Good morning!
Today is my day off and I am very excited for the day ahead! It felt so good to be able to sleep in this morning. I slept ‘til 8am and felt nice and rested when I got up.
I never showed you all the veggies Eric brought home the other night…straight from his coworker’s, in law’s veggie garden…
They are an Italian couple and you don’t say no to Italians with an over-flowing veggie garden. Eric said he told them he didn’t need anything and he left with 4 bags of produce!!!! lol. Apparently, the coworker’s father-in-law wants to help us build a veggie garden! We are thinking of building one in 2011.
Eric came home with celery, zucchini, basil, tomatoes (best tomatoes ever!), 5 bunches of kale, and jalapenos.
So. much. kale.
So curly!
The kale proposed and I said yes!
Eric said I should have carried kale down the aisle at our wedding. I think he’s onto something here….veggie bouquets!
Not surprisingly, we decided to use up a ton of veggies for dinner last night! Our fridge is so full it is busting at the seams.
Anything Goes Veggie Roast
Ingