Do you love roasted vegetables? Do you miss them in the Summer, or is a pile of root veggies slathered in oil just too heavy a dish for a warm, sunny evening? Well, i’ve got just the thing! SUMMER roasted vegetables!
This recipe is completely flexible and versatile – great for a side dish or main course, wonderful for a potluck and can be vegetarian friendly. Ready for some delicious? Go hit the garden or farmer’s market and meet me in the kitchen with an arm load of your favorite veggies.
Welcome back! Here are the tools you will need, along with those veggies you just picked up:
- 1 cookie sheet
- 1 large bowl
- a big spoon
- olive oil
- your favorite herbs or seasoning blend
- a pot for boiling water
- a pan for browning meat should you choose to add it
- quinoa, bulgur wheat or orzo
- parmesan cheese
- optional chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, etc)
Chop up your vegetables while your oven preheats to 425 degrees. Don’t chop them too small, but try to keep all the pieces similar in size. I chose an onion, cabbage, some serranos, tomatoes and squash plus a bunch of kale. For this version i added the stemy bits of the kale at the beginning and added the leafier bits halfway through cooking. For extra protein and delicious, consider throwing in some pecans or walnuts halfway through cooking as well! Toss the chopped veg with a liberal amount of olive oil and your favorite seasoning and spread out in an even layer on your cookie sheet.
Bake in 10 minute intervals, stirring in between. I baked for a total of 4 intervals (40 minutes) The tomatoes helped ‘sauce’ things up a bit and the kale leaves turned almost to ‘chips’ which was a really fun texture element. While your veg is roasting, brown some meat (or not) and heat up some water. Cook about a half cup of quinoa, orzo or bulghur wheat, drain and toss with some parmesan cheese and salt. The cheese helps the whole dish to stick together a bit. Toss everything all together and get ready for some mouth-gasms.
Bonus: This dish is awesome cold the next day as well! So, this really is an all around perfect dish for a potluck: good hot or cold, fresh or leftover and is also great for dinner with lunch leftovers for your work week.
Have you tried roasting summer veggies?
Roasting veggies has been my go-to method for a long time. Glad it’s finally becoming hip, lol.
The rich sweetness with just a bit of good oil, salt & pepper is all you need to make the veggies special and could it be any simpler? I haven’t tried adding greens though – I’ll have to give that a go soon.