My kids and I went away for a few days last week and when we returned, I found some vegetables I needed to use up, some more quickly than others, such as a head of Romanesco broccoli (bottom right in the pic below) and a wrinkled orange bell pepper (pictured in the middle). I decided to roast them—a quick, simple and delicious way to avoid food waste.
I cut all of the above into bite-size pieces, smashed some garlic and then tossed the chunks with a bit of salt and enough olive oil to lightly coat everything. (Fennel bulbs also taste fantastic roasted, but I didn’t have any on hand.)
I had lots of squash and so reserved some for creamy squash soup. Having the vegetables pre-prepped like this for soup makes my life so much easier. You can find my basic vegetable soup recipe here. Making soup is one of the best ways to avoid food waste. You can toss in vegetables past their prime, leftovers like rice, or pasta, bits of herbs that you’ll never use up because people rarely actually need a grocery-size bunch of parsley, sauerkraut juice, cheese rinds…but I shouldn’t steal roasted vegetables’ thunder…
Although not quite an Easy-Bake Oven, my tiny oven does run cool. I roasted my vegetables for about 45 minutes at 400ºF until tender. Your dish may take less time. About 10 minutes before removing the vegetables from the oven, I tossed in some fresh rosemary.
That’s it! Even most picky eaters will gobble up roasted vegetables (I speak from experience).
I didn’t get a picture of it, but I also roasted the seeds from the squash. I tossed them in a bit of olive oil and salt also, and roasted them for about 15 minutes. They were delicious!