Way Too Easy Roasted Vegetables

  Traditional, sweet, super easy.

If I didn't repulse you with my last food thread, then thanks for sticking around!

 

  When roasting vegetables, you can truly grab what you have on hand (for the most part). I typically stick with potatoes, broccoli, and carrots. The flavor combination just....moves me! ;)

  One thing to keep in mind though is that certain vegetables will take longer to cook than others. Broccoli cooks much faster than carrots, but carrots and potatoes cook at about the same pace.

  That's no problem though! Just cut up the longer cooking vegetables a little smaller than the shorter cooking vegetables. Does that make sense? Make sure to cut the carrots and potatoes into smaller pieces than the broccoli. Or just add the broccoli later.

Worst case scenario is that they are a little undercooked, and that's fine, but you'll be missing out! So, let's avoid that if we can.

  Preheat oven to 425. Grab your carrots, cut off the ends, and cut in half crosswise as in the picture above. 

(I opted out of potatoes this time, but they can be easily scrubbed and diced)

  And then cut in half lengthwise.

And then again if you like. Since I'm cooking the broccoli at the same time, I strongly suggest cutting the carrots into thin strips - "julienne", if you will! Mine are not to that point yet, but just a bit thinner and they would be!

 

And some fresh broccoli. Leave as much stem as you like on there. Stems are healthy and don't like to be left out. They don't like when they aren't invited to a birthday party. Especially one their counterparts are attending. 

Sorry, Junior High relapse there..

Throw the broccoli and carrots into a Ziploc (or other baggie, or bowl with a lid, or anything else with a lid.) You get the point..

Toss in some oil. I use canola, but you could certainly use safflower or anything else with a high heat tolerance.

I use extra virgin olive oil in almost everything (including most baking), but for this, I find the EVOO almost burns or something, because I taste a difference. Canola oil seems to find the perfect balance. 

Toss the bag around and pour onto a cookie sheet coated with parchment paper. It doesn't need to be parchment paper, and I'm not picky about very many things with cooking, but it certainly seems like they come out better when I use the stuff. To each his own!

BUT WAIT!!! We're not done yet. 

Honestly, yes, you may stick this right in the oven, and sometimes I do just that. But today folks....TODAY, (and any other time I have fresh ginger on hand), we'll do a little more. It makes it oooh so much better!

Today we will add fresh ginger.

Do you notice anything odd about this ginger? Okay, other than the obvious, which is that it looks funny. Ginger always looks funny. But other than that...look at the label. 

"Product of Peru...Edinburg, TX" ...Umm...so which is it? Did it come from Peru, but it was "processed" in Edinburg?

Ginger isn't processed..so Edinburg people brought it from Peru...or perhaps it was harvested in the Walmart parking lot. Perhaps it isn't even ginger.

Some things are better left unknown.

 

Grab your lump of "unknown" and chop off a knob. Yeah, a knob..that's what people call it when handling ginger. Who knows why..just go with it. 

Peel off the skin with a peeler, or if you're lazy like me, just cut it off.

And start slicing the ginger, and then turn 90 degrees and dice it up. The smaller the better.

You can add as much or as little as you like, but I really like ginger, so I use at least one knob!

 

This is a pretty choppy dice, but like I said before, I'd dice even smaller. 

And then just sprinkle it over the top of your veggies. 

Cook for about 20 minutes and the flip over. Cook about another 20 minutes or more.

This was taken at the halfway point. See how green it's becoming? That's a really, really great thing! At this point, the juices are coming out and the veggies are still very crisp. 

You can stop here, but if you keep going, you'll get these nice little slightly brown pieces all over, and the extra cooking time will pull much more of the juices out.

This will all result in some super flavorful roasted vegetables!

As you can see, I really like to wait until the end to add salt (if at all), as I find that I don't always want it. 

Please understand I put salt on most everything, so this says a lot. Sometimes the vegetables are so sweet that I don't want salt...other times they just need it. 

Sorry about the freaky fingerprints..and pink fingers...and lack of dainty fingernails. I promise I'm a girl!!

Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted better pictures of the finished product, but you get the idea. The vegetables are vibrant in color, some even have a little brown to the edges, and most of all, they are juicy!

Enjoy!~