Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

What are your top three tips on how to make frozen veggies taste good?

— Radek Látal

Answer:

So a couple of things to take in mind about frozen vegetables. Uh, one thing to consider is, um, you have to look at the brand o often time, uh, a generic or store brand, rather than saying florets, it will say cuts and you'll end up getting just the broccoli, um, stem, you know, diced into a beautiful dice that doesn't have quite the flavor as the florets do. Um, I'm happen, I happen to be very fond of this brand called Stahl Bush. Um, while they want you to believe that this is a brown paper bag, it is lined with plastic just like the other, you know, popular brands, generic brands that also come in, um, plastic bags. I would also advise you to look at the country of origin of the vegetables. For example, if you were eating 365 Brussels sprouts, I love brussel sprouts. Uh, they're actually from Belgium. Uh, there are other brands of vegetables that are coming from China. So, uh, I like this company because things are locally produced in Oregon. Uh, they're, they, they know the, the growers of it, the price point of it is a little bit more expensive, uh, but quick and easy, this works really well. Remember that if you go back to your, uh, boiling, uh, broccoli, and if you do a either a blanche or a par boil, you can flash freeze them and then put them into bags and have your own ready made frozen vegetables, which I used to do a long time ago. But, you know, uh, Clarence Bird's eye and stall bush, another company's had, have made it very easy. So my top three are these no big surprise, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. Um, I have these, uh, diced sweet potatoes on hand in case I wanna make a quick soup because if you have some stock that you have made, like this one here that you're seeing from some vegetable scraps that I had a few weeks ago, uh, if you have some stock and you've got a mi uh, a mik of your aromatic vegetables, you can make a quick soup in no time, but maybe you don't have the time to dice a sweet potato and wait for it to cook. I also like to, whenever I'm working with frozen vegetables to make them more nutrient dense, I like to add, um, either shredded mushrooms, which you just use, uh, a square, a box, a box greater, and you grate them away and they come out looking like little pieces of Parmesan cheese, if I can say that word. So, um, my three favorite vegetables, I love to make them into a soup. I enjoy just eating them plain steamed. Um, I enjoy nutritional yeast, um, but not too much nutritional yeast because it is really packed with vitamin b12. Um, but I think soups, I think salads, you know, um, if I ran over to my refrigerator right now, you would find a bag of, um, defrosted, uh, bird's eye corn, because I always keep a bag of frozen vegetables in the refrigerator in case they wanna make something quick. So I have an idea that tonight I'm going to make a Texas caviar and I don't have to worry about waiting for anything to thaw. So there's just another, uh, quick tip and, uh, Roddick, I hope that those are helpful to you.
Char Nolan

Char Nolan

Chef Instructor

@char_nolan