January 2, 2024

In the past couple of years, I’ve been learning how to incorporate more vegetables into our Bean household by simply roasting them in the oven. My sources of inspiration include aunts and uncles as well as your standard internet search.

 As part of my “CEO of the Home” status, I’d like to share a simple combination of ingredients that I’ve curated which you can calibrate to your desired outcome to help diversify your veggies palate in a short amount of time for dinners at home.

The following recipe can be applied to cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes (including sweet), summer squash and zucchini. That’s not to say you can’t try it with other vegetables but I can only account for testing the aforementioned ones.

I like to use a large cookie sheet pan and line it with foil for the roasting and subsequent clean up. The amount of vegetables can vary and you can adjust the additions as necessary or desired to taste.

Ramona’s Roasted Veggie Blend

• Fresh vegetables cut up in about 1-inch pieces (adjust as desired)
• Olive Oil (you may prefer to use other oils or butter, just consider heat tolerance)
• Salt and pepper
• *optional- dried herbs such as rosemary, oregano, thyme etc based on taste

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees- as you wait, distribute the vegetables into a single layer on your baking sheet and toss with olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper as desired. Do the same if you are adding any herbs.

Once oven temperature is ready, put them in and start timer for 15 – 20 minutes. Some vegetables will roast faster than others. I usually check around 15 minutes and use a large spatula to flip the vegetable pieces over to help cook each side as much as possible. The overall cook time will vary and you’ll learn how much longer you need to cook the respective vegetables as you go.

With cauliflower, I’ve found it will start to smell pretty strong until it begins to caramelize with golden and dark marks on the fringes. Broccoli will be roasted pretty well when it’s getting black singes.

With potatoes, I usually do a taste test to make sure their ready- they’ll have that characteristical roast potato look, crispy skin on the outside and savory tender insides. I’ve even mixed both regular and sweet potato pieces in the same sheet and found it to work well and have a sweet and savory magnetism for the taste buds.

Tonight I fed the family a mix of cut up zucchini and yellow squash and tossed them with the olive oil, greek seasoning mix including some dried oregano and parsley. For extra garnish, I offered shaved parmesan cheese at the table with it.

Enjoy!

R.V.S.B.