A Few Veggie Dinners

Bok Choy turned out great the other night!

As usual, I hunted whatever I could find to throw in there to use up.

We added shitake mushrooms, carrots, garlic, and onions.  I say “We” because I pulled out stuff from the fridge and barked orders, while FabTeen chopped and cooked and followed my directions.  

I found a bag of frozen cooked shrimp which went in there too….they were definitely happy!  Ummm…not  the shrimp…the shrimp-eating family!

And I sprinkled some Adobo seasoning and chopped roasted cashews on top.

   

I served this with brown rice.  I thought I took a picture of the food plated…but I couldn’t find it on my camera!

FabHubs still had a little nose upturn…he is not a fan of stir fry, even though I deliberately did not use soy sauce (which he cannot stand!).

Now last nights dinner I thought was delicious…I actually was pretty excited to try it as we sat down for dinner…maybe it was because I was kind of hungry!  I don’t know…all I know is it looked awesome…to me….after we got started eating I don’t think everyone else was quite as excited about it as I was!!

First…I had a butternut squash in the fridge that needed to be used up.  And I was going to make Marisa’s brown rice casserole with broccoli because I definitely have broccoli that needs using…but I also found some  green beans that were from the previous week’s box and decided to use those first.

First, cutting up the squash…I hate doing that!  But finally the job was done.  I tossed into a bowl with some cumin, ground coriander, paprika, and salt a la RecipeZaar.  Only I added a teaspoon of all of the spices rather than following the directions.  

 

I also rough cut half a shallot I needed to use up, half a bulb of garlic, and a whole onion.

I have some thyme I got in the Thanksgiving week box that I have had no idea what to do with…so I took half of it, peeled off the leaves, and sprinkled half of that over the butternut squash mixture.

I mixed everything in a big bowl with 2 TBS of olive oil until it was very well coated.  A lot of directions for roasting veggies say to put the veggies on the pan and then drizzle the oil over the veggies and mix…but I find they get coated much more evenly when I do it in the bowl first.

Then I put on the pan and off into the oven at 450 degrees for about half an hour to 45 minutes.  I stirred every 15 minutes or so…until they were getting nice and roasted and browned and crunchy….my favorite!

Next came the green beans…I had a ton of these!  I washed and used the scissors to tip the ends and then a snip in the middle to get a relatively even length….some are longer, some are shorter…I don’t worry about this though!

      

I put in a pot with a little water to steam…(and somehow  I ended up forgetting to take some pix of the next few steps!).

The rest of the garlic bulb was peeled and rough chopped (we LOVE garlic in this house!).

Then I got the olive oil out to start toasting the spices and almonds…but  on a whim I decided to go with butter.  Not sure if I should have not not….but I did.   About 2 TBS of butter went into the pan.  When that was all melty I added a large handful (maybe 1/3 cup or a little more) of sliced almonds, the rest of the thyme, and the garlic.  I sautéed until the almonds were nice and toasty…then threw in the green beans, which I had let steam a little too long so they were mushier than I like!

A sprinkle and stir with Adobo seasoning to finish it off.

Then…because I have let them make me feel guilty these days…I foraged in the freezer for this (which I had bought a few months ago but never used).

I set up the George to grill them…but when I read the directions I found I needed to stir fry them!

Well…FabStepson and I  really liked them!  Others at my table dealt with it…but still had a little upturn to their noses.  Humph!

I would buy them again…the only thing I don’t like is of course that they are processed even if they are vegetarian.

And the final result was this!