Roasted Vegetable Medley

Sorry about the blogger hiatus. The gourmet among us got a full time job, and my problem is I just spend way too much time making mac & cheese and spaghetti and other such boring kid-friendly foods. But, we recently had company and I had the chance to try out an amazing recipe that was shared by a friend of mine (Yvonne, you have changed the way I look at vegetables!).


There are two amazing things about this recipe. First, the fact that this post is being done by the sister who used to hide carrots in her napkin at dinner time and not the sister who was nicknamed "vegetable vacuum." The second amazing thing is the way the flavor of the vegetables changes so drastically when you roast them compared to just zapping them in the microwave or boiling them in water on the stovetop.

I used this recipe to as a starting point but substituted the vegetables I felt like using that day. I just cut them up, drizzled them with olive oil, and baked them in a 425 degree oven for about an hour (for firmer veggies) or 40 minutes (for softer veggies).

These pictures are not the greatest but I am not married to a photography enthusiast like my two blogging partners so you'll have to use a little imagination. I roasted some red potatoes and some sweet potatoes:

And some carrots, parsnips, and zucchini:

The zucchini ended up getting too soft so I think next time I'll try to find a firmer squash.

After the vegetables were thoroughly roasted and a deep golden brown, I tossed them with salt, pepper, some minced garlic and some chopped basil. So simple yet so amazingly delicious - you must try it!

Fun things to grill this summer: Corn on the cob

If you live anywhere that is not the Pacific Northwest, chances are you have grimaced almost daily this summer at the thought of turning on your oven to make dinner. Well, unlike the rest of the country, it's been cold and rainy most of the summer here in Oregon. But we still wouldn't want to miss out the most fun part of summer cooking--firing up the grill.

As you can see from some of my previous posts, we've enjoyed preparing our entire dinner on the grill. Corn on the cob is another great option for the grill, but today we were looking for something a little less messy. I love the flavor of roast corn--sweet and slightly charred--so I decided to grill the corn on the cob, then cut the kernels off with a knife. For a little a color, I added my 'fiesta mix.'

How I got my husband to eat squash.

I think I've mentioned that my husband will eat anything. Well, almost anything... Squash is, unfortunately, one of the exceptions.

A couple of months ago, we celebrated our town's "Restaurant Week" by dining at one of our favorite restaurants. The soup of the evening was a roasted butternut squash soup with spiced mascarpone, cocoa nib, and a chocolate drizzle. It was exquisite. (If I ever did find a recipe close to it, I'm sure that the ingredients would probably cost more than just ordering it at the restaurant.) My husband wouldn't even try a bite.

I love a good roasted squash, especially on a cold winter day. Unfortunately, I think my husband's main experience with the dish had been in this form:

Yeah, I probably wouldn't eat that either.

(For those of you who like spaghetti squash, I have no doubt that there is a way to make this vegetable taste good. However, I'm pretty sure there is no way to improve the texture.) For those of you like me, here is a better way:

Krispy Kale

Today's post comes from my friend and faithful blog reader, Natalie Glaser. As much as I enjoy vegetables, I must admit I was a bit skeptical about this recipe. I was even more skeptical after the first time I made it, and it turned out a slimy, chewy glob of green leaves. Even my husband wouldn't eat it.

But Natalie had raved about this recipe so much, I thought I should probably give it another try. Plus, I still had half a bunch of kale in my fridge! Not one to waste food, I looked around online for a better method of making this dish.

Natalie's method called for sautéing the kale in a very hot skillet (or "flash frying" it, as she calls it--which is a pretty cool name, I think!). I deduced that I did two things wrong the first time I made it: I used too much oil, and I didn't cook it long enough. The first problem I solved by tossing the oil with the kale first--this way I could use whatever amount of oil I wanted, but since it was evenly distributed, the kale would cook evenly. Secondly, I tried using the oven instead of a skillet, which again, caused the kale to cook more evenly.

The oven method worked much better for me. After 10 minutes at 400 degrees, the the kale was bright green, with lightly browned edges. The kale shattered when you bit into it--a vast improvement from the "stewed" version I came up with last time. When you cook kale this way, it has none of the bitter taste you usually associate with kale, and easily takes on the flavor of whatever aromatics you flavor it with (salt, garlic, lemon juice, etc.). And there you have it: a tasty side dish for about 15 cents per serving!

Oven-Roasted Vegetables

Weird fact about me: I love vegetables. Not just like, enjoy frequently, or appreciate--I LOVE vegetables. When I was six years old, I told my parents that my favorite food was carrots. (Lest you think I was just being a precocious child--they believed me, too ;)). When my sisters and I were learning to cook dinner for our family, they sometimes made a meal without a vegetable. Never me though--I usually picked the vegetable first, and planned the rest of the meal around it. Still today, I am probably the only member of my family who will stick to her grocery list in every part of the store, except the produce section.

Last week at the grocery was one of those weeks. I started out my grocery shopping excursion in the produce department (always a bad idea!), and came home with enough veggies for about three weeks. So this week I have been exploring new vegetable side dish recipes.

My original recipe called for "haricot verts," asparagus,

and fingerling potatoes--none of which I had, of course. I liked the concept, though, so I decided to try green beans, red potatoes, and fennel:

As you can see from the seven ingredients above, this was a very simple dish. But its flavor and elegant presentation makes it a great option for fancy and every-day dinners alike.