My dinners have been revolutionized

The other week I finally got around to buying a bamboo vegetable steamer. My real motivation for purchasing one was that I wanted to make vegan sausage (more on that in a later post), but I have been using it for its intended purpose a lot also.



It is so easy to just chop up a bunch of vegetables, toss them in the steamer, and top with seasoning. If I'm in a hurry or just don't want a lot for dinner, I'll just eat vegetables, but you can also cook up some rice or quinoa, and perhaps saute a little tofu to go on top. The steamer is super easy to clean up after, and of course you don't have to use oil like you would for, say, a stir-fry. Recently I scored a huge bag of green beans for 99 cents at the food co-op, and I ate them all in one sitting:


Topping in this instance is a Trader Joe's concoction, Hawaiian Soyaki sauce. Yum!

My one big tip with steaming would be to NOT OVERCOOK your vegetables. Seriously folks. They taste better and retain more nutrients with minimal cooking. I turn off the heat a little bit before things are cooked (for a steamer basket full of green beans, as shown above, that's about four minutes from turning on the burner), then let the steamer sit covered for a moment while I retrieve a dish to put the cooked vegetables in. Remember, if they're underdone, you can always turn the heat back on, but there is no un-cooking overcooked food!