As the mom of a 3 year old, I find it an ever daunting task to try to get her to eat something other than a carbohydrate. Usually I only make one vegetable with dinner and it can sometimes be hit or miss. Then I thought about – why not increase my odds by making multiple veggies and see how it goes. The great thing about vegetables, aside from their obvious nutritional value, is they’re relatively inexpensive to buy and they don’t require a lot of fuss. I especially love roasting veggies because I can do them all in the same large sheet pan, lined with foil for easy cleanup. I preheat the oven to 425 and add a little olive oil, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper to my veggies – tonight it’s beats, carrots, and tomatoes (yes, I know tomatoes are a fruit). After tossing them with clean hands in the olive oil and seasonings, I put them in the oven and then just check on them and turn them over every 10 minutes. By checking on them often, I can easily roast together veggies with different cooking times without worrying about burning them. After about 20 minutes, the tomatoes looked good to me, so I removed them from the pan and added fresh basil and Parmesan cheese.
I continued to roast the carrots and beets, which took about 30 minutes to be fork-tender.
Roasted carrots finished with freshly ground black pepper.
While these were roasting, I also made green beans by first blanching and shocking them. Then I heated some olive oil with red pepper flakes, and added about 3 cloves finely chopped garlic for 30-60 seconds on medium heat. I dried the green beans and threw them it the garlicky olive oil until they were heated through.
The result was a huge success. I’d be lying if I said my daughter ate everything I made. But she did eat all of her carrots and all of her beets. Progress not perfection!
Dr. B. Bakes 