Some tips for adding veggies and fruit to meals:
Try them in soup. Embellish your favorite soups with added veggies. Many commercial soups already contain a nice serving of vegetables. I love adding carrots to chicken noodle or fresh green beans to minestrone. Just add raw or frozen vegetables while you're heating or cooking the soup.
Tuck them into salads. Load your salads with as many raw veggies as you can: cucumber, grated carrots, zucchini, green beans, onions, radishes, jicama, tomato, etc. Or try spinach leaves instead of lettuce.
Chinese Asian food to the rescue: It's the best way to add veggies to your daily diet. Use Wok cooking methods, stir fry your veggies, add sauce, and viola a 3 min meal.
Serve them raw. Raw can bring out the best in vegetables that have a strong taste when cooked, such as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, or spinach. And when you have some delicious low-fat dip in front of you, a platter of raw veggies seems to disappear. Use bottled light ranch or Italian dressing, or make your own.
Sneak them into spaghetti sauce or noodle. Add finely chopped zucchini, mushroom, onions, eggplant, or yellow squash to spaghetti sauce. The smaller you chop them, the less likely you are to notice they're there.
Have fun! Certain vegetables are just more fun to eat than others. Try corn-on-the-cob wheels (slice cooked corn into 1-inch thick disks), fill celery sticks with peanut butter or light cream cheese, or enjoy a zucchini or bell pepper with a savory filling.
Drink up. Try V-8 tomato juice or carrot juice. Or blend some carrot juice with a fruit juice you enjoy, such as orange or tangerine.
Pizza. Top your pizza with any combination: tomato, onion, bell pepper, mushroom, zucchini, and artichoke hearts.
Grill them. Use the same marinade you're using for your meat. Make a kabob with chunks of vegetables (eggplant, carrot, bell pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, and other squash). Soft vegetables won't need precooking, but firm ones such as sweet potatoes will benefit from steaming or microwaving before they hit the grill.
Fast food vegetables. You can even get your vegetables at a fast-food chain -- as long as you like salads. Wendy's, for example, offers a Caesar side salad (with 70 calories and 4 g fat, not including dressing) or a side salad (35 calories, 0 g fat). Ask for the fat-free French, low-fat honey-mustard, or reduced-fat creamy ranch dressing. Use half the packet and you'll add about 50 calories and from 0 to 4 grams of fat.
Add veggies you almost like to dishes you already love. Layer zucchini slices into lasagna. Stir broccoli florets into macaroni and cheese. Toss tomatoes into an omelet. Slide peppers into a cheese quesadilla.
When all else fails, there's always cheese sauce. Drizzle it over broccoli or cauliflower, and suddenly it's a whole different ball game.
Fruit: are fast foods, grab an apple and eat, see how fast that was?
Now eat the apple with a slice of cheddar cheese. Talk about heaven.
Blend an instant breakfast out of a frozen banana, a handful of frozen strawberries and a cup of milk.
Stir applesauce into hot oatmeal.
Add bananas to vanilla yogurt for an afternoon snack.
Try some less familiar fruits like guava, star fruit and kumquats.
Keep dried dates, apricots or cranberries in your desk for snacks
Mix diced mango with red onion and cilantro for a fruit salsa.
Serve fruit salad for dessert.
Canned, frozen, or fresh, its all good.
Bon Appétit