July 15, 2018
This changeable weather in the past two months might cause some trouble for vacationers, it has, however, worked wonders for gardeners, the main source of every cook’s happiness.
So, how to use all the vegetables that have been thriving around us? Stew some in a pot, throw some in the oven, and make a salad with whatever’s left, that is the underlying tactics of today's recipe of the week.
This variety in preparation will save us from monotony in texture, as roasting is usually a bit dry, stews are too wet, and salads too raw. We will therefore gather what's available, decide what’s best to be roasted, what works best as a sauce and what could work as a salad, and as some of the vegetables can be used in different ways we might just experiment as it goes.
We had some chicken drumsticks, so we threw them on the roasting pan together with the veggies, but you can leave those out if don’t eat meat, of course.
Ingredients
Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees Celsius.
Peel and dice the potatoes, wash the carrots, clean one onion, remove the green part (we'll use it in our salad), pour some olive oil on the roasting pan and throw everything on it, including the herbs and (unpeeled) cloves of garlic.
Separate the garlic cloves, make sure they stay inside their skins (if not, we can use them for the courgette sauce or the salad) so that they won't burn in the oven. Roasted garlic is a wonderful addition to almost any plate as when baked the cloves lose their sharp smell and turn into a creamy chunk of umami, which is also very easy to remove from the skin.
Add salt and mix everything together so that the oil from the bottom distributes over the ingredients evenly.
Cut the peppers in two or more pieces so that little boats are formed, which we will fill with some juicy stuff, tomatoes in this case, to make our dish more varied. It’s thus important that the peppers are cut in a way that the juices will stay contained in them.
Put some fresh basil in the bottom.
Add some tomatoes and mozzarella, if you have any, on the top.
Sprinkle with some salt and olive oil and add to the rest of the ingredients to the roasting pan.
Place the pan into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes to an hour at 180 degrees Celsius (depending on the oven).
Take the remaining parts of the peppers, tomatoes and mozzarella, dice what needs to be diced and place in a bowl for salad. Add the remaining green part of the onion and some basil. Season with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some salt, or just leave it as it is. This is an art, not a science.
Now to the creamy courgette sauce.
Chop one whole young onion and some garlic and stir fry in some olive oil for a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile, dice the courgette and mix it in with the onion and garlic. Add salt and some water (up to 1 dl), cover and simmer for about half an hour or until the courgette softens completely.
When courgette is completely soft, take the pot from the stove, wait for a minute so that it cools just a little bit, then stir in the sour cream. If mixed in while courgette sauce is still on the stove and boiling, the sour cream will curdle and the sauce will have a less pleasant appearance and texture.
Take your roast out of the oven when the potatoes are done (if not sure when, take one out and try it).
Chop the parsley and sprinkle it on the top of the courgette sauce.
Dober tek!
