Yesterday was supposed to be cool and rainy all day, and I was craving red meat. A quick look in the freezer turned up a small rump roast, which let me to think "roast beef!" In trying to put together a menu idea, I also thought of the three pounds or so of CSA Savoy cabbage and all the other little bits and pieces of random veggies crowding up our fridge. A quick check of google let me know that roasting cabbage is not a new idea, and I was off and running. So last night, after a day that turned out to be mostly sunny and warm (the rain didn't come in until after we went to sleep), we had a small roast beef, and roasted cabbage, potatoes, asparagus, and fennel (I forgot the carrots, whoops!). It turned out to be a pretty great meal. It was also super easy to prepare: For the potatoes and fennel I just chopped them and then mixed with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. I sliced the cabbages into about 3/4" thick slices, then made a dressing of equal parts melted butter and lemon juice that I brushed on the slices. I then sprinkled them with some crushed fennel seeds and popped them into the oven. The asparagus got brushed with the same dressing. Everything cooked at around 425 for about 20 min, with one turn in the middle. Cleanup was super easy too: my baking pans are so old and rusty that I always just cover them with aluminum foil before putting anything on them. So, when everything came out of the oven, I transferred the food to different bowls, threw away the foil, and put the pans right back in the drawer where I keep them! We also had a couple cilantro sauces (one cilantro mint chutney and a chermoula - recipes another time) left over from some chicken kabobs we made a week or two ago, so I brought those out to go with the potatoes. Otherwise they probably would have needed some more flavor. I guess I also made some popovers to increase our protein content, since the roast was really small. But, all in all, it turns out that you can roast just about any veggie and making a medley of roasted veggies is a great way to turn small amounts of various veggies into a nice meal.
-Maggie
Wait a minute...you're eating roast beef and worrying about protein content???
ReplyDeleteMom has a roast veggie recipe she makes as a main dish. I will try to get her to post it.
It was a very small (1.6 lb) roast and I was feeding 4 adults + Will for dinner with the goal of leftovers for lunches. Will and I, especially have been hitting the protein hard lately. I really notice it if we have more than one dinner in a row that doesn't involve a solid protein (eggs, meat, or beans), especially if I have oatmeal instead of eggs for breakfast (given that we would also then have lower protein lunches, since we always have leftovers for lunch). Also, yorkshire pudding and it's variations are basically my favorite comfort food (easy, comforting, and healthy), and given that I'm sitting at home not having a baby feeling completely useless and being told by everyone to "just relax and rest" (yeah right, I'm Mom's kid!) I could use some comfort right about now!
ReplyDeleteOK, OK, just kidding. My official daily protein requirement these days is 64g...; comes of getting old, I guess. Enjoy the good food for me!
ReplyDelete