Amaranth seeds are eaten as grains, though the plant isn’t actually a grain — it’s an herb. (There are also many varieties of Amaranth that are considered weeds.) The amaranth plant is tall (about 2 metres / 5 to 7 feet) and busy, with very broad leaves and showy flower heads of small, clover-like flowers…
The Brassica Family is a very pungent collection of vegetables. They can all look so different that you wouldn’t guess that bok choy and radishes were cousins (they even come from different continents), or that either of them are related to mustard seeds. Kale, in its original tough, bitter and wild state, may be one…
Canned Vegetables © Denzil Green Canned goods are all processed by machines. Machines fill the empty tins with the vegetable, then top them up with liquid that includes salt, then seal the tins and cook the vegetables right in the tins. When cooked and cooled, they are stored, then the correct label applied to them…
Coining in cooking means to slice a vegetable through the diameter into small, thin pieces about the size of coins. Usually the vegetables that you’re asked to “coin” are stalk vegetables. You wouldn’t get very far in applying coining to a tomato. Usually a recipe will tell you how wide the pieces should be, or…
Fennel © Denzil Green Fennel is a very versatile garden plant. It is used as a vegetable, as an herb, and as a spice. The base, “bulb” part of Fennel has a crisp texture and a very mild liquorice taste, but mild enough so that many people who don’t like liquorice don’t seem to mind…
Frozen Vegetables © Denzil Green As one American advert said in the 1950s, we can now eat better than any King ever did, because frozen vegetables allow us to enjoy the vegetable of our choice at any time of year, no matter what the season. To make frozen vegetables, vegetables are blanched, then packaged and…
Leafy vegetables are vegetables whose leaves we eat. This is a smaller category than vegetables with leaves, because pretty much everything we call a vegetable (with the obvious exception of mushrooms) has leaves at some point even if they’re trimmed off before we see them. We don’t eat the leaves off of sweet corn, or…
Mixed Vegetables are a mixture of at least two different vegetables. They are peeled, if necessary, and prepared in bite-sized pieces if they are large vegetables. Though there are recipes for mixed-vegetable dishes, and there’s no doubting that these are indeed “mixed vegetables”, the phrase “Mixed Vegetables” now means to most people a commercial preparation,…
Peppers © Paula Trites Peppers the vegetable are not related to pepper the spice in any way, shape or form. If you are looking for info on pepper the spice, meaning black pepper or ground pepper, see the entry on pepper. Peppers are part of the deadly nightshade family that includes petunias, eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes…
Peroxide and vinegar applied one after the other can help to safely sanitize produce without resorting to chemicals.
Root Vegetables © Denzil Green What we call Root Vegetables aren’t actually all roots: the category also includes other strangely named things such as corms, rhizomes and tubers. For instance, a potato isn’t a root; it’s actually a “tuber.” Peanuts are “technically” Root Vegetables, because they are tubers that grow off a rhizome underground, but…
Seaweed is a plant that is a member of the algae family. It can grow in saltwater and in brackish water. Many types of seaweed are harvested as food, and used in various forms. Seaweed overview Seaweed mostly grows near the shore or on coral reefs. How deep it grows depends on the variety. The…
Soffritto © Denzil Green In Italian cooking, a “soffritto” is a finely chopped, lightly sautéed mixture of food used as a flavourful base to a dish. It will usually be sautéed in olive oil. It’s close to, but not the same, as what is called a “sofrito” (with one “f” and one “t”) in Spanish….
Generally the phrase “Sprouts” means either “Brussel Sprouts” or “Bean Sprouts”, but it can also include Bamboo Sprouts — there is no real, set definition. When used to refer to Bean Sprouts, it means the first seedling growth coming up from either seeds or beans. Bean Sprouts require only water and some warmth to grow….
Squash is a group of edible fruits treated as a vegetable. The grouping is divided roughly into two, Summer Squashes, and Winter Squashes. In English, pumpkins are a sub-group of Winter Squash. Not all other languages make the distinctions that English does.
A vegetable is a plant or part of a plant that is used as a food stuff, whether raw or cooked. Vegetables may have some degree of sweetness as an element of their taste aspect but in general they are considered and treated as “savoury ingredients” and rarely presented as part of a dessert.
