Roasted whole carrots, baby sweet potatoes, fennel, poblano chile pepper, tomato, tomatillos, small yellow onions, parsnips and garlic cloves.
Roast Or Steam Whole Vegetables
Add roasting and steaming whole vegetables to your kitchen techniques and you will:
*Save time and effort cutting vegetables before cooking. After they are cooked they can be cut easily with a fork.
*Have cooked vegetables with more and better flavor and more health-promoting nutrients.
*Dirty fewer knives, cutting boards and pans, making after-meal clean-up quicker and easier.
*Enjoy an increased variety of vegetables without increased effort.
*Prepare vegetables for multiple meals in one easy cooking session.
Almost all vegetables can be roasted or steamed whole. All vegetables also benefit from this preparation method with improved flavor and nutritional value compared to vegetables that are cut before cooking. Whole vegetables prepared this way are also very good cold the next day.
Roasted whole baby sweet potatoes, red potatoes, purple potatoes, Brussel sprouts, red beets and golden beets.
Whole roasted or steamed vegetables can be an entree accompanied by beans, rice, pasta or other favorite sides. They can share the plate with poultry, fish, pork or beef. Roasted or steamed whole vegetables can be chilled, cut into bite-sized pieces and used to top a green salad, as a picnic side or as part of a cold plate snack or lunch with fruit and cheese. They can be tossed with a vinaigrette dressing and served as a vegetable salad. Vegetables cooked this way are very versatile, so I almost always make several meals worth at a time to save myself time over the next several days.
Whole zucchini squash, yellow crook-neck squash and tomatillos ready for oven-roasting.
Alternate steaming a batch of whole vegetables today with roasting a batch of different vegetables tomorrow and most of a week’s worth of vegetable sides is taken care of in just a few minutes. The beauty of this method is that the vegetables only need to be washed, misted lightly with oil(for roasting only), placed onto a baking sheet or into a steamer basket and cooked for 10-30 minutes(depending on choice of vegetables). A light sprinkle of sea salt and freshly grated black pepper and they are ready to enjoy.
Roasting and steaming whole vegetables is one of the lowest effort/highest reward techniques I use in the kitchen. This is the type of cooking that makes a healthy whole food diet possible even for very busy people. It also requires very little planning-nothing needs to be done the day before or two hours before cooking. A vegetarian meal can be on the plate and ready to eat in 45 minutes using this method and you can be doing something else for 30 minutes while the vegetables are in the oven or on the stove cooking.