It has been hot this summer. Hotter than normal, longer than normal, and I am frankly rather sick of hearing the AC drone on. I want to cook food! I want to want to eat hot food. But I don’t. It’s hot. So what I’ve been doing is heating the kitchen way up one day, cooking a bunch of food, and remixing it all week. So several pans of roasted veg, a big pot of grains, a bunch of spinach, and a few proteins. But I have gotten SO BORED with it.
This week, I decided to mix it up and make a pasta salad with the roasted vegetables used as the sauce. It turned out rather well. You could add beans or meat for protein, and if you wanted extra greens, mix them in or serve them over top. Also, this is absolutely more of a recipe concept than a recipe, so use whatever vegetables you have around.
I generally roast my vegetables at 425ºF on big sheet pans. I toss everything in a bit of olive oil and dust it with salt. Size varies greatly, so if I don’t have a full pan of something, I try to group things that will cook in about the same amount of time. In less than an hour, I can do 3 or 4 pans, and it’s a ton of vegetables. I almost always throw a sweet potato in the mix, and I always, always, always roast onions because I love them and they add good base flavors to any dish.
This recipe used about 1 sweet potato, about 1/2 of an onion, 4 skinnier carrots, and about half a package of mushroom caps (4 oz). I did not want to blend the broccoli in, but I chopped it up instead, maybe a cup of it. Serve over any pasta or grain of your choice, with added protein if that’s what you’re up for. The sauce isn’t pretty, but it tastes great.
- 1 cup sweet potato, roasted
- 1/2 cup onion roasted
- 4 carrots small, roasted
- 1/2-3/4 cup mushroom caps, roasted
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- If you need to roast your vegetables, do so -- see the post above for how I do it. Cool them.
- Add all vegetables and water to blender, gently puree, stirring as needed. When you need more liquid, add the olive oil. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings. If you want a thinner sauce, add more water until you get the consistency where you want it.
- Serve over whatever sounds good -- pasta or grains would be my suggestion (as that's all I've tried). Add other vegetables to the mix as desired.