Autumn Menu Ideas

Nina: Today, we’re at the Farmer’s Market with Lillian Cheung of the Deparment of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health and we’re shopping and we’re really excited because the school has redone the pyramid, right Lillian? Lillian: Until we make it much more up-to-date and we are really focusing on promoting plant-based diet more and here we are in the fruits and vegetables section. Nina: So, let’s give people ideas. We look at these peppers. What do you think? What would you do with peppers? Lillian: There are so many different ways to lighten up a meal in colors. Look at that. They’re really wonderful. We don’t know how many see the purple, now the light yellow and orange and yellow and red. We can use it at . Nina: Salad obviously and in that respect. Lillian: And stir-fry. Nina: Stir-fry would be great. I was thinking too that it would be great to take the eggplant, the peppers, some tomatoes, fresh herbs and do something like the roasted vegetable, or Ratatouille or something like that and we’re going give everybody a real simple recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts. It’s so easy, a little bit of olive oil and that’s it so, let’s give people an idea of the straight-forward dinner. Lillian: Whole grain, so let’s get brown rice. Nina: One thing that you can do with brown rice that I think people don’t realize is that you can put chopped fresh herbs on them and they really brightens up the flavor. Lillian: So, with the dinner. We have to have a healthy protein, you know fish would be a great one. Nina: And you like to steam fish, right? Lillian: I love steam fish and our tradition in Chinese cuisine and just let’s just see what kind of herbs we can get to put on this steamed halibut. Nina: That’s great. So as far as fish you could get say halibut, salmon, chars, really nice. Lillian: Halibut then it’s really wonderful. Nina: Yeah haddock is great and look at these right now, some unusual vegetables that people don’t usually see. We have some squash vines, zucchini squash vines. Lillian: Now, I’ve never used them in our cuisine. How do you cook them? Nina: This is what they said that you could stir fry with garlic. Lillian: You stir fry this? Oh, wow! Nina: With garlic, yeah. Lillian: That’s wonderful. Nina: And a lot of these vegetables you know these water spinach which we call ping ching tsai and the vegetables, stir-fry that with some spinach, rice wine, amaranth, which is also really nice water spinach. And you mentioned some of the lovely herbs that they have. Do you have cilantro? Lillian: Ah-huh, look at this, tendrils, is it wonderful? They’re very tasty. Nina: Fabulous, yeah. Lillian: They are wonderful. Nina: And you could just stir-fry these with garlic, really, really nice. Thanks so much Lillian, this is terrific. Lillian: My pleasure, anytime. Thanks to our sponsor, Legal Sea Foods.