FLASH CONTEST: #VegOutVideo

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vegoutvideo

This week’s social media flash contest kicks up a notch with VIDEO SUBMISSIONS! Use your phone’s video function or your favorite movie app (Vine, Instagram, etc) to shoot and share a quick film of you vegging out, from dining on kohlrabi at a VegOut! HERE spot, whipping up an eggplant stirfry for dinner, or crunching some carrots at work. Camera shy? Get your kids to talk about the veggies they’re eating!

Post videos with the hashtags #VegOutVideo and #VegOutRFS to enter. Our fave flick wins Dinner for Two to Monica Pope’s Sparrow Bar + Cookshop. Remember, to qualify for contests, you must be registered for the 2014 VegOut! Challenge.

Entries are due by Wednesday, March 26, at 11.59 a.m. 

Veggies… camera… ACTION!

Our #VegOutJicama winner is…

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VegOutJicamaDishLast week, we asked you to submit your best photo of a jicama dish with us on social media with the hashtag #VegOutJicama for a chance to win our second VegOut! flash contest. Several of you rose to the challenge and share some inspired cuisine, so we asked Chef Jason Gould of Cyclone Anaya’s Mexican Kitchen to help us determine a winner.

After reviewing all the submissions, here’s what he had to say:

“These are some really good recipes with some great and unique uses for jicama, it was hard to choose just one winner. The one I picked is the “Sōté-rubbed Salmon with Hatch Pepper Sauce and Jicama-Mango Slaw”. It’s simple use of the jicama in the “slaw” really highlights the great qualities of the vegetable, helping to retain the crispness and complementing the flavor with the addition of the citrus and mango.  Served with the seared salmon and spicy Hatch pepper sauce, makes for a great spring dish.”

So congrats to Dragana Harris (aka the writer and home cook behind Dragana Bakes).  Enjoy the $50 gift card donated by the lovely folks at Cyclone Anaya’s.

Dragana has shared her recipe with us to help you veg out with jicama, too!

Sōté-Rubbed Salmon with Hatch Pepper Sauce & Jicama-Mango Slaw

Serves 2

Ingredients

For salmon:

¾ lb salmon fillet

Sōté seasoning or seasoning of your choice

1 tablespoon olive oil

For sauce:

¼ cup mayonnaise

¼ cup sour cream

1 roasted Hatch pepper (spicy or not), skin removed, stemmed and seeded

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

¼ cup lightly packed cilantro leaves

1 peeled and chopped Roma tomato

For jicama slaw:

½ lb jicama, peeled and julienned (use the mandoline for this if you have one)

1 mango, peeled, sliced thin and then longwise into thin strips

8 radishes, sliced thinly (here again, the mandoline comes in handy)

1/3 cup red onion, sliced thin

¼ cup cilantro, chopped

4 tablespoons fresh orange juice

4 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  • Pat salmon dry with a paper towel to remove any moisture. Rub a little Sōté seasoning on the salmon, remembering that the Sōté is mostly salt.
  • Pour olive oil into an oven-proof pan or cast iron skillet. Heat pan over medium heat until the oil is very hot. Carefully add the salmon, skin side down. Cover with a splatter shield if necessary to prevent oil from splashing everywhere. Sauté salmon until the edges begin to turn color, about 5 – 6 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the broiler. Remove pan with salmon from heat and place under broiler for 2 minutes to sear the top. Remove pan from oven using an oven mitt. Serve with Hatch pepper green sauce and Jicama mango slaw.
  • Place all ingredients in a small blender and blend until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
  • Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Chill until ready to serve.  Serve using tongs to drain slaw from the juices.

See Dragana’s original post, plus more recipes and culinary tales on her blog, Dragana Bakes.

Sunchoke Cha Cha Cha!

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Bustling schedules and picky palettes can make the task of nourishing a family an uphill battle, so how do you get your brood to eat 30 different vegetables period, much less within one month?

Houston mom Amy Anton has stepped up for the challenge and is sharing her anxieties, discoveries and successes along the way.

new veggie

Have you ever had a sunchoke? I hadn’t even even heard of them until yesterday. And you probably don’t care, but I cook A LOT. I read cooking magazines all of the time. But still, I had no idea what a sunchoke was. Until yesterday, that is.

I was wandering through the produce section at my local H-E-B, when I saw a basket marked sunchokes. Say what? They are also known as Jerusalem Artichokes. Hmm, so obviously, they are some exotic version of an artichoke, I think… Not so! They are brown tubers, or root vegetables that look like a cross between ginger root and a small potato. Crazy!

I grabbed a bag of them and headed home, triumphant that I had a new vegetable for our Veggie Log. The story gets better, though, as we were having company for dinner. Perfect, I thought, they can all try sunchokes! Well, when I announced to my guests I had roasted sunchokes for them, you should have seen the look on their faces. I am sure they were thinking, she’s making us try some weird food… my husband looked disgusted… and the seven boys looked at me like no way, no how. It is spring break, and I am NOT eating anything weird!

Determined, I cut the sunchokes into bite-size pieces, tossed them with olive oil and salt, and roasted them in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. I snuck a bite of one before I served them, and WOW. Like a potato, but nutty, and not as starchy. And when I dished them out to everyone, you know what? They ALL loved them. They ate every last one! They asked for more! Boy, did I feel vindicated.

SO, if you are running out of new veggie ideas for your VegOut! Challenge (or your sanity), grab some sunchokes! They are in season right now, and I have seen them at Kroger, H-E-B, Central Market, and Whole Foods Market.

VegOut! Cooking Classes with H-E-B

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Our VegOut! HERE partners at H-E-B offer fresh, seasonal produce all year-round, making them an easy resource to help you make delicious VegOut! meals at home. This month, in honor of the 30-Day Challenge, H-E-B Houston stores are offering VegOut! Kids Cooking Classes, featuring a different veggie each class.

Kiddos enjoying VegOut! cooking class hosted by HEB Buffalo Speedway for the 2014 VegOut! Challenge. They made veggie stir-fry with 5+ veggies and a cauliflower, kale, potato mash. Kids gave it all two thumbs up!
Kiddos enjoying VegOut! cooking class hosted by HEB Buffalo Speedway for the 2014 VegOut! Challenge. They made veggie stir-fry with 5+ veggies and a cauliflower, kale, potato mash. Kids gave it all two thumbs up!

View the calendar of VegOut! classes HERE to find one at a neighborhood H-E-B store near you. 

GRAND PRIZE: Deer Lake Lodge & Spa Getaway

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We’re wrapping up Week 2 of the 2014 VegOut! Challenge… how are you doing? Need a little boost? Let us tell you about one of the prizes YOU could win, just by eating all 30 of those veggies…

Deer Lake Lodge & Spa-Juice

Deer Lake Lodge & Spa, an exclusive destination health spa and wellness resort, promotes enhanced living through holistic cleansing and other therapeutic approaches in a relaxing, secluded environment. Located on a 50-acre rustic-chic oasis, only 40 minutes from central Houston and 15 minutes from The Woodlands, the green-constructed health haven is a country mile away from stress. Deer Lake Lodge & Spa’s ideology is to rejuvenate the body, mind and spirit through organic spa treatments, juice-fasting programs, raw foods classes, yoga and spiritual enrichment workshops. Through these holistic services and treatments, guests will return home not only feeling cleansed and relaxed, but energized and educated about living enhanced and healthier lives.

Deer Lake Lodge & Spa-2

THE GRAND PRIZE: Experience wellness, pure and simple, with a 3 day/2 night stay at Deer Lake Lodge Spa & Resort.  The package includes a suite for two, plus a range of feel-good activities, from juicing and raw foods class, yoga and life enhancement classes and use of the salt water pool and hot tub and hiking trails.

Guests can also indulge in the resort’s array of refreshing spa treatments.

Sounds pretty dreamy, right? How do you qualify for a chance to win? Simply finish the 30-Day challenge and submit your completed Veggie Log by April 4, and you’ll be entered into the drawing for a host of fantastic prizes.

Learn more about Deer Lake Lodge & Spa on their website, and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.