radiantbaby | Roasted Vegetables...

...or, I should say, roasted numminess!

So, lately I have been experimenting with eating more vegetables.

As I am sure I have mentioned before, my parents don't eat vegetables (well, except corn), so I grew up rarely ever eating them. As an adult, I have tried a few things with vegetables, but it's mostly been eating them at friend's houses and restaurants as I have been a bit gunshy with cooking them at home.

One thing that I have discovered recently has been the glories of roasting vegetables. I never used the oven much in cooking until recently, but since I have, I have really enjoyed the way things carmelize in there. I have mostly only done this with carrots so far, but tonight I decided to try roasting broccoli.

I was inspired by this recipe by Rachael Ray, but also from some googling where I found this recipe (which has some good reference pictures).

So, being home alone tonight, I decided it would be a perfect night to try the food experiment of roasting broccoli (especially since

justben doesn't eat broccoli).

I did and it was oh-my-goodness good!

Here is what I made (roughly):

Spicy Garlic Roasted Broccoli

Ingredients:
* 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, eyeball it
* 1-2 tbsp. of minced garlic (I used 2, but I love garlic)
* 1 tablespoon chili powder
* 1 tablespoon grill seasoning blend (I used "Chicago Steak" seasoning)
* Broccoli (I used about 6 oz. of pre-cut broccoli spears, but I am sure you can vary this)
* Grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Place extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, chili powder and grill seasoning in the bottom of a large bowl and add the broccoli spears. Toss to coat broccoli evenly then transfer to a large nonstick baking sheet.

Roast the broccoli until ends are crisp and brown and stalks are tender. This can take from 10 - 20 minutes depending on your oven - be sure to keep an eye on it.

When it's done, toss with grated parmesan if you'd like. I tried half of my portion this way and it was really tasty!

And while I am at it, since I was chatting about it last night with

wheezinggirl and

mtn_hermit and they wanted a recipe, here is my recipe for roasted carrots:

Baked Carrot Oven Fries

Ingredients:
* extra virgin olive oil (see recipe)
* sea salt (see recipe)
* carrots (I used pre-sliced carrots myself, but this is flexible -- I wouldn't suggest "baby carrots" though as they didn't work out so well when I tried using them)

Heat oven to 375 F.

Toss the entire bunch of carrots in a bowl with a couple glugs of olive oil. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and sprinkle generously with the sea salt.

Bake for 30 minutes or until carrots are golden brown.

Happy roasting! :)