For the Love of Vegetables

It makes me so sad that so many of my childhood memories revolve around conflict and troubles. I don't think that was the intention or goal, but unfortunately, it is what it is. One of these memories involved spaghetti.

My mother made spaghetti, but being the wonderful mother she was, she wanted us to eat our vegetables. How did she add vegetables to spaghetti? She cut it up into cubes and added it into the sauce. If my memory hasn't failed me, the vegetable she attempted to add was cucumber. Now you might be thinking, cucumber doesn't really belong in spaghetti. And I'm right there with you. It doesn't. And I didn't want to eat it. And I wasn't an anti-vegetable child. I just didn't want cucumber in my spaghetti. So I picked it out, didn't eat it, and a really big conflict ensued in our house. 

That's another story. And this was over 20 years ago. 

***

I made spaghetti this week. We hadn't had spaghetti in a while and it was an easy dinner, so I made some. We also had an abundance of squash and zucchini at our house which needed to be used before it went bad. I'd already been roasting it in the oven and even experimented with baking zucchini chips. So what did I do?

Yup, I added that zucchini and squash into my spaghetti. But unlike my mother, I did it with tact and caution. 

1. Blend it in.

My mother failed to blend it in. I know she wasn't trying to hide it, but if you're more than simply cooking food to eat, you would understand that food texture and shape has to be similar enough to blend or different enough to provide contrast. Adding cucumber to spaghetti? Definitely needs to be similar enough to blend in. You DON'T want your cucumber providing contrast in spaghetti. And my mother failed to do that. 

I, on the other hand, understood. So I julienned my zucchini and squash. And it blended into my spaghetti beautifully. My three-year-old and one-year-old both ate it with no complaints. 

2. Quantity Matters.

When adding a "foreigner" to a normal recipe, you can't overpower the usuals. I made sure not to add too much to keep it in the background of the dish. To go with my one pound of sausage and one pound of pasta, I added half a zucchini and half a squash. It turned out to be the perfect amount. I was actually thinking to myself as I was cooking that I may have been able to get away with a little more if I wanted to. But it was a really nice amount.

As much as I love my mother and as much as she took care of us, cooking was not her forte. I learned very little about cooking and food preparation from her. I watched cooking shows instead and put my tv time to good use. Jacques Pepin has always been my favorite. She always said, if I was going to watch so many cooking shows, I might as well learn something from it and cook. 

Yes, Mother.