"One raw, one plain, one fancy."

From a comment I made on an earlier post. 

It's a rule of thumb I use when putting together meals -- for getting three vegetable side dishes on the table with a minimum of fuss.

I don't always have three vegetable (or fruit) side dishes on the table, especially if my main dishes have plenty of veg in them, but it is nice to shoot for.

"Raw" includes most salads, fresh cut fruit, and also simple things like a bowl of baby carrots.

"Plain" is anything steamed, boiled, or roasted, either truly plain or maybe with a little butter or oil.  Roast sweet potatoes, plain microwave-steamed fresh vegetables, or cooked frozen vegetables.  Also something like applesauce would count here.  The essence of "plain," though, for the purpose I mean (not doing too much work at dinner time) is "simply prepared."  I didn't have to stir it or cut it up much or measure anything.

"Fancy" would be anything cooked any other way, or anything that required a recipe.  Sauteed broccoli with olive oil and lemon; cream of tomato soup; stuffed squash; marinara sauce.  That kind of thing.

"One raw, one plain, one fancy" puts a variety of textures (and usually colors) on the table without my overdoing it in the last minutes before supper.

Comments

[Tabitha]

This makes a lot of sense. My question is: How many pounds of veggies do you buy a week? We buy a lot of fruit (30+pounds some weeks), but my fridge won't hold enough veggies for 3 veggies each supper unless I shop several times a week.

We are working on getting a bigger fridge, but until that happens, I'm curious about how to get all of that in the house.

[Rebekka]

The rule of thumb definitely helps with it, because side dishes are a nightmare for me. Do you do meal planning or do you just wing it? And if you do plan, do you plan your side dishes in advance?

[Rebekka]

BTW, bearing, do you guys like beets? Because I have a beet salad recipe that for some reason I bet you would like (providing you eat beets).

[bearing]

I am not sure how much I buy -- I would have to look at a store receipt. Will do, next week. It varies somewhat because I tend to buy frozen and canned veg on sale.

Roughly from memory, last week I bought: 1 head cabbage, 1 bunch broccoli, 4 zucchini, 1 red bell pepper, a bag of onions, a bunch of celery, 1 head romaine lettuce, 1 bunch spinach, 2 pints blueberries and 2 quarts strawberries, 2 sweet potatoes (for the baby), 3 fresh tomatoes, part of a watermelon, 8 pears and 8 apples. I also bought 2 lbs frozen vegetables (but the week before that I probably bought 10 pounds of frozen vegetables). And I probably bought 3 or 4 cans of tomatoes and some beans. And probably some lemons, parsley, and cilantro.

[bearing]

Rebekka - My meal plans generally name the vegetables but not the recipes. And sometimes the notation says "RGV" or "RYV" which stands for "random green vegetable" or "random yellow vegetable." This translates into "whatever I bought on sale at the store."

So it might say, for instance, "grilled pork chops, cabbage, potatoes, RYV" and then on that day I'll decide whether to make steamed cabbage or cole slaw, whether to make baked or mashed potatoes. And it's at the store that I will decide whether to buy butternut squash or carrots...

[Celeste]

Love this little "rule"--makes the side-dish thing so much more doable. Right now we do one vegetable side at dinner plus a green salad or a fruit, so two each night. You have inspired me to give three a go over the next month.

[Kathy]

How do You prepare your cabbage? My children like it but I only make it with corned beef....so we have it once or twice per year. I would like to serve it more often.

[bearing]

Oh gosh... let me count the ways!

First of all, there's every cole slaw in the world. I have blogged a red cabbage-ginger slaw that I adore. Sweet vinegary cole slaw can be a blank slate which you adorn to match different dishes. Often I dress shredded raw cabbage with a dressing that's equal parts sugar and vinegar (heated to dissolve the sugar) plus some spices -- last night I added chile powder and lime to it, and threw some chunks of avocado in.

Cabbage is easily steamed in the microwave and served with butter, salt, and pepper. It stir-fries beautifully. And it's great sauteed with onions and/or garlic in olive oil.

Not to mention that you can stuff it, and you can also put it in vegetable soup.