April 2, 2008
I hope you've all recovered from yesterday's naughty April Fool's joke.
(Although I'm certain more than a few of you are still considering the possibilities of a slash relationship with Max and Seb.)
And thank you to everyone who really thought that the books had been optioned for a movie…since they didn't, if you know a Hollywood bigwig who might be interested, please, do, feel free to send him/her a set. (Six degrees of separation and all that…right?) Heh.
I had a wonderfully witty, pithy blog topic ready for today when I first woke up, but between getting the kids out the door and off to school and preparing for a meeting I have in an hour, it's disappeared. My apologies.
Instead, let's talk vegetables. Why not? It's getting to be spring and that means planting/garden season.
It sort of follows. In a Colleen sort of way.
I'm a veggie lover. There are only two or three that I won't eat (but I'm willing to try them if anyone can share a good recipe).
For example…lima beans. I know I've blogged before about how they're tasteless. I have yet to find eating them a pleasure. I'm thinking it might stem from years in my youth of eating Campbell's Vegetable soup, which seemed to be filled with lima beans.
I also, for all my love of Italian and Mediterranean food, don't care for eggplant. Even though it's incredibly gorgeous. I want to eat it. I want to like it. But…it's slimy. Help?
And those mixes of vegetables they serve in restaurants–zuchini zucchinni zuchinni zucchini, summer squash, carrots. Blah. I don't mind the carrots, but the squashes don't do it for me.
Now give me a plate of spinach, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, pretty much anything else, and I'm happy. As long as it isn't too mushy.
Okay, your turn. Good recipes for veggies? Ones you love and ones you love to hate? Whatcha gonna grow in your garden?
PS Does anyone know why eating asparagus makes your urine smell weird?
Just asking.
The second installment of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles takes Victoria to Venice and Rome.
My novel, 
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Well, this is quite the sexy topic you’ve got going here today, Colleen. Yesterday? Max and Sebastian sexin’ action. Today? Veggies.
I’m not a huge fan of vegetables, although I eat a ton of them for dietary reasons. But we are coming in to summer time when veggies get sooo much yummier.
Have you tried Baba Ganoush? It’s a Lebanese dip (sorta like hummous, but with eggplant). It’s delicious and very low fat and full of anti-oxidants. Very good with baby carrots. Anyway, that’s the only way I like eggplant.
My favorite summer veggies recipe is to thinly slice a Vidalia onion and a zucchini and saute lightly in a dash of olive oil. When the onion is transparent, put in a bowl and toss with Parmesan cheese. Delicious if served with a light fish — I usually go salmon. Yummy!
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Not sure about the smell, but asparagus is delicious. I can eat it raw, grilled, steamed, or whatevah!
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:01 am
I don’t care for lima beans very much either — down here, we call them “butterbeans”.
Eggplant is great fried — but not very healthy. But the slime pretty much disappears once you throw it in hot oil. That’s probably true for just about anything.
I love squash casseroles but not so much squash alone.
I’m not a huge vegetable (or fruit lover). I wish I was.
I am, however, a Max lover and, no, I have not recovered from yesterday.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
I totally fell for yesterday’s post–and it would be awesome, too!
I hate lima beans, too, one of the few foods I dislike. I like eggplant when it’s roasted with a bit of OO, after being salted for awhile.
I like zucchini okay, but it doesn’t have much taste. I love veggies, too, esp. winter veggies like winter squash, turnips, parsnips, brussels sprouts, etc.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Seb??? Colleen, everyone knows he’s not a Seb, he’s pure Sebastian
I did a post recently about my dislike of lima beans; a chef friend gave me a great recipe for them…I’ll share if you like.
Eggplant…I only like it roasted! Same with the squashes…brings out their sweetness and gives it some crunch!
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 am
You totally got me. *blushes* I should have looked at the sate first.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
date not sate
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hat tip to WebMD the source of all knowledge:
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/43/1671_51089
Seems you might be somewhat special, Colleen, asparagus doesn’t make everyone’s pee smell.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Colleen, have you ever tried the “parmigiana”? It’s a tipical italian dish that recalls in some ways lasagne, but uses eggplants instead of pasta: I can’t normally stand eggplants myself, but I love the parmigiana.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Okay, MK, now I’m blushing. But I know lots of people who have the problem with asparagus. LOL.
I’m going to try the eggplant idea, roasted with olive oil. And I have had baba ganoush–it’s okay. But I’ll try to eat more of it.
What? No lima bean recipes????
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Late to the party, but I LOVE lima beans! Try cooking them with bits of ham - that’s how my grandmother and my mother sometimes did/do it. Perhaps it will give a flavoring to the beans you may like (although I love them without it, too). One thing too is that a lot of people don’t cook lima beans correctly - if you don’t cook them long enough they are gross, much like other actual beans, people underestimate how long they take and they end up being hard yet slimy at the same time - gross. I generally hate slimy foods, but I do like lima beans that are good and soft!
I also love asparagus, but can’t eat it if it’s too mushy (kind of the opposite of lima beans) - it has to be steamed for me. And no, it doesn’t make my pee smell funny, sorry! But I have heard of it before, so I doubt it’s just you!
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I hate when you have something very good all planned out in your head to write about and then it all seems to slip away. This happens to me all the time with blogs and poems.
I love veggies but I don’t have any good recipes. I love eggplant parm when it’s done right (I know it’s a chain, but I LOVE the eggplant parmesan at Johnny Carino’s). AllRecipes.com is the place I usually find my recipes. I didn’t really see anything there for a lima bean recipe.
I halfway fell for the April Fool’s joke. At first I was saying “Yeay!” then, “Huh?” then “WTF?”. How awesome would a Gardella movie be?
April 4th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I am glad Max and Sebastian and movie possibilities were an April Fools joke. The idea of a movie would be fun, however, have you ever seen a movie that was even as good as the book? It would be fun to watch though. As for the idea of mixing Sebastian and Max together? Ewwww. No thanks! My good friend and I are pulling for Victoria and Max to get together. The heat those two generate together is enough to set the pages on fire. So I’m glad that idea of Max and Sebastian was part of the April 1st joke. As for vegies- I am growing tomatoes and canning them this year…right along side of the grape and cherry jam I make (and I grow my own grapes) All this and a full time job, its exhausting but worth it. I’m not a huge eggplant fan myself. Asparagus is a favorite with a little bit of seasoning though.