Vegetables

I am beginning to enjoy vegetables.
One of the three things I am charting daily as an activity from the Mindless Reading book in an attempt to make a habit is whether or not I have eaten 5 fruits/vegetables a day.
It is a little more challenging than you might think.
If you eat cereal for breakfast, burger and fries for lunch and then pasta for dinner you maybe have 1 serving of fruits and vegetables in that whole meal.
Notice the amount of vegetables on a plate of food from a restaurant. If it is not a form of potato or an iceburg lettuce salad with one slice of tomato and cucumber there may be no other vegetables.
I have been making weekly journeys to a store here called The Milk Pail, which has very reasonably priced fruits and vegetables, so I don't feel bad buying them. Whenever I step into Whole Foods, I can't convince myself to purchase much because it is so expensive.
A few experiments have been:
Grilling vegetables on our grill pan and having them with a homemade yogurt sauce. I put some greek yogurt with some dried sage, basil, parsley, celery salt, grated garlic and either parmesan cheese or small chunks of whatever cheddar or gouda I have in the fridge. It makes a nice flavorful sauce that has very little fat. (Have you seen how much fat is in Ranch dressing, or how many hard to pronounce things are in Fat Free Ranch dressing?)
I grill red peppers, zucchini, mushroom caps, yellow squash and eggplant, whatever I have on hand. The zucchini and red peppers are the best.
Stir Frying vegetables either green beans or broccoli or green leafy stuff. With a little olive oil and salt and pepper.
Spaghetti Sauce, I always start with a jar of sauce to make sure there are the seasonings I am used to (my favorite right now is the Arribiata sauce from Trader Joes, it is a little spicy) but before putting the jar in, I chop really small, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, onions and stir fry them with a tiny bit of olive oil and italian seasoning. I use not too many noodles or whole wheat noodles.
Apples If I am bored of eating plain apples, I peel and chop an apple and put it in a bowl with a teaspoon of sugar and some cinnamon and nutmeg and then microwave it for a minute or two, it makes a quick tasty inside of an apple pie flavor.
Nectarines are really good cut up in a bowl of steel cut oatmeal. I use the 8 minute kind from Trader Joes, it has a nice nutty flavor and texture. They make it 8 minutes by grinding or chopping up the oats very small, which increases their surface area and makes them cook much faster, it is more the look of a cream of wheat cereal, but the taste of oatmeal.
Oven Baking Vegetables, sometimes I chop up lots of vegetables and then bake them in the oven mixing them first with a homemade dijon mustard vinegrette and salt and pepper. They are good cold with or without a little cooked pasta to make it seem like a pasta salad.
Salad is always good too of course!