Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Joining the Beet Red Club

[Guest post by hubby.]

I'd like to go back a couple of weekends and put up a pic of my meal from when my brother graciously treated the teenager and me to lunch.

Here's what I had.


I finished off every molecule of these ribs, fries, and coleslaw.

Now, with being on my own, I know for certain that even in the recent past, this meal would have kickstarted a dining out marathon. Not that there's anything wrong with dining out, but I wanted to challenge myself to be more industrious on the food front for a change.

And I'm happy to report that I've been doing pretty well, at least in my humble opinion. I've essentially stuck to putting together simple and tasty meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

One particular highlight this past week was my first ever roasting of veggies: beets, potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and broccoli to be exact. The veggies were mostly from our CSA box. After trying to talk by phone with wifey, who was quite preoccupied with the toddler at the time, I thought I heard her say something like:

- Set the oven to 375°.
- Put some olive oil, salt, and pepper on the veggies.
- Roast for 20-25 minutes.
- Turn the veggies over.
- Roast for 5-10 minutes.
- There was also something about not getting any beet juice on the counter.

And with that, it was time to go roasting.

First up, gathering up the veggies.



Cleaning up the veggies some. After going online and briefly looking up "roasting beets," I decided not to peel the beets before roasting them.


And there you go:



To help minimize the possibility of a big beet juice mess, I chopped the beets on a cutting board inside the sink.


These veggies were so good. I found that a little bit of salt goes a long way with these veggies because they were noticeably salty even though I felt that I didn't put on that much salt. The beets were awesome but could've been even more awesome as they were just a bit too al dente (can one describe beets that way?) - I'll consult with wifey to figure out how to best remedy that for next time. Oh yes, there will be a next time. In fact, if there are any veggies ever to be roasted in our kitchen, I will insist on being the person to do so. If wifey lets me, of course.

Always Grateful,

~Hubby