Roasted Summer Vegetables

My husband can never come up with anything to make for dinner. He is constantly of the opinion that there is absolutely nothing edible in the house, even just 2 days after a grocery shop.  A trick I learned from my dad, I can literally make a gourmet meal from practically nothing...

roasted summer vegetables

I know you think it's too damn hot out to use the oven. But one day of sacrifice (or cranking the a/c) will yield delicious results. Roasted vegetables are so easy, versatile and delicious especially when picked fresh from the garden. I usually make a really large dish and use them throughout the week:

• Cold on salad
• In fajitas
• With a side of pasta or brown rice
• Plain either cold or hot
• Dipped in any dressing, yogurt or hummus
• Tossed with feta and orzo

I could go on and on... The point is they are delicious.

I don't have an exact recipe to share, but here is an idea of how I go about making this dish; it usually involves cleaning out the fridge.

From our organic garden I was able to collect:

from the organic garden

• 4 yellow summer squash
• 2 zucchini 
• basil, oregano and sage 

In the refrigerator and pantry I found:

• a sweet potato on its last leg 
• a few wrinkly potatoes with eyes
• 4 large white mushrooms 
• 1 large white onion
• a half of a bunch of wilting local asparagus

The sweet potatoes and white potatoes take longer to cook so I chopped them first, tossed them in olive oil and put them in the oven on 450° to start cooking.

In a large bowl I chopped the rest of my ingredients and mixed them together. I kept everything in large pieces and even left some of the fresh herbs on their stems instead of cutting all of them up. I added salt and pepper and about 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil to the bowl combining everything well. I also chopped and added 3 tablespoons of cold butter to the top of the vegetables


It took approximately 15 minutes to chop and combine the ingredients; at this time I removed the large dish with the potatoes and sweet potatoes from the oven and added the large bowl of chopped veggies and herbs. I mixed the veggies in well with the potatoes and put the dish back into the oven for a total of 20 min. At approximately 5 minute intervals I would turn the veggies over. With 5 minutes remaining I turned the oven up to broil and watched very closely, turning the veggies often making sure they were getting dark, but not burning.

roasted veggies with wheat pasta and fresh salad greens

The smell in the kitchen was amazing. The herbs and the vegetables paired so well. I served mine that evening with some wheat pasta tossed in sage and garlic butter and a hand picked salad with crusty bread and organic ranch dressing..... now I'm going to warm some leftovers cause this post made me hungry all over again.