The Week That Was

 

What a week! It's the kind where you struggle to get vegetables and other healthy foods into your diet. The kind where you struggle to get anything cooked at home. You have those, too, I'll bet. That's when you need a good, easy, dependable recipe at your finger tips.

Our week included, among many other things, a hospital morning and a surgery that has left Daddy-O home resting and on the mend. 

And our ukulele band was booked months ago to play at an outdoor event for our local cowboy church. No one involved had a clue it would be freezing and rainy when we agreed to do this on the first Saturday in May. But the show must go on. It was fun—even if the wind was blowing the music all around!

So I'll claim a successful week in the kitchen just because I managed to cook anything at all. Last night's dinner was best. I pulled a Balsamic Strawberry Pork Tenderloin from the freezer and made roasted vegetables—one of our favorite recipes. (The tenderloin was as good as the first time.)

I'll give you the actual recipe, but understand that you can use most any combination of vegetables you have on hand. I love adding broccoli to the mix. It gets crispy and brown and has a very different flavor than steamed broccoli. I had no peppers last night, but red onion gave the mix some color. This time I used zucchini, broccoli, asparagus and red onion. 

OVEN ROASTED VEGETABLES

1 medium zucchini, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 medium yellow squash, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 red bell pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 yellow or green bell pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 red onion, cut into wedges

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place the vegetables in a large bowl. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle salt and pepper over. Stir gently to coat vegetables with oil. Spread vegetables in a single layer in a large cookie sheet with sides. Roast for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are lightly browned and tender. (I usually stir once halfway through, making sure to flip zucchini and squash slices over.)

Serves 4

A couple of tips...the vegetables shrink when they are cooked. A very full pan will be the right amount when it's done. I sometimes line the pan with foil for easy clean up. But DON'T USE NON-STICK FOIL!!!  Learned the hard way that vegetables roasted on non-stick foil will never brown; they just steam. Just not a good result. And I've found that if use less vegetables (which I do sometimes for the two of us), it will cook a little quicker. Guess it's because the pan isn't as crowded. So keep an eye on them.

Do I ever actually measure any of this? Not anymore. You just want enough oil to coat the vegetables and not have them swimming in it. Sometimes I use less oil and spray the pan with PAM. But I DO pull this recipe out nearly every time to check the cooking temperature and time.