I Am Nearly Caught Up!

In efforts to clean out the fridge, tonight I decided to roast a huge pan of whatever veggies I had left.  This actually wasn’t all of it…but it was a good variety. I grabbed one of this, one or two of that…and spread it out to see.I was going to serve them over quinoa….so I looked in one of my Xmas presents to find a recipe for something different to do with the quinoa.   (Oh yes…I am not afraid of quinoa any more!!!)

Looky what I got!  I dropped several hints about this one (including a blatant text message of a picture of the cover of the book, sent when I found it at B&N!)

FabHubs is not the world’s best hint taker so I was pretty excited when it actually showed up under the tree!

I think this is going to be my new best friend over the next few years….it has some fantastic recipes in it!

So back to the quinoa….the first recipe I found in the index for the quinoa, was quinoa with caramelized leeks.  Since I also had a bunch of leeks from last week that needed to be used up (I was saving them for leek lemon rice tomorrow) I got really excited about this and flipped to the recipe to see what it entailed. 

Good Ole Mr. Bittman hooked me at the description, “This dish makes an unbeatable bed for grilled vegetables….”

HELLO! 

Grilled vegetables….roasted vegetables…a bed is a bed I thought!  And a quick review of the instructions revealed that the hardest part of this dish was washing and slicing the leeks!

Easy????  That was all I  needed to be reeled right in to this one!  (The actual time description reads:  About 1 hour, largely unattended).  I definitely can do largely unattended!

So out came the leeks and quinoa, and the prep board then looked like this!  Such a beautiful variety of colors too!  The color-loving preschooler in me was in awe.

First came the ORANGE sweet taters, washed, chunked, and in the bowl.   I never peel these! (I am lazy!!)Next…a RED beet!  I am not a big fan of cooked beets but I figured I like everything else balsamic glazed and roasted…I would try the last beet this way too.  Besides, I am getting more tomorrow and had to get rid  of this one!

Mr. Beet got the same treatment…washed, chunked, and into the bowl.  Not peeled either.

Next came carrots!  Yeah…more orange.  And you guessed it…washed, chunked, and in the bowl with no peeling…. Green zucchini…yes…you can continue the theme! Yellow onions…okay…you got me….I peeled these!

My favorite color of all…PURPLE! As in PURPLE broccoli!  Gorgeous isn’t it! Into the bowl! I know you see my big blue bowls all the time…I got them years ago at a dollar store!  I have had them longer than I have had my husband!

I have two of them…they are huge and while not beautiful, they can take almost anything…and I use them all the time.Red grape tomatoes and White garlic…a whole bulb (peeled).   You can never have too much garlic ya’ know…especially roasted garlic!

A hefty splash and a half of this… (enough to be able to coat the veggies) A smaller splash of this…

A generous sprinkle of this… And into the pan it went at 450 degrees for nearly an hour.   I didn’t time it…I just left it roasting while I did everything else, and every once in a while pulled it out to stir.

Today I got to take home some leftover bagels from church and they were in this big roasting pan.  I was going to throw it out…but then realized it would be perfect for my enormous amount of veggies that were going to be roasted.  It sure came in handy!  I liberally sprayed with organic olive oil Pam and tossed the veggies in.Next it was time for my caramelized leek quinoa…..this sounded so good I couldn’t wait!

I cut, washed, and sliced the leeks and put them into the pan.

And then I got distracted and forgot to take pictures! 

I washed my quinoa like crazy…still don’t want to take any chances.  I did remember to take one picture once I got the quinoa and water into the pot, after the leeks were all caramelly and yummy.

Instead of olive oil I decided to try my unrefined coconut oil!  It was good and the quinoa had a definite coconutty flavor to it.  This was a huge hit. 

Well at least it was with me, FabTeen, and FabStepson. 

FabPreteen thumbed her nose at it but I made her eat one spoonful!  She still thumbed her nose at it (and I believe made a gagging motion or two) but at least she tried it.  And FabHubs…well he ate it.  And that is all I can say.I also had a last legs salad to throw together.  And look what I got last Monday that I forgot to tell you about!  It is a watermelon radish. I had never heard of one of these. 

I should have put something next to it for comparison…but this is about the size of a medium apple!  Very large for a radish.And when you cut it open….look how beautiful this is!  (I KNOW!  There I go getting excited over a veggie again!)

It is very mild and has a sweet flavor to it…no, not watermelon sweet silly!  More like veggie type sweet.  These were really good.  I have one more left! Another colorful dish….romaine lettuce, carrots, watermelon radish, tomatoes, green and red bell pepper (green not organic though!), and I think that is it. 

Hmmm….somehow these snuck in when I passed the picture of the radish around for the FabFamily to see!

Yes…she got away with pasta and red sauce…and a large salad, and a spoonful of quinoa.  She was supposed to try some roasted veggies too…but she distracted me and I forgot to make sure that happened!

Speaking of roasted veggies…this is how they turned out:

And my plate…minus the already eaten salad on a separate plate!The veggies were good…except for the beets.  I ate them, but I still can’t say I love them cooked. 

I will probably cook them again somehow, especially since I am getting another big box tomorrow…but my favorite way to have beets is still fresh grated in salads, and in my fresh juices.

So am I all caught up?

NO!

But I am close! 

Veggie-wise I still have a whole lot of sweet potatoes…(finally finished the white potatoes!), a bunch of arugula, two more zukes, a kobacha, a watermelon radish,  some grape tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, parsley…and a bunch of fruit.

Oh but I have big plans for all of these!  Stay tuned…