This recipe is easy, healthy and visually appealing. It can also be adjusted to fit your personal tastes or dietary needs. The vegetables are blanched in this recipe, so they are slightly cooked but still crisp, brightly colored and full of nutrients.

Blanching green vegetables brings out a nice, bright green color that makes them even more visually appealing. If you don’t care for raw vegetables, you may like them better blanched, as blanching reduces the strong flavor of raw vegetables. To me it seems to enhance the flavor without overcooking the vegetables, which can decrease the nutrient content.

Other vegetables that work well blanched are asparagus, cauliflower, green beans or carrots. Feel free to add or substitute any of these vegetables in this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 crowns of broccoli
• 1 small red pepper
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salted water

Instructions:

Wash the broccoli crowns, remove the stems and separate florets, cutting larger florets into about 1 1/2 pieces. Try to keep the size of the pieces somewhat similar so they cook evenly.

Wash the red pepper, remove the seeds, slice into stips then cut strips into 1-inch matchstick pieces.

Bring salted water to a boil in a large pan. Add broccoli florets and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add red pepper and cook for another 30 to 60 seconds.

Drain water and add vegetables to a bowl of ice water, or run them under cold water briefly and drain again. This stops the cooking process.

Add broccoli, red pepper and minced garlic to a bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the mixture and mix well.

*Note:*

You can easily adjust this recipe to fit your preferences by adjusting the cooking time, the ratio or type of veggies used, the amount of garlic or the amount of olive oil used.

If raw garlic is too strong you can use roasted garlic, or a dash of garlic powder instead.