We are coming to that time of year when Christmas parties, family gatherings, and pot luck’s start to happen on a regular basis as we celebrate the Christmas season. Most of those meals will include a vegetable tray and ranch dip, which I love! Only specific vegetables though. Take that broccoli and dump it into the garbage can!
Next time you’re at a party pay attention to the vegetable tray. Very few will actually pick the broccoli first, in fact, it’s usually tied with celery as the last vegetable chosen and the only ones remaining. Cauliflower is usually one of the first to get eaten because, in my opinion, it’s one of the most universal veggies. You can eat cauliflower any which way and it still tastes excellent. It tastes great raw with ranch dressing, without dressing, cooked/steamed, or even pickled with homemade bread and butter pickles! As you can tell, I LOVE cauliflower and some say it even matches my ears.
Next, usually the cucumbers are picked clean. Who doesn’t like a cucumber? It pairs very well with both cauliflower and with ranch dip, plus it’s very refreshing! Cucumbers, whether peeled or not, are always a hit in everything.
After the cucumbers there is a pretty close race between the small grape tomatoes and the snap peas. Both are great but the deciding factor on which will get consumed first is how soft and mushy the grape tomatoes look. If they are over ripe chances are they’re not nearly as sweet, probably taste funky, and more prone for its juice and seeds to squirt out all over one’s shirt and plate. That’s when the snap peas will probably win the race.
Finally, depending on which vegetable is left, the celery and broccoli will probably end up getting thrown out. There are always those people who claim they love them, but do you ever actually see them eat broccoli? I don’t and I think they’re just being nice by defending broccoli. If I’m arriving late to a party that has a vegetable tray with only broccoli left, then I’ll be making a hard right to the fruit tray for cantaloupe (but that’s another topic for another day). Happy eatin’ this holiday season!