I think most of my readers saw this coming. A week ago, I counted down my favorite fruits. As I was wrapping up the post, I mentioned that a similar one covering my favorite vegetables might be a possibility.

Yes, I am revealing my top 5 favorite vegetables tonight. But before I dive in, let me start with this disclaimer: This list contains the vegetables I would willingly enjoy eating raw or mildly prepared. Because come on, I will gladly eat broccoli and cauliflower when it is covered in butter and topped with seasonings but am I really going to eat a head of either one straight from the produce section of the supermarket? No. With that in mind, let’s get started.

5. Celery – How can you go wrong with celery? It is an easy to eat, simple vegetable. We buy celery sticks and bust them out at dinner. The sticks are great for munching and they are refreshing too. Although fine to eat raw, I am still a sucker for “ants on a log.” Sid, who really loves celery, prefers ranch to my peanut butter.

4. Green Beans – My favorite vegetable green is the green bean. Green beans make the perfect side for any meal and also compliment other vegetables that might be served. Fresh or from a can, I will never pass on green beans if they are offered at a meal.

3. Corn – When I was in kindergarten, we made vegetable soup. We were all assigned a vegetable to bring and my responsibility was corn. Perhaps that was the start of my preference for yellow kernels. On the cob, from a can, or in a chowder, I really like corn. With green beans I will be content with a serving but with corn I will go back for more. I don’t know what I like more – the taste or the texture. Serve my corn next to some mashed potatoes and you will win me over.

2. Carrots – I like carrots so much that I made them a staple in a diet that helped me lose 30 pounds. We buy bags of baby carrots every week at the grocery store and often go through it before the week is even over. I have snacked on raw carrots for most of my life and don’t see that stopping anytime soon. When I was a youngster, I would feed full-sized carrots to the horses of my friends but I would always be tempted to eat them myself. I would eat cooked carrots with a glaze of brown sugar for dessert but my first love is eating them raw right out of the refrigerator.

Carrots and corn — two of the greatest!

1. Potatoes – It almost isn’t fair, right? How can any vegetable compare to the potato? Well, it is tough to not like something that is so delicious that it is served as one of the marquee items at countless fast food restaurants. The potato is versatile, readily available, and yummy. French fries, hash browns, tater tots, chips, the list goes on and on. But take away the salt and deep fryer and you still have a quality food right at its core. Bake me a potato and I will eat the entire thing – skin and all – no butter or sour cream needed. Potatoes pack a hearty, agreeable taste that don’t overpower taste buds. They are filling and satisfying – perhaps the only vegetable that doubles as a comfort food. No hesitation on my part, I like potatoes more than any other vegetable.

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Dang, I want to relive my kindergarten days and make another big pot of vegetable soup – served with extra potatoes and extra corn. By no means am I a huge vegetable eater but I do, as evidenced by this blog post, have my favorites. Don’t Blink.