I really don’t like wasting food, but I love fresh veggies. Unless you meal plan better than I do, inevitably you’ll have veggies that look a lot less fresh than the day you bought them.
The Brussels sprouts in this picture didn’t look very good, but I was determined to make something of them. As a friend calls it “eating the inventory.”
After a little trimming, they looked great! I added a sweet potato, onion, and some carrots that were getting wilty. Then I mixed them with olive oil, fresh pepper and kosher salt, then into a 400° oven.
Most of the time, I don’t use exact timing, but I’ve become familiar with relative time. For example, potatoes, onions and Brussels sprouts have approximately the same cook time of about 45 minutes. Garlic and green onions don’t take as long. I learned through this cook that fresh cranberries don’t take as long as I thought.
So, after cooking about 30 minutes, I added chunks of garlic and about a teaspoon of sugar to the cranberries. Then, with about 5 minutes left, I added the green onions. For the final couple of minutes, I switched over to broil to add a little crispy to the top of the veggies.
Since we felt like using up our veggies, this was dinner – no meat, no rice … just veggies. Since growing up in Texas, I often feel that a meal isn’t a real meal unless it has meat and/or rice. This meal was satisfying and tasty.
What are you experimenting with?
Epicurious Lutheran 