Vegetables

Question: I am ready to choose seeds to start my garden. Can you give me some examples of resistant varieties for spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, green beans and squash? I can't wait to get my hands in the soil again! Answer: Our online publication "Recommended Vegetable Cultivars for Maryland Home Gardens" will give you plenty of suggestions for those vegetables and more at www.hgic.umd.edu under Publications. Our publications can help you plant outdoors or start vegetable transplants indoors, for example Planting Dates for Vegetable Crops in Maryland.

It's farmers' market time, and all those fruits and vegetables seem so fresh. But they aren't necessarily clean. Like supermarket produce, these local and even organic items need a wash before eating, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , a professional education and advocacy group. The group and the food giant ConAgra are reminding everyone that one in six Americans get sick annually from food-borne pathogens. About 3,000 people die every year from food poisoning.

Each week a nutritionist from the University of Maryland Medical Center provides a guest post to The Baltimore Sun's health blog Picture of Health (baltimoresun.com/pictureofhealth). This week, Christine Dobmeier offers nutrition lifestyle tips. The second leg of the Triple Crown, the 137th running of the Preakness Stakes, takes place this Saturday. With Memorial Day right around the corner, it's also the "home stretch" as you get yourself healthy for the summer season. When running the race to good health, look to the "Triple Crown" of nutrition tips: Include more vegetables and fruits, be mindful of portion sizes and become more active.

Overcooking is what kills asparagus for most people. Memories of gray, limp and pungent spears follow wary eaters like ghosts from a nightmare. But when treated right, asparagus is a versatile and complex vegetable. Its flavor profile can switch from green and grassy to sweet and nutty just depending on how it's cooked. That's why so many chefs love to put this "grande dame of spring" on their menus. Ben Simpkins, the executive chef at Richardson Farms in White Marsh, makes an asparagus "cappuccino," in which a cup half-filled with hot asparagus soup is topped with cold asparagus foam made by shooting the cold soup through a whipped-cream gun. "I love asparagus, and this is my favorite dish," says Simpkins.

It's farmers' market time, and all those fruits and vegetables seem so fresh. But they aren't necessarily clean. Like supermarket produce, these local and even organic items need a wash before eating, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , a professional education and advocacy group. The group and the food giant ConAgra are reminding everyone that one in six Americans get sick annually from food-borne pathogens. About 3,000 people die every year from food poisoning.

Many of my hours are spent thinking and talking about the impact our Little Patuxent Speedway has (or is it Parkway?) on Town Center, Columbia, Maryland. This roadway is where there is a high risk of injury and worse, the site of the deaths of two pedestrians over the past few years. But this piece is not meant to be about speed, but rather about going green. It is still spring for the first three weeks of June, and spring is a time for trees, flowers and, best of all, a time to plant seeds.

Regular turkey sandwiches are one of the best dividends of Thanksgiving, but sometimes something different appeals. The roasty flavors of vegetables sizzled on the grill prove irresistible in this easy-to-prepare main-dish sandwich. Your gas grill makes cooking fast and simple. Brushing the vegetables with a little oil helps provide beautiful grill marks; it's important to grill them for at least three minutes per side -No poking! No peeking! - to get the appealing stripes. The grilled vegetables have so much flavor that only 4 ounces or so of turkey easily serves two. Even the dedicated carnivore won't miss the meat.

Q: Sometimes I see eggplant and tomatoes referred to as fruits. I thought they were vegetables. Can you explain?A: It is confusing to understand what separates a fruit from a vegetable. The fruit is the part of a flowering plant that develops from the ovaryand contains the seeds. This includes sweet fleshy fruits and some vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet peppers and nuts. Vegetables are herbaceous plants cultivated for food. Different parts of the vegetables are eaten.

Hamburger Helper, that Betty Crocker standard of the '70s, fascinated me as a child. What was it? How did it help? When faced with some ground turkey for dinner, and tired of my usual turkey burgers, I decided the turkey would be easier to cook up in a skillet with a little help. To me, that meant whatever vegetables I had on hand: some onions and a couple of zucchini. After I threw in a red bell pepper for color, my dish was nearly done. You can adapt the idea to whatever vegetables you have in the refrigerator.

