roasted veggies – 3 ways

Today, we’re going to roast some vegetables and then use them for three different meals for healthy, meatless… and most importantly, delightful dishes. This one batch of roasted veggies will yield enough to make a Roasted Vegetable-Goat Cheese Tart, Veggie Lasagna, and Roasted Vegetable-Mozzarella Panini Sandwiches.  Be certain to keep all the vegetables separate when you refrigerate them, you will need it that one for at least one of the recipes.  You can store them all in the same container, just do mix them up with one another.

Roasted Winter Vegetables

1 yellow bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and cut in half
1 package white or crimini mushrooms, ends trimmed
1 package cherry or teardrop tomatoes, each tomato cut in half
1 red onion, peeled and cut into 6 wedges
1 eggplant, cut into 3/4-inch rounds

Olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme, divided
1 teaspoon dried oregano, divided
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat broiler to high heat.

Cut off both ends of the red bell pepper. Slice open the pepper and slide your knife along the inside of the pepper to cut out the membrane and seeds, as shown in the photo above. Discard the seeds and membrane. Repeat this procedure with the yellow and orange bell peppers.

Line a baking sheet with foil. Place the peppers and the ends, skin side up, on the baking sheet and place under broiler until the skins blacken and blister.  Remove from oven and place in a large bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap for at least 15 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Peel peppers and set them aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the fennel and onion pieces in the same large bowl that the peppers sat in. Toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of the oregano and thyme, and season with salt and pepper.  Take the baking sheet and make two separate foil areas as shown below and place the fennel and onion on half of the baking sheet.

Place the eggplant in the same bowl. Toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of the oregano and thyme, and season with salt and pepper.  Place the eggplant on the other half of the baking sheet that the fennel and onion are on.  Set aside.

Place the tomatoes in the same bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of the oregano and thyme, and season with salt and pepper.  On another baking sheet, make two separate foil areas and place the tomatoes on half of the baking sheet.

Place the mushrooms in the same bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of the oregano and thyme, and season with salt and pepper.  Place the mushrooms on the other half of the baking sheet that the tomatoes are on.  Place both baking sheets in the preheated oven and roast until the vegetables are softened, about 25 minutes.

Of course, you could eat these fabulous veggies as is, or use them in one or all three dishes to come…

Oh… it always excites me so when I find out that someone out there sees what I do here! I stumbled upon this on Chow Bella, late last night.

Linda Hopkins’ Ultimate Bloody Mary Bar

A round-up of tasty morsels from Valley food blogs.

We can count on Linda Hopkins of Les Petites Gourmettes for the regular recipe posts on her blog, but we were mighty impressed with her bloody mary bar (that also includes a base cocktail recipe) that rivaled the article she found in the current issue of Bon Appetit magazine. Check out her post to really see how it’s really done.