While the price of rice continues to hug the headlines, vegetables have become items of luxury reserved for and served only to the upper class.
No longer does one hear the lament “We were so poor all we had for lunch was rice and vegetables.”

A few days ago, Divisoria wholesalers were offering tomatoes for ₱200 per kilo. Other vegetables were likewise priced well above the reach of ordinary Filipinos. What is the housewife to do?

First, reexamine recipes. It is time to use vegetables imaginatively, paying attention to those whose supply and price were not affected by the recent typhoons.

Bean sprouts (togue) are commercially grown indoors in drums in urban areas close to markets. They are liked by everyone in lumpia (fresh or fried) and okoy, which are served either for merienda or with meals. Bean sprouts are also great stir-fried with oyster sauce, sesame oil, and tofu.

In some areas, green papaya and green jackfruit (langka) become cheaper after a typhoon blows the unripe fruits from the trees. Green papaya is used for tinola, kilawin, and fish or pork cooked in coconut milk (ginataan).
Unripe jackfruit, when used as an extender in pork adobo and humba, is first simmered in water flavored with pork cubes.

In Cavite, thinly sliced banana blossom (puso ng saging) is a main ingredient in pancit. It is also the main ingredient in ginataang puso (cooked in coconut milk), kilawen, and sinigang na isda.

Mere mention of inabraw na saluyot at labong is enough to bring any overseas Ilocano to tears. Bamboo shoot prices and supply are steady through the seasons, unlike many vegetables. The same is true with saluyot.

Alugbati is grown everywhere. It can be used in many dishes—ginisang mongo, tinola, sinigang, bulanglang. Frugal housewives know that alugbati stems produce young leaves only a week after planting.
The camote or sweet potato is very healthy and useful on its own and serves as a fantastic substitute for the more expensive white potato in dishes such as afritada, menudo, kaldereta, etc.

Children of all ages cannot resist camote fries and camote chips, better and cheaper than commercial junk food.

Squash of all sizes and shapes are harvested throughout the Philippines and are cooked mostly in pinakbet. In these days of vegetable scarcity, homemakers have to be more ingenious and use the inexpensive kalabasa as a substitute for potato on menudo and apritada, sliced thinly as chips and julliened into okoy.

This is the time when it is more advisable to use canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Depending on the dish, one might buy whole tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato paste, tomato juice, or stewed tomatoes.

Frozen potatoes come out cheaper than fresh. Frozen french fries, for example, have no more peel, and have been pre-fried, needing only a shorter rime and less oil. To use in other dishes, simply add the re-fried potatoes on the top of the cooked ulam.

A big money saver is frozen mixed vegetables: diced carrots, corn, and green peas perfectly frozen, ready to stir into whatever dish without prior thawing, perfect for omelets, fried rice, soup, paella, and stews.