When you're looking for interesting ways to cook vegetables, think roasting. You'll have tasteful company. Oven-roasted vegetables are turning up on many restaurant menus and in cookbooks that dote on veggies."

Each week a nutritionist from the University of Maryland Medical Center provides a guest post to The Baltimore Sun's health blog Picture of Health (baltimoresun.com/pictureofhealth). This week, Christine Dobmeier offers nutrition lifestyle tips. The second leg of the Triple Crown, the 137th running of the Preakness Stakes, takes place this Saturday. With Memorial Day right around the corner, it's also the "home stretch" as you get yourself healthy for the summer season. When running the race to good health, look to the "Triple Crown" of nutrition tips: Include more vegetables and fruits, be mindful of portion sizes and become more active.

If The Sun wants to encourage better nutrition ("Maryland's evolving harvest," April 19), I would suggest creating a weekly coupon to help with fresh produce and meats. The Sun carries many grocery coupons but seldom for fresh produce or meats. I think coupons - perhaps $5-to-$10 off depending on the size of one's purchase - would help encourage families to buy more vegetables and to eat more healthy. My family spends roughly between $60 and $70 each week on fresh produce.

Where is the man who can stand erect amongst his kind, and boast that he has passed unscathed through the ordeal which has been prepared for our enterprising and commercial countrymen? Such men are few and far between; and could we scrutinize them in their privacy, how soon we should perceive the absurdity of the thought, that they have been unaffected by it. We should see them at one time elated with hope and confidence, and the blood coursing high and tumultuously along the channels of the system, under the natural influence of that state of the mind -- anon.

Can I grow veggies in a fully screened-in garden? I want to eat tomatoes without stink bug spots. Growing vegetables in a screened garden may reduce light, but the biggest problem is the exclusion of pollinators and beneficial insects. Vegetable plants that require insects for cross-pollination, such as cucumber, muskmelon, squash, pumpkin and watermelon, will not produce crops without them. Of course, you could hand-pollinate the flowers if you have the time. An organic method of excluding insect pests in the veggie garden is the floating row cover, which you drape directly on the plants.

Each week a nutritionist from the University of Maryland Medical Center provides a post on nutrition topics for The Baltimore Sun's Picture of Health blog (baltimoresun.com/pictureofhealth). This week, Faith Hicks weighs in on encouraging kids to eat their vegetables. Most of us realize we aren't eating the recommended number of fruits and vegetables per day. Our kids' plates are falling short, too. Less than 25 percent of American kids are regularly eating the recommended number of vegetables.

Each week a nutritionist from the University of Maryland Medical Center provides a guest post to The Baltimore Sun's health blog Picture of Health (baltimoresun.com/pictureofhealth), which is reprinted here. This week, Faith Hicks weighs in on family meals. How is it that some kids will eat whatever is put in front of them, while others live on hot dogs and chicken nuggets and have a phobia for vegetables, especially anything green? Many adults should be eating more fruits and vegetables themselves and would like to raise their kids to have healthful eating habits right from the start.

* Item: Five Brothers Grilled Pasta Sauces* What you get: 6 servings* Cost: About $2.65* Review: I've long thought one of the sweetest tastes of summer was fresh vegetables seared on the grill. But now that my garden has wound to a close, I have nowhere to turn for my regular dose of smoky tomatoes, eggplant, onions and more. Or so I thought until I discovered Five Brothers' newest pasta sauces. I'm not a big fan of jarred spaghetti sauces. But these sauces are so thick you can spread them on bread.

A lot of kids don't like to eat vegetables, even though vegetables are good for them. When it comes to a balanced approach to budgeting, some of Maryland's political leaders are acting like those kids. To promote job growth now, and invest in a prosperous future, Maryland has to make the necessary investments. Our state's highest priorities are to create jobs and build for the future. That means improving schools, fixing roads and bridges, expanding health care and keeping our communities safe.

Now that Picture of Health has a new blog home, we're restarting our healthy recipe feature. We will gather healthy recipes from magazines, cookbooks and websites and share them with you. We'd also like to hear from you with your recipe ideas. You can e-mail them to andrea.walker@baltsun.com or meredith.cohn@baltsun.com . This week's recipes is for Curry Vegetables and comes from Chef Meg Galvin at SparkRecipes.com , a free website associated with SparkPeople.com, a free Internet community that helps you track meals.