Roasted Veggies

It's not quite officially fall but the fall veggies are coming out so we made our first batch of roasted veggies tonight for dinner. The temperature is supposed to drop below freezing at the airport so the gardens will soon be cleaned out. It did snow in Calgary yesterday... That is a little depressing as it is only September 9th.







The beauty of roasted veggies is that almost any veggie can be used. Our mix today had baby potato, patipan squash, zucchini, carrot, celery, baby eggplant, garlic, and broccoli. Normally we would have added cubes of onion but we suddenly realized that we had none! We also often add cubes of tofu.

I roasted an acorn squash and beets at the same time to eat with the roasted veggie mix. Corey doesn't like beets so I keep them separate and the acorn squash tends to get too mushy.







Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Get the root vegetables you want. No need to peel unless you are adding beets directly to the mix in which case I would peel those. Cut them into cubes about 1 inch square.

Mix all the veggies together in a large bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the veggies and several pinches of salt, cracks of black pepper, and shakes of italian herb mix. You could use any spices you like.

Mix, mix, mix then spread the veggies out over one or two cookie sheets. You don't want the veggies crammed together or else they won't cook properly. Put them in the oven and wait. After 15 minutes, stir the veggies, switch the trays if you have two on separate levels, then leave them to bake some more.

Total cooking time is about an hour depending on the type of veggies and the thickness of your trays. Darker cookie trays take less time to cook.

As for the squash, I cut it in half lengthwise, then half widthwise, then into two pieces each to end up with eight pieces. Cut out the seeds, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place skin side down on the tray. Leave in the oven with the veggies, about an hour or so, depending on the size of the squash.

My beets I just top and tail, rinse, and put directly on the bbq. Once they are black all around and I can stick a fork in them, I take them off the bbq, let them cool and peel them. You can do the same in the oven but they won't turn black. You'll have to test them for when they are soft enough to peel. I've heard that when they are soft you can take them out and put them into a paper bag to sweat for a few minutes and the peel comes off very easily. I've never tried.




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Kale Chips

Welcome back to me! It's been a year since I've blogged here because being vegan in Uganda was a bit harder than in Canada. Not impossible though as there is a plethora of fruits and veggies but still not as vegan friendly as home.







It is garden time here and Mum has beautiful big kale plants lining one side of the plot. We are making kale chips to use it up (as well as freezing it for smoothies) and enjoying the crispy healthy snack. So far we have only used salt and pepper as flavours but I am sure we will soon move onto chili and other spices. Maybe cumin?

Easy peasy lemon squeezie...

Kale Chips

1 bunch kale (about 12 leaves)
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper

2 cookie sheets

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Tear the kale leaves off the ribs into fair sized pieces. The size they break to is what I leave them at because they shrink a lot as they dry.

Wash the leaves well and dry in a salad spinner or with a cloth. Don't use paper towel. It's a waste. Just a tea towel works and then the towel dries on its own. I put half the leaves in the spinner at once so split the leaves into two bunches.

Put 1 tbsp olive oil into a bowl and toss in half the leaves. Swirl them around with your hands. It may not seem like enough olive oil but it will spread and get into all the nooks and crannies of the kale.

Spread the kale onto a cookie sheet. It's ok if the kale covers the cookie sheet because it will shrink but you don't want a double layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (or other spices.)

Do the other half of the leaves with the other 1 tbsp oil and spread them onto a second cookie sheet.

Bake for 45 minutes, shaking the pans and switching the level of the pans after each 15 minutes (so the pan on the bottom goes to the top rack and the other goes to the bottom rack.)

If the leaves are mostly crispy, turn off the oven and leave the pans in there as the oven cools. Be careful though that they don't burn. Burnt kale stinks and doesn't taste very nice!

Let cool and store in an airtight container.





This kale covered the pan before being dried.


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