Roasted Vegetables Recipe

Red onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots ready to roast

Roasted vegetables, in my opinion, should be one of those recipes everyone should know how to cook. On lazy nights, it’s a meal with some fresh bread. For company, add roasted caramelized tempeh and couscous.

Roasting veggies is a great way to clean out your fridge and pantry, too. Roast up whatever vegetables you have, and like. Throw in whole heads of garlic if you’re not planning to use them. It all comes together with some olive oil and a simple spice blend. Serve with whatever grains you have – couscous, brown rice, and quinoa are all good choices.

I should mention how flexible this recipe is. It’s:

• Vegan (vegetarian)
• Low-carb
• Dressy enough for company
• A great side dish for high-protein meats or veggie "meats"

We like to cook as many vegetables as fit in the pan, ramping up the spices and olive oil as necessary. Leftovers are scrumptious the next day.

Spicy Pepper Roasted Vegetables Recipe

Makes 4 generous servings

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Uncooked vegetables with olive oil and spicy pepper medley

Ingredients:

• About ¼ cup olive oil (you can eyeball the olive oil)
• About 4 Tbsp. favourite spice blend (homemade or store-bought – I like Clubhouse’s Spicy Pepper Medley)
• 1-2 tsp. dried rosemary (optional)
• 3 small potatoes, scrubbed
• 1 large sweet potato, scrubbed
• 1 yellow cooking onion, sliced into wedges
• 1 red onion, sliced into wedges
• 3 cloves elephant garlic, thickly sliced OR 1 head garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
• 10 Brussels sprouts, halved OR 1/3 head cabbage, sliced into wedges
• 2 cups cauliflower florets

Roasted vegetables

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.
2. Pour a thin layer of olive oil on the bottom of the pan. Dump in about a third of the cut vegetables. Drizzle generously with olive oil. Sprinkle with about a Tablespoon of spice blend, and rosemary, if using. Stir.
   Repeat until no more vegetables are left. Stir gently, as your pan is likely to be overflowing. Don’t worry – the vegetables cook down and take up less space as they do.
3. Roast in the oven at 450°F for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
4. Serve hot.

Spring Cleaning the Kitchen

I’m not Martha Stewart. I don’t give my house a top-to-bottom clean in the spring…or ever. But my kitchen is a different story. I can’t cook unless I can find my ingredients.

Over the course of the winter we’ve accumulated layers of canned and packaged comfort foods, ready to become healthy and warming winter meals.

We have dried peas and beans out the wazoo. Soup mixes that’ve been there for years. And rice noodles of every shape and size. 

My baking cupboard is getting to the point where I am forced to duck and cover every time the door is opened, or risk getting plunked in the head by a bottle of quick-rising yeast.
(edit: my bad <3 Mike)

Overstuffed baking goods cupboard

In terms of the fridge, well…have you ever seen so many sauces?

So many sauces

Some would call this a well-stocked kitchen. If I had a pantry like Chef Michael Smith, I might agree (and I wouldn’t be writing this post). But the reality is I have a small city kitchen and a fridge in need of a good clean. But first I need to be able to see the shelves.

Canned goods cupboard

So, over the next few weeks I will be trying my best to embrace the coat-tails of winter and cook up some comfort food to get us through to spring. I know it’s technically spring already, but here’s what I woke up to yesterday morning:

Snowy front yard

Snowy deck

 

If you have any comfort food recipes that rely on pantry staples, feel free to send them my way. I have to clean this stuff out before the spring veggies come into season, or there will be no looking back to winter.