Roasted Vegetables transformed from leftovers

Transform your leftovers from the veggie drawer into beautiful Roasted Vegetables

Where do they come from and what can we do to make them seem like a different meal?  Here are some Ideas that I have come up with and use on a regular basis.  I hope that you fine at least one idea that you can try and have success with.

I have been trying to eat more healthy.  So I have been buying more vegetables in the hopes of eating more veggies.  What I have found is that often at the end of the week, there are still vegetables in my fridge, That won’t make it to next week.  What do I do, throw them out to the chickens, or cook them.

I do both.  The green bowl is full of tomatoes seeds and insides, peels from onions and any other scrapes that are not for my consumption.  The yellow bowl can be full of any vegetables that you did not get to last week. This bowl has approx. (15) Tomatoes, the big ones, I seed, the Roma’s, I just put in whole.  There are some (4 to 5) Carrots cut into chunks, (1 large)onions, A bulb of garlic all broken apart and peeled.  If I am doing root vegetables and garlic, I leave the garlic in the skins while they are roasting so they don’t burn so easy. Then squeeze them out after they have cooked. Red and Yellow Bell peppers cleaned and quartered.

After my bowl is as full as I want it, I pour olive oil, about 2 Tablespoons, salt and pepper.  Any other herbs you may like. You can wait to season until they are spread out in the pan if you like. If you are going for a milder sauce for like pasta, I might add some thyme, or oregano.  When I want something with spice I add (4) jalapenos to the bowl for roasting along with the other veggies.

Other items that would be good in this grouping: zucchini squash, yellow squash, eggplant…any of your favorite softer veggies would all go good together.  I put the carrot in for sweetness and to add body to the sauce when I puree it.

You put the coated vegetables in a pan and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour.  You want the skin to blister, and brown and the whole house to smell. I usually go about 15 to 20 minutes longer than when I first think it might be done.

Take them out of the oven and let them set until they cool some.  Now this is the tricky part.  If you are really hungry, these may not make it to the blender.  If you have people coming through your home and they have a chance to reach out and grab some, they probably will.  I had to get out a bowl and not only let my niece have a bowl, but she made it look so good, I had some too.  I  went from 2 pans of roasted vegetables to blend, down to one.

Now if you realize that this happens, you can plan for it.  Cook up a pan of rice while the vegetables are cooking then when they come out of the oven.

Mix some of your rice in with the roasted veggies and you have a ready meal. Serve this with grilled chicken, fish, or steak… Yummy! Then you can blend the rest and make something else with the sauce.

 

After I have blended the vegetables together, I pour it into a large kettle or pot and simmer for a while to help blend all the flavors together.  If you want to add any other seasonings, this is a good time to do it.  Sometimes, if there is not much tomatoes in the vegetables that I roasted, I might add some tomatoes paste to give it more of a tomatoes base.  If you want to add meat, now would be a good time to do it. I like to divide mine into smaller servings because there are only the 2 of us.  So before I add meats I figure out how much I will need for the meat meal.  Then after I separate it, I add the meat.  Above, you will see that I added some of the sauce over pasta for the children in my childcare and we had a yellow themed lunch.  Color coded lunches are always a fun way to learn and grow.

Another grouping l like to roast is all root vegetables.  Cube them all to the same size so they have the same cooking time.  White potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, rutabagas, any hard root veggie goes well together. Coat and season same as above, then cook about half way through, you want to stir these, which you don’t do with the softer vegetables.  You will want these to get a little caramelized.  Let them cool just a bit, then eat.  These too are great with the Red sauce I made earlier over it.  I know, I had some.

Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onion, garlic, asparagus, kale, any greens. Brusell sprouts, cabbage, Carrots, or sweet potatoes.  When cooking these greens, you may only need to cook the 15 to 25 minutes.  I would stir them around about halfway through the process.  Really if your family loves it, or maybe they don’t yet, They are sure to love Roasted Vegetables Best.

 

Any sauce that I have left, I will put into quart size freezer bags and freeze flat in a pan.  Then once it is hard, you can stack it easily in the freezer for long term storage.  Or easy meals next week.  This is my favorite way to use up all my vegetable drawer leftovers.

Keep this in mind when harvest season comes around and people are wanting to give you fresh vegetables and you don’t know what you would do with so many.

If you try this and have any questions or comments, let me know in the comments.  I will answer any questions I can.  Granny

Here’s another great recipe from our site, Chicken & Dumplings!