Jackie Vetter’s Kitchen

Sometimes, after I’ve had a big day of teaching, I am so exhausted I feel like I just could not cook if I absolutely had to. It is those days I call upon my faithful steamer and we end up with one of the most beautiful meals, most delicious meals that can be had. I don’t know why we don’t do it more often, but I know that we are going to.

This simple, veggie meal started out with me just looking in the basket on the counter to see what vegetables I had there, then in the vegetable crisper in the refrigerator to see what was there. I found 2 beautifully colored sweet potatoes, and a bunch of large, green asparagus, some portabella and shiitake mushrooms, a small, sweet, yellow onion and some rainbow chard. My brain went to work.

I scrubbed the sweet potatoes very well, sliced them into large rounds, and put them in the steamer to steam for a while. It took probably a good 1/2 hour. In the last 7 minutes, I added the asparagus to the steamer.

While I was waiting for the steamer, I put 1 Tablespoon olive oil into my iron skillet, sliced the mushrooms and onions and added them to the heated olive oil in the skillet. I let them sauté for a little while (until the onions were translucent) and then added the rainbow chard to the skillet. I let them sauté for about 7 minutes. Removed them from the skillet and sprinkled some tarragon vinegar over the mixture.

Here are some pictures of what this dinner looked like. You know, sweet potatoes are actually sweet enough that you really don’t need to put anything on them at all. The asparagus was also so good that it didn’t need anything either.

Try your vegetable/rice steamer. It can be your best friend when you are working to get away from fats and just looking to simplify your life with some good veggies. Since spring and summer are just around the corner, there is no better time to dig out your steamer!

Happy, Healthy Eating,

Jackie V.