Raw vegies are generally better for you since the boiling process strips away precious vitamins and minerals. (I can't even imagine what a microwave does to them.) But raw food can get boring after a while. Why not use the leftover water after boiling to create a soup. I find broccoli to provide the best vegie broth, velvety and buttery.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the brocolli (or spinach or kale), open your fridge and go at it! Add sliced onions, corn, carrots, celery, squash - whatever you've got. Salt, pepper, basil and/or oregano to taste. If you're meat eaters, it's always good to keep some spicy sausage in the freezer, chop it up and add it to simmer in your broth for extra flavor.
So think twice before you strain your vegies' life affirming nutrients down the drain, whip up a quick soup for a yummy and oh-so-good-for-you snack. It freezes great too!
2 comments:
Microwave cooking tends to carry a stigma that isn't necessarily deserved. When I was a kid we referred to food cooked in the microwave as having been "nuked". This isn't accurate though. The oven works by "exciting" the molecules in moisture (water and fat, primarily), heating it, which then heats the food in which it is contained.
Because it uses the moisture in the food for the cooking process and because cooking time is so short, nutrients tend to remain in the food. This makes microwave cooking more healthy than boiling, or even steaming, for exactly the reasons you identify: those processes cause the nutrients to leach into the cooking water, which gets left behind. Unless, of course, one takes your excellent advice to repurpose the cooking water, rescuing the nutrients it stole.
Good point T. This gives hope to my guilty pleasure of wrapping artichokes in plastic wrap and popping them in the microwave for 10 minutes...or...maybe not.
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