Whether you are looking to adopt a nutrient-dense, plant-based diet or are just trying to find healthier alternatives to some of your favorite dishes, we have great recipes on our site to suit your tastes! Some of our recipes can look a little intimidating, though. That’s why we created a weekly segment called RecipEASY — to make healthy eating easier. We (Kate and Kayla) make a recipe from our site and break it down to give you helpful tips and modifications. Since neither of us are professional chefs, we are always looking for ways to simplify healthy recipes!
This week we made…
Garden Sauté
Our garden sauté was an easy meal to make, and it was chock full of red and green veggies -- we shopped in the produce section of the grocery store and only ventured out to find vegetable juice. Our list included: garlic, red onion, red pepper, celery, carrots, corn, apple, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, fresh basil, parsley, and vegetable juice (the recipe called for peas as well, but we totally missed that!). Find the full measurements here.
Of all of the meals we’ve made so far (like this one and this one), this grocery bill was definitely the lowest! It cost us about $25 to make the sauté, which could have easily fed 8 people.
Although we spent a lot of time chopping, the recipe itself was fairly simple. Just throw the veggies in a pan and sauté! Add the garlic, onion, red pepper, celery, and carrots first with vegetable juice to sauté. After 4-5 minutes, toss in the corn (and peas if you remember them…), apples, broccoli, and beans and continue to sauté for 3-4 minutes. Finally, just throw in the rest of the veggies and remaining juice until the dish is a consistency you like (probably a mix of soft and slightly crunchy veggies). We used more vegetable juice than the recipe called for because we had to sauté the dish in multiple batches (we are convinced we finally need to buy a bigger pan).
As soon as coworkers walked into the kitchen area, we heard a chorus of “Ooo, what are you making?” It smelled delicious!
At first we were skeptical that the recipe would make enough to feed 8 people, but we sure had enough! Kate and I ate plenty, and we shared the rest with our coworkers. One of our colleagues put the veggies over her extra pasta -- we thought this would be an easy way for beginners to add more vegetables to their diet.
Next time we make the sauté, we’ll probably cut the tomatoes and peppers into smaller pieces -- cut them to whatever size you prefer eating. We will also get fresh corn-- we had to use canned corn due to limitations in our kitchen.
We thought the apples would taste a little weird with virtually all other vegetables, but they actually turned out to be my favorite part (and I’d add more in the future).
Try the garden sauté for yourself and let us know what you think!
