Anyone who's ever read a post of mine over the years likely knows I hate veggies. Not for lack of trying, though!

Anyway, my newest attempts have been purchased. I found a recipe for turnip fries (french fries from turnips instead of potatoes), and I bout a regular eggplant and a baby eggplant. Of course, the cute little baby one was much more expensive

I think I'm going to try to make an eggplant lasagna using the eggplant strips intead of noodles. I've found lots of recipes for this, and lots of suggestions for really making the eggplant just right (including soaking the strips of eggplant in salt water for about 20 minutes--supposedly, this reduces the bitter taste).

Now, according to the sign at the store, the baby eggplant doesn't have the same bitterness as the regular one, so I'm going to try a recipes mentioned on here (I believe from mandalinn) for cubed eggplant in tomato sauce with the baby one.

I'm excited to try the turnip fries, too. I haven't had french fries in months, so a substitute is very welcomed, plus, having not had them for so long, hopefully I won't notice much of a difference from the real thing!

Wish me luck in my new veggie ventures

That's so cool that you're opening up your palate! Hopefully you enjoy all your new dishes. I just made and ate my first artichoke yesterday- I mean, I'd had them before but only presliced hearts in salad. I had never gone through the process of cooking and eating the "petals". It was pretty good!
Here's to our adventurous endeavors in the food world!

Good luck with the new veggies! And don't forget to rinse the noddles REALLY well! How are you going to make them?

I would suggest *not* doing that. I would suggest eating the new food (eggplant) with something you already know you like (regular pasta of your choice) to give each new food a fighting chance on their own.

My suggestion for the sauce would be to puree it also, unless you are going to bake the HECK out of it. The texture may be more to your liking that way.

Best of luck!

Just wanted to wish you good luck and let you know it can be done. I haven't gotten too adventerous just yet but I've discovered a lot of things I thought I didn't like are now some of my faves after only 6 months of "eating clean". For example - in January you couldn't have paid me to eat a beet but this weekend I was visiting SIL who made a yummy beet and fresh spinach salad. Guess who couldn't get enough and scarfed up the leftovers for lunch the next day?

Oh Jilly! I'm pulling for you.

And wanted to share, what I think, is a veggie recipe that anyone (all right, almost any one) would go crazy for. In fact, I serve it to company all the time and everybody has LOVED it. Even die hard veggie haters. Ohhh and kids.

It's my own made up recipe, taken from a few different ones, so I don't have exact amounts.

-I cut up a large butternut squash into chunks. Place them in a 9 x 13 baking pan.
-I pour fat free/ sugar free Maple syrup over it and some cinnamon. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 400 degrees til ALMOST tender, about 45 mins, maybe a little longer.
-I cut up 2 - 3 large apples, leaving them in smallish chunks. Mix it in a bowl with a little more syrup, lots of cinnamon, a handful of raisins and a handful of chopped walnuts. I add this to the butternut squash pan. Cover it and cook for about 20 minutes or so, til the apples are cooked.

PLEASE try it. I KNOW you're going to love it.

Jill - I know people seem to either love or hate the shiratake noodles - I personally am a huge fan. I love them with an asian peanut sauce (got recipe from Nelie who uses it on sliced cukes, I believe). But another yummy version is Hungry Girl's recipe for shiratake Alfredo - made with laughing cow cheese. Easy, low cal, healthy - recipe is on hungrygirl.com

Good luck!

Jilly,

Good luck. I will have to say though that I am not a fan of american eggplant. I hope you do like it but if not, I'd hope you try some asian varieties, specifically the long slender chinese/japanese. If you have an asian market, you will often find those there. Also, I love the asian greens, much more than the standard greens found in regular supermarkets, so I recommend those as well.

Those sound delicious! I always thought that people got turned off by shiratake noodles because they treated them as regular pasta, when they should be treated as asian noodles. I like mine marinated in a teriyake sauce and cooked with stirfry veggies (edemame beans, mushrooms, carrots, etc...)

Thanks for the recipe, Robin. I really can't stand butternut squash, but I would still have tried your recipe if not for the fruit (I'm keeping my carbs as low as humanly possible thanks to my recent type 2 diabetes diagnosis).

So, the tofu shiritake noodles with pasta sauce, not so much? I LOVE Asian sauces and such, but I have high blood pressure, and they are typically insanely high in sodium (even the lower sodium soy sauce is crazy high in sodium for a tiny amount). I did buy a bottled teriyaki sauce by Mrs. Dash that has no salt, but it DOES have sugar (worse, actually--HFCS). I just can't win

nelie, I'm not sure I'm ready to add another store to my weekly grocery shopping Why can't one store just carry EVERYTHING? I have to go to Giant because they carry the Boar's Head (lower sodium) sandwich meats and cheese, I go to Bloom because their 99% fat free chicken breast tenders are vastly less expensive than other stores, I go to Wegman's for the only HFCS-free barbecue sauce I've been able to find that actually TASTES like bbq sauce...but I may have to try an Asian market anyway, if I can find one (I'm sure there's one around somewhere, just have to look it up).

Jill - below is the peanut sauce (it's taken verbatim from a post of Nelie's a couple months ago- I copied and pasted into my recipe file). I have made it several times and LOVE it with the shiratake noodles. I hear you on the sodium, and it also has carbs (I believe you are on SB?). I'm just posting it in case anyone else wants it.

Maybe you would like the Alfredo (laughing cow) sauce?

And Robin, I've been meaning to try your squash recipe for ages... it sounds delicious!

About the No-Cook Asian Peanut Sauce
Here's a quick, easy sauce for whole-wheat noodles, cut-up vegetables, steamed tofu or even iceberg lettuce wedges. Or try it our favorite way: peel cucumbers, then shred them into long strips with a vegetable peeler for cucumber noodles.

No-Cook Asian Peanut Sauce
Makes 6 servings
POINTS® value | 2 per serving
Ingredients

* 1/4 cup creamy natural peanut butter*
* 3 Tbsp reduced-sodium vegetable broth
* 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
* 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
* 1 Tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce
* 1 Tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
* 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
* 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
* 1 tsp hot red pepper sauce, such as Tabasco sauce
* 1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions

* Whisk all the ingredients together in a medium bowl until smooth and creamy. To store, cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days; whisk before using again.

Serving size: 2 tablespoons

Looks like I could easily use erythritol or stevia in place of the sugar, and only 1 T soy sauce in the entire recipe probably won't kill me (plus, I could probably cut it down a little and add a little salt substitute). It sounds good!

Have you ever checked the sodium on those little stinkin' Laughing Cow wedges? Though I may have to try it anyway--sometimes I can keep my sodium super low during the day so I can have something different for dinner.

I tell ya, watching the sodium AND the carbs AND the saturated fat...gets a little hairy at times!

I just ate a laughing cow about an hour ago - are they pretty high?? My BP is always good (on the low side), so I am not very conscientious about sodium. However, I recently took a look at my daily sodium intake on dailyplate, and it's pretty darned high (3,000 and higher!!!). So, maybe I ought to watch it more than I do!

You'll have to let us know how you like the noodles (and how you end up fixing them). I personally breathe through my mouth only when I cut them open (over a colander), rinse well, and then dump them into a pan of boiling water for about 2-3 minutes. After that - no funny taste or smell!!