Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Roasted Vegetables with Fresh Herbs



Mmmm. Just look at all of those rustic roasted vegetables. Here is a hearty and healthy meal that involves a lot of veggie chopping, but other than that, not much preparation. You can make as much or as little of this as you want, adding your favorite veggies in various quantities. However you prepare it, your home will be filled with an amazing aroma! We filled two casserole dishes and had some leftovers - yes, two casserole dishes split between the two of us, but hey, we were hungry, don't judge! ;) 

So, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Then, begin chopping your vegetables.  The veggies we used here were:  potatoes (boiled and soft enough when you pierce with a fork), carrots, zucchini, onion, yellow and orange pepper, and whole cloves of garlic.
When you chop up your veggies, try to keep them in larger chunks, especially the onions. You want all of the vegetables to cook at a similar rate, and you don't want any vegetables to get too mushy (and conversely, have some vegetables be too crunchy).

Throw all of the veggies into your casserole dish.  Drizzle generously with olive oil.  Then, you can add your spices. I ground up a whole lot of coriander seed in my mortar and pestle.  Then, I used a whole bunch of fresh rosemary, fresh basil, some Vietnamese cilantro that I had growing in the garden (which isn't much like regular cilantro leaves...I would stay away from adding that, unless you really want to experiment!), and of course, salt and pepper.  I think I used some dried rosemary here as well.

Every fifteen minutes, stir the mixture and add more spices if you'd like.  Each fifteen minutes, I would add a little extra ground coriander, freshly ground pepper and dried rosemary on top.  You will probably have to cook the mixture for about an hour in total before serving.

This is such a delicious recipe for using up all of those fresh summer veggies, but of course, you can enjoy it all year long! This dish would be perfect to make in the Fall or to make for a Vegan Thanksgiving dinner.  Or bring it to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner as a vegetable side dish. I think just about everyone would go crazy for this, Vegetarians and meat-eaters alike!

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