It's Roasting in Here!

Have you ever roasted vegetables before? If not, you MUST try it! I used to shy away from roasting vegetables because I thought it was too time consuming. Well, let me tell you how silly that thought was! I tried roasting asparagus back in June and it was so good that I made it almost 2 times a week for awhile. And just this past week I tried roasting other vegetables like carrots, onions, potatoes, and celery. I actually roasted vegetables 4 times in the past 6 days! The roasting process caramelizes the natural sugars in the vegetables and brings out their flavors along with making them very tender. The flavor is amazing! Below are my favorite roasted vegetable recipes. You've just got to try them! Yum!

Roasted Asparagus:

1 bunch of asparagus (look for medium thickness and that the bottoms are fresh looking with no big holes)

1 tbsp melted butter or cooking spray (can be regular or butter flavored)

salt & pepper

hand full of pine nuts or sliced/slivered almonds (optional)

Preheat oven to 400. Cut about 1 inch off the bottom of the asparagus and discard. Then peel the bottom half of the remaining asparagus. (I never used to do this and it turned out fine but they get SO tender when you peel a little bit of the skin off the bottom.) Spread the asparagus out on a rimmed baking sheet and coat with the butter or spray. Then sprinkle with salt and pepper. If you are using pine nuts put them on now, but wait 5 minutes into the baking for the almonds. Bake for 10-12 minutes turning once half way through.

Roasted Veggies and Meat:

boneless, skinless chicken breasts (figure 1 per person. I make 2 more than I need to have on hand for another recipe later in the week.)

vegetables like carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, and fennel cut up in uniform chunks (use whatever veggies you like or have on hand)

2-4 cloves of garlic

4 sprigs fresh thyme (you can use dried too)

2-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary (dried works just as well)

salt & pepper

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400. Coat both sides your chicken with salt, pepper, and a little of the thyme and rosemary leaves pulled from the sprigs or a couple dashes of dried. Put a little of the oil in a skillet and brown both sides of the chicken. Once the sides are golden brown transfer to the center of a roasting pan or ridged baking sheet. Add the vegetables and garlic around the sides of the chicken and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Tuck the sprigs of herbs into the the veggies and drizzle a little bit of olive oil on the veggies. Put the pan into the oven for about 35-45 minutes.

(You can also make roast beef instead of chicken. Do the exact same steps of the chicken.)

If you try this let me know what you think!