Autumn in a plate - Oven Roasted Vegetables

I love roasted vegetables; so easy to make, so simple and yet so delicious. Of course raw vegetables are a lot healthier than cooked ones but sometimes you just need a hot meal right?! Anyway this dish is very healthy, low in calories, low in fat and also low in sodium, diet friendly and it is very filling too.

Did you know that unlike other fruits and vegetables, where nutritional content such as vitamin C is diminished upon cooking, processing of tomatoes increases the concentration of bioavailable lycopene. Lycopene in tomato paste is four times more bioavailable than in fresh tomatoes. For this reason, tomato sauce is a preferable source as opposed to raw tomatoes. If you don't know, lycopene is a powerful antioxidant and it has been considered a potential agent for prevention of some types of cancers.

Another great thing about this recipe is the combination of tastes and textures: sweet and salty, crunchy and soft...amazing! I also love the colors; the potatoes look like they were painted! It’s like having autumn in a plate!

Try it!

Ingredients for 4 servings:

-       1 tomato, quartered

-       4 button mushrooms

-       1 big onion, peeled, quartered

-       2 potatoes, peeled

-       1 beet, peeled

-       pumpkin slice, peeled (about 3 cm thick and 10 cm long)

-       ground pepper

-       sea salt, to taste

-       ground coriander

-       1 tbs dry thyme

-       some dill, chopped

-       3 tbs sunflower oil

Directions:

Rinse all vegetables and peel/cut/chop them as specified in the ingredients list.

French fry cut potatoes, beet, and pumpkin.

Carefully remove the mushroom stems and set aside.  We are going to stuff the caps, so be sure to keep them intact. Chop up the stems. Mix the stems with the chopped dill and 1 tsp sunflower oil. Place the mixture in the mushroom caps.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a roasting pan with some parchment paper – we don’t want to use a lot of oil and also don’t want the veggies to stick to the pan. Place all veggies in the pan. Sprinkle them with ground pepper, sea salt, ground coriander, thyme and oil.

Roast at 400 degrees; reduce heat if vegetables are browning too quickly before they are done. Cook them until they’re fork tender – about 40 minutes.


Question: What is your favorite roasted vegetable?