French Vegetable Dishes?

Question

I want to make a french themed dinner tonight and I planned out the main course and dessert but I can't seem to find any vegetable dishes, they have to be low-fat and low calorie since my family is trying to eat healthy. Help?

Answer 1

spring peas with pearl onions is a classic French veg side dish.

Answer 2

An easy French vegetable would be asparagus:

Simply steam a cleaned bunch of asparagus for about 5 minutes over boiling water, then serve on a platter with a bit of melted butter or olive oil.  Alternatively, decorate with a small dollop of sour cream and sliced lemons, and sprinkle a few capers or chopped parsley over the dish.

Another easy, healthy and low calorie vegetable is Carrots:

Steam a bag of baby carrots to desired degree of firmness, squirt in a bit of lemon juice and season with chopped garlic, ground nutmeg, ground pepper and chopped chives (or green onion stalks).

A very simple side dish is mache salad with a vinaigrette.  These are like mini salad rosettes, but taste nuttier and have three times the nutrients of regular lettuce. They are also called rampon in French speaking areas, corn salad or lamb salad in Britain, and rapunzel in German (hence the fairy tale).   They are often found in Mesclun salad blends.

A good appetizer would be:

French Onion Soup.  Does not require too many complicated ingredients, onions, butter (although I use extra virgin olive oil instead) but you must have white wine, gruyere cheese and a baguette of bread to be authentic.  

Purists may scoff at this, but if gruyere is not a staple in your supermarket, try substituting fontina, aged gouda, mozzarella or maybe even freshly grated parmesan (not from the shaker). It is important that the cheese melts well.  Also, instead of baguette, use Italian bread, or even good white toast.  If you do not have white wine or cannot use it for alcohol reasons, use the sparkling bottled white grape juice or cider.  The sparkles disappear when cooking and the white grape flavor remains intact, which cannot be said with other substitutes such as chicken broth.  If all else fails. reconstitute a frozen can of Welch's white grape juice and use in place of the quantity listed for the wine.

Here are some good onion soup recipes:

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/recip...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/...

You said you already had dessert, but I couldn't resist with these:  

Strawberries served on peppermint leaves and drizzled with Grand Marnier (orange liqueur)

More caloric, but fantastic is this modernized version of Orange Crepes Suzette.  The crepes are shaped into cups by means of a muffin pan, and served topped with vanilla ice cream, at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/...

Mmm... I want to make this one myself tonight!

Answer 3

I agree with Dana Q. As I'm French, I can say that ratatouille is the best vegetable dish ever. It's very healthy, very tasty for vegetables. i'm not a big fan of vegetables but I love this dish! It also smells so good!

Answer 4

Ratatouille is a Provencal dish that has a tomato base to it rather than a creamy, fattening sauce.