If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen that this is a crazy week for me. The company I work for is hosting a conference in Atlanta, and I’m coordinating the whole thing. I haven’t been eating very well this week, so I was afraid that I wouldn’t have a recipe for Bon Apetit! If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s the ease of roasted vegetables! There is no excuse for not eating vegetables if you have an oven.
If you missed last week’s recipe, check out my Fresh Italian Pizza!
Growing up, my sister and I each got to pick a vegetable that we didn’t have to eat. My sister picked green beans, and I picked broccoli. I don’t think I actually ever tried broccoli, but I remember watching Elayne gag when she ate green beans. Why did I pick broccoli without tasting it? I refused to eat food that didn’t smell good. It’s actually a policy I live by to this day.
My mom recently roasted some broccoli for dinner when I was home and it was DELICIOUS. It seemed pretty easy to do too! So…again, I’m passing on my mother’s cooking wisdom.
Roasted Broccoli with Sauteed & Roasted Zucchini
Start with some broccoli and some zucchini. I prefer to buy both fresh. Zucchini has been on sale at Kroger, and broccoli is just inexpensive. I buy it by the “head”, and it’s generally two meals for me.
Roasted Broccoli
Cut the broccoli into bite size pieces. I put mine straight into a bowl because I find it’s easier to get an even season (hahhaha…unintentional rhyme) that way.
This is the holy grail of seasoning pairings. I honestly use these in everything. You can season to taste. Last week, I had some ranch mix that I added to the broccoli, but I love these four. Paprika, seasoning salt, garlic powder, and pepper…DELICIOUS.
Drizzle the broccoli with some olive oil and season to taste. You want the broccoli to look a bit moist (but not dripping). If you add too much olive oil, you won’t get the good crunch from the roasting.
Lay out the broccoli on half of a medium size sheet pan. Depending on how much you’re cooking, you can use a full pan. However, I hate dishes, so I put everything on one pan.
Look at how beautiful that is! Put in the oven at 425 degrees for ten minutes.
Sauteed & Roasted Zucchini
The great thing about this? You can start the zucchini while your broccoli is in the oven! Those ten minutes are perfect to get it started.
Olive oil, minced garlic, and onions in a pan. Sweat those until the onions become soft and the oil starts to sizzle a bit. Aim for this:
While that’s coming together, go ahead and cut up your zucchini. I halved it, then halved each half, and sliced it into bite size pieces:
Add the chopped zucchini to your pan.
I used the same seasonings on the zucchini as I did on the broccoli. Nice and easy, but also completely customizable!
Now is where things get interesting.
Add breadcrumbs right to your skillet. Mine just happen to be the remnants of some Italian breadcrumbs I have on hand (always) and some panko breadcrumbs. Stir around until your pan looks like this:
The ten minutes should be up on your broccoli, so go ahead and take it out of the oven.
Add your zucchini right to the pan. I also had some popcorn chicken that I added for some protein to balance all the greens.
Ten more minutes at 425 degrees, and you’re done!
Look at all that green!
Let’s recap. Chop vegetables. Roast broccoli. Saute zucchini. Combine and roast vegetables together. All in, you can do this in 25 minutes, start to finish.
You can do so many different roasted vegetables. Stay seasonal too. We’ve got a great Farmer’s Market here in town that I just need to get to one weekend. Do you have any special techniques for cooking vegetables?
