Grab bag: Roasted veggies, shrimp, and vacation

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, but I kept putting it off because of more exciting posts. Exciting, of course, being the code word for “cookies of any variety”.

Because cookies are clearly more exciting than any vegetable. Any one of them. All of them.

I know. I’ve pretty much just blown your minds.

But back before I had a sweet tooth, or rather back when I was trying to outsmart my sweet tooth (I’ve since come to terms with said tooth and fully embraced it), I would eat a lot of roasted vegetables. I still do.

The thing about roasted veggies is that something science-y happens while they are slow roasting that makes them caramelize on the outside and they get kind of sweet.

Not cookie-sweet, but vegetable-sweet.

That’s a new culinary term, yes. You’ll probably hear someone on Food Network use it soon, and you can say you heard it here first.

The cool thing is that you can roast almost any vegetable there is. In fact, I’d venture to say there isn’t a veggie you can’t roast. Though, as always, feel free to call out my ignorance in the comments.

I’m partial to the brassicas (brussels, cauliflower, broccoli, etc), but I also love roasted red onions, summer and winter squash varieties, bell peppers, eggplants, and root vegetables.

Which, yeah. I guess that’s pretty much all of them.

Roasted kabocha squash, nearing the burned stage, is next to heaven in my books.

Lately, because of my laziness and lack of time, I’ve been roasting them whole. You just stick them in the oven on a cookie sheet, at 375 for about 40 minutes. The outside skin gets just a little crispy, tears off really easily and tastes like buttah with just a little bit of salt on it. Piping hot right from the oven.

Oh, and then there are the kale chips.

I made kale chips for the first time in over a year (I think) last night for the people that I’m staying with on vacation.

The man that lives here ate nearly half the head of kale straight from the bowl. Without ketchup. I know. Crazy, right?

Me? I ate most of the other half, but I at least was civil and ate it from a plate and dipped it in his homemade shrimp cocktail sauce. HOmemade sauce that I WILL be replicating soon. Kids, this sauce had freshly ground horseradish in it.

I know.

Then there is roasted garlic. But really, you don’t even want to get me started on that, because this girl (me) can eat a whole head of roasted garlic in one sitting and still not be sick of it.

Luckily I live alone, so these kinds of shenanigans are A-OK.

Speaking of living alone….I’m on vacation. (See what I did there? I think they call that a non-sequitor, which is fancy-speak for “not a segue at all and completely off topic”)

And you know what they say about being on vacation? When in Rome….eat fresh shrimp.

You remember me saying how I just recently, about a month ago, learned that I love shrimp? Well. DAYUM. Shrimp is good, yes. But freshy caught Florida shrimp?

Good lawd, I’ve died and gone to seafood heaven. And Wisconsin is going to be a whole lot harder to take with their sub-par frozen shrimp.

Remind me why do I not live near the ocean again?

What’s the best thing you have eaten while on vacation?

Have you ever roasted vegetables? What’s your favorite?

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