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    Five Ways to Cook Pumpkin

    Pumpkin preparation2

    Pumpkins can be cooked and served as a hot vegetable. Pumpkin is a term that can be applied to almost hard-skinned squash. In the United States, the name pumpkin commonly means a large rounded orange squash. Favorite pumpkin recipes How to Make Pumpkin Ice Cream How to Make Creamy Pumpkin Soup Pumpkin with Coconut Curry […] More

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    Nine Ways to Cook and Serve Tomatoes

    Tomato bruschetta

    Ways to cook tomatoes, try: fry, sauté, roast, broil-grill, stew, and steam, also make tomato gratin, stuffed tomatoes, and tomato soup. The tomato is a fruit used as a vegetable in savory dishes for its juicy texture and mildly sweet, rich taste.  Tomatoes are at their absolute best vine-ripened towards the end of summer. The […] More

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    Tasty Ways to Cook and Serve Tomatillos

    Tomatillos in bowl

    Tomatillo flavor is delicate but slightly tart in a green tomato sort of way, although it can sometimes border on sweet. Some say the flavor of the tomatillo is a combination of apple, lemon, and herbs. Tomatillo can be sliced raw into a salad or diced into salsa. Most often tomatillo is slowly simmered until […] More

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    Eight Ways to Cook and Serve Eggplant

    Eggplant grilled with vegetables

    Eggplant can be broiled, grilled, sautéed, steamed, pan-fried, or stuffed and baked. You can make ratatouille or eggplant parmesan. The mild flavor and light, spongy texture of the eggplant make it a good match for other vegetables, browned and chopped meat, cooked fish, or shellfish. Favorite eggplant recipe Eggplant Ratatouille The subtle flavor and meaty […] More

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    Nine Cucumber Serving and Cooking Tips

    Cucumber tomato salad

    There are many ways to eat cucumbers raw or cooked. Favorite cucumber recipes How to Make Cold, Tasty Cucumber Soup Sliced Cucumber Flavor Matches How to Make Dill Pickles for Beginners Canning Sweet Pickle Relish Why do cucumbers and warm weather mix so well? Cucumbers are more than 90 percent water. Their crunchy texture, sweet […] More

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    How to Cook and Serve Bitter Melon

    Bitter melon

    Bitter melon can be eaten raw when thinly sliced raw but it’s commonly cooked. Bitter melon can be stir-fried, parboiled, or stuffed. The bitter melon picked at maturity will be bitter. The younger, thinner, shorter, and bright green bitter melon will be less bitter tasting. The bitter melon harvest season runs from mid-spring through late […] More

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    Five Ways to Cook and Serve Chili Peppers

    Pepper stuffed

    Chilies or hot peppers can be eaten raw or they can be roasted, grilled, pan-seared, toasted, or stuffed. Chilies can also be added to other cooked dishes; they contain natural chemicals that enhance the flavor of other foods during cooking. Often small, hot chilies—such as the jalapeño, Serrano, poblano, Anaheim, and banana–are used fresh. But […] More

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    Eight Ways to Cook and Serve Summer Squash

    Stuffed zucchini baked

    Summer or tender squash can be sautéed, steamed, boiled, baked,  grilled, microwaved, or eaten raw. Use raw tender squash as an addition to crudités trays and salads The tender summer squashes–zucchini, Costata Romanesca, round and globe, scallop or pattypan, yellow crookneck, and yellow straightneck, and Zephyr–mature during the summer and can be claimed as baby […] More

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    Seven Ways to Cook and Serve Okra

    Okra with tomatoes and garlic

    Okra is easily cooked and served. Okra has a rich, sweet earthy flavor. The flavor is similar to eggplant with hints of asparagus and artichoke.  The peak okra harvest season is mid to late summer.  How to choose okra Kitchen Helpers from Amazon: How to store okra How to prep okra for cooking How to […] More

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    How to Grow Bitter Melon

    Bitter melon

    Bitter melon is a favorite in Asian and Southeast Asian cooking. It can be stuffed with pork or shrimp and steamed or pickled or curried and served with meat or in soup. Bitter melons are—as their name suggests–a bitter and mouth-puckering acquired taste—something like the acquired taste of a grapefruit or very dark chocolate. The […] More

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    Five Ways to Cook and Serve Sweet Peppers

    Roasted bell peppers

    Eat sweet peppers raw in salads, or eat them steamed, stir-fried, roasted, grilled or roasted, or stuffed. Use them in casseroles or rice dishes. Sweet peppers are in season from late spring through late summer. Types of sweet peppers Sweet peppers are warm-season annuals in temperate regions and perennials in tropical climates. Sweet peppers are […] More

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    How to Plant and Grow Hot Peppers

    Hot peppers are distinguished from sweet peppers simply by their pungency or hotness of flavor. There are thousands of hot pepper varieties in the world. (This is the case because peppers easily cross-pollinate to produce new kinds.) The hotness of a pepper is determined by a number of blister-like sacs of capsaicinoids on the interior […] More