Fun Facts About Vegetables

How much do you think about vegetables beyond which ones are your favourite? How much do you really know about them? You may be surprised about the facts behind your favourite vegetables. Like why you cry when you cut onions or why people plant large patches of thyme in their garden. Keep reading to learn these facts and more.


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Quick Onion Fun Facts

A chemical reaction is the reason why people cry when they cut onions. When you cut an onion, it releases amino acids sulfoxides, which then turn into sulfenic acids. The sulfenic acids then mix together with enzymes from the onion to produce propanethiol S-oxide, which is a sulphuric chemical. The sulphuric chemical, being in a gaseous state, comes into contact with the water in your eyes and causes a burning sensation. In response to this irritation, your eyes release tears in an effort to remove the irritant.

As a side note, when the onion is being cooked, the heat inactivates the enzyme, so that it will no longer irritate your eyes.

There are a few things that you can do to prevent crying when you cut an onion. These include:

• Wear safety goggles,
• Run a fan to pull the sulphuric gas away from you,
• Place the onion in a bowl of water and then cut it, and
• Keep the onion in the fridge until you are ready to cut it, as the cold air in the fridge will slow the chemical reactions inside the onion.

Other Vegetable Fun Facts

I bet you didn't think onions could be that interesting, did you? Well here are some more interesting facts about other vegetables. See how many of these facts you already know.

• Watermelons are actually vegetables! They are in the same family as cucumbers, pumpkins and squash.
• The world's largest watermelon on record weighed over 260 pounds.
• In England, it is tradition to plant large patches of thyme because it is said that these patches are playgrounds for fairies.
• Carrots can help you to see better in the dark. That's because carrots contain lots of Vitamin A, which helps to prevent "night blindness".
• Frozen vegetables can be more nutritious than fresh vegetables. Fresh vegetables take a lot of time, once they have been picked, to reach the supermarket. The more time between picking and eating, the more nutrients they loose. Frozen vegetables however are usually processed and packaged on the same day they were picked; therefore they maintain the maximum amount of nutrients.
• The top green leaves from beets can lightly boiled and then eaten, just like spinach. In fact, beet leaves are the most nutritious part of the vegetable.
• Two common varieties of peas include snow peas and snap peas. Snow peas are picked before the peas inside have a chance to develop, so that the pea pod is still very flat and tender. With snap peas however, the peas are allowed to grow and then both the pod and the peas inside can be eaten either raw or cooked.

Hope that you have enjoyed reading these facts about vegetables. Please visit The Gardener's Escape to learn more fun and interesting facts about vegetables. Plus, you'll find lots of Gardening Tools that you can use to help you have the best garden on the block!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joanne_Jones

Black Tuesday: Black Beans Soup Recipe

This Black Beans Soup recipe is the first in the Black Tuesday menu. It's especially comforting when the weather is cold.

Ingredients

250 g black beans, rinsed and soaked in the cold water for 12 hours

2 tbsp olive oil

1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 dried chili pepper, peeled and sliced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 celery stick, finely chopped

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp lemon juice

Yogurt or sour cream and parsley for garnish

Directions

In a large saucepan heat the olive oil, add onions and saute until golden. Add garlic, chili pepper, carrots, celery and stir. Pour in the broth, add beans and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Season with cumin, oregano, salt and pepper. Reduce heat, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Put a half of the soup to a blender. Puree until smooth and return to the saucepan, mix well. Add the lemon juice and adjust seasonings. (If the soup looks too thick add some water to desired consistency).

Top each serving with a sour cream or a yogurt and a parsley.

And have a Happy Black Tuesday!

Read Also:

Add Color To Your Diet: BLACK Tuesday
Best Green Vegetables for Your Healthy Diet
How To Cook Broccoli Properly
Free Organic Vegetable Gardening At Home

Green Monday - Easy & Healthy Avocado Recipe

Is your diet boring and exhausting you? It shouldn't be! Let's add some color to your diet!

Continuing talking about green vegetables and their health benefits, I'd like to share with you my favorite quick and healthy avocado recipe. Remember that about 75% of an avocado's calories come from fat (the good one but still...) So don't overdose and everything will be fine.

The best and actually the only commonly used avocado recipe is a Guacamole. Many others are just different variations of this great recipe. It can be called "Avocado Dip", "Avocado Salad", "Avocado Relish" and even "Avosalsa" :)

Of Aztec origin, Guacamole was originally made by mashing ripe avocados, with a molcajete (mortar and pestle) and adding tomatoes and salt.
To this basic recipe I usually add a minced onion, some lemon juice and olive oil. To make your meal a bit more nutritious use also boiled eggs (also finely chopped). Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and serve with dark (full-grain wheat) bread. Your 100% healthy avocado snack is ready.

If you're going to make Guacamole to feed your baby, please have a look at this recipe.

Green Monday - Broccoli Gratin

As promised, here's The Best Broccoli Recipe ever! And I mean it cause I tried plenty of them.

This one is my favourite, it's both delicious and healthy.

The great thing about this recipe is that it's kind of universal as you can easily replace some ingredient with other if you want to make your gratin more dietetic or just don't have some specific ingredient ready at hand.

And of course it's easy to make. I don't like sophisticated recipes that much :)

Let's start with the basics.

Ingredients:

750 g broccoli (cut in florets)
500 g soft white cheese/sour cream
2 onions (thinly sliced)
3 eggs
3 tbs flour
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (grated)
3 tbs butter
salt
pepper

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180-200°C (350-400°F).
Step 2: Cook the broccoli in salted water. You can use these tips on cooking broccoli. Then drain well and arrange in a lightly buttered baking pan.
Step 3: In a small frying pan, saute the onions in 2 tablespoons of butter until fragrant.
Step 4: In a separate bowl, combine the white cheese/sour cream, the eggs, the flour and stir until smooth.
Step 5: Pour the cheese sauce into the baking pan (over the broccoli) and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Bake until the top is golden.

Now here are some of the finer points:

1. How to turn this recipe into more dietetic?
Just choose the low fat white cheese. It works perfectly for this gratin! You may also decide to get rid of that Parmesan topping because of the extra fat. That's ok with me too, but keep in mind that these really few additional calories worth the fine taste.

2. How to diversify the Broccoli Gratin?
Now this is the fun part as you may play with this recipe to your heart's content.
What I usually do:
- Use different kinds of white cheese (feta cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, sour cream) and mix them all together.
- Add some other veggies to broccoli. A marrow, a pumpkin and a potato are the best matches. Boil other vegetables together with broccoli (step 2). Don't forget that to some veggies it takes more time to get cooked than to the others.
- Mushrooms! Champignons, portobello, porcino - whatever you like - dramatically upgrade this recipe. Cut mushrooms in slices and mix with the onions (Step 3). Add some butter or water, if necessary.

3. How to make this Gratin more spicy?
That's very easy: add some garlic (1-2 minced cloves) to the onions and fry them together (see Step 3). If that's not spicy enough for you, add a hot pepper :)

4. Is this recipe good for kids?
Yes, it is. Though you'd better not make the Gratin too spicy and try to use natural, healthy products.

That's all, nothing complicated but really delicious and healthy dish.

Read Also:

How To Cook Broccoli Properly
Best Green Vegetables for Your Fun & Healthy Diet
Free Organic Vegetable Gardening At Home