Start With Frozen Vegetables

Recipes:

• Okra Creole
• Creamy Baked Corn
• Easy Italian Spinach

If you're seeking ways to add vegetables to your diet, then harvest a few of these recipes. Frozen vegetables provide many nutrients and also offer convenience, affordability, and great flavor. Okra Creole, for example, brims with fresh-from-the-field goodness, while Creamy Baked Corn will satisfy your craving for corn pudding--all without having to slice, shuck, or scrape.

Cold Facts

• Freezing vegetables helps maintain their flavors and textures. In addition, frozen vegetables often retain more nutrients than those on the produce aisle.
• Frozen foods lose quality more quickly in a refrigerator freezer that is opened more frequently than in a chest or upright freezer.
• Do not refreeze thawed frozen vegetables.
• Purchase packages that are firm--avoid those that are limp, wet, or sweating. Also bypass packages that are stained by their contents or that have ice on the outside--this indicates the vegetables may have been thawed and refrozen.

"Start With Frozen Vegetables" is from the October 2002 issue of Southern Living.