Big and round, big and round
We are pumpkins, big and round
Seated on the ground.

We are string beans, green and fine.....
Growing on a vine.
We are onions, round and white....
We make soup taste right.
We are carrots, orange and long...
Help us sing our song.
We are cabbage, green or red....
See our funny head.
We are corn stalks, tall and straight....
Don't we just taste great.

My favorites at the moment are cucumbers, red beets, lettuce, tomatoes, sunflower microgreens, chayote leaves, and cabbage in the form of sauerkraut. But I also juice carrots, radish and raw potatoes. And not sure, if it counts as they are dried -alfalfa, moringa, and other green powders. I better go make a salad t celebrate vegetable day!

From the food & drink at the project thread, I recently posted my favorite breakfast: greens and eggs.



It's my favote thing to wander the garden in the morning picking greens, herbs for tea, and flowers either to eat or for bouquets!

Lovely breakfast. Beautiful and delicious and healthy.

I just finished making a pot of delicious vegetable soup. Not one peck of animal products in it!

We live in Northern Spain and went out for fathers' day dinner at our local hotel. Salt cod croquettes, wild boar and potatoes followed by chocolate cake. Not a veggie in sight. Quite normal here. If we want veggies we stay in....

So glad that I opted for veggies meals Saturday and Sunday night, and had fun picking blueberries with 8 of my 10 grands Saturday morning. I love the songs, thank you!  Happy Days, veggies are king!