Veggie Tostadas

Now that I’m back in the kitchen more frequently I’ve tried to expand our menu each week to include things I’ve never cooked before. You know how you always seem to fall back to the staple meals? The ones you know the recipes by heart or you can just pop in the oven? Oh, you don’t? Well, I’m a staple meal kind of gal and it gets old quick in our household so I try my darndest to put more effort into meal planning and not just fall back onto my staples.

Anyway, don’t you love when I get long winded? You’re like, Lauren, I get the picture, now move your butt on. Ok, ok. Well, now that my 18 month old full blown toddler seems to be out of his three week sleep regression, nap time fighting and teething stage (for now at least), I have so much more energy these days! Enough to food prep and chop up tons of veggies and be patient when recipes involve a few steps.

And how can you go wrong with anything calling for roasted garlic? That’s right, you just can’t.

This recipe is straight from How Sweet Eats. Make this for one of your next meals and go crazy with your toppings and enjoy!

Veggies Tostadas

1 bulb of roasted garlic

3 teaspoons olive oil

1 small sweet potato, cubed

1/2 red onion, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1 cup sliced mushrooms

2/3 cup corn (if frozen, thaw and pat dry)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2/3 cup black beans

4 Tortilla Shells of your choice

Toppings: Avocado, Guacamole, Sour Cream, Greek Yogurt, Shredded Cheese, Salsa, Fresh Tomatoes, Cilantro, etc., etc.

Directions:

Make sure you roast your garlic first!

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Chop your onion, sweet potato, mushrooms and bell peppers and mix all in a bowl with your corn. Toss with 2 tsp olive oil and salt and pepper. Spread on foil lined baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, toss with your balsamic vinegar and roast for another 15 minutes.

While your veggies are finishing up with roasting. Brush each side of your tortilla shells with some olive oil and heat one shell at a time over medium-high heat in a skillet on the stove. This should take a good 3-5 minutes for each shell to get nice and toasted. Remove from skillet and place on wire rack to cool.

Once your veggies are finished roasting, remove from oven and place back in bowl and add your black beans and roasted garlic cloves. Mix all together, place on mixture on shells and top with whatever toppings your little heart desires.

Enjoy!

 

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Whole Roasted Chicken

Ever have dishes that you want to replicate at home, know they would probably be simple when you got down to it but it just intimidated the heck out of you? Roasted chicken was one of those dishes.

I acutally attempted two of them within a one week period and the first one was a bust. I cooked it in the crock pot and it just fell apart into mush and was non-flavorful. Not to be deterred, I decided to try again. Success.

Give yourself about two hours of it actively roasting in the oven and roast any vegetables you want in the pan with the chicken. I had originally grabbed a butternut squash at the store to roast with the potatoes and carrots but got to the check out and it rang up for $16. Ummm… I don’t know about you, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $16. So I nixed that vegetable and ended up buying 2 butternut squash this past weekend for less than $5 because they were major on sale this week. Sometimes you just gotta hold out. Like waiting for the 75% Kate Spade sales. Huh what? Did I just type that out loud?

Moving on… eat your first serving with your roasted veggies and save the rest to throw in a pot pie (which I also did last week), a hunk of a leg with a mound of mashed potatoes or toss it in a soup to celebrate the coming of fall.

Whole Roasted Chicken

adapted from Against All Grain

Ingredients:

Whole Chicken (around 5 pounds)

1 bunch sage

1 sprig rosemary

1 lemon, halved

6 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

Salt and pepper

Olive Oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp fresh sage

1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

6 large carrots, peeled and cut into pieces

6-8 red potatoes, quartered

1/2 onion, sliced

Directions:

Remove your giblets from your chicken, discard or save for a later use, like a broth. Rinse your chicken, pat dry and let sit out at room temperature for one hour.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Stuff the cavity of your chicken with your bunch of sage, rosemary, lemon and garlic cloves. Sprinkle as much salt and pepper as you like into the cavity of the chicken. Tie legs together with kitchen string.

In a bowl combine two Tbsp of your olive oil and your Dijon mustard, chopped sage, chopped rosemary, lemon juice, minced garlic, thyme, sea salt and pepper. Rub all over bird and under skin.

Toss your chopped roasting vegetables in a bowl with some olive oil and spread vegetables on bottom of roasting pan. Top with chicken.

Place chicken in oven and roast for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and roast for another 1 1/2 hours or until chicken is cooked through.

Remove chicken, place on platter and cover for 15 minutes. Slice and serve with your vegetables.

Enjoy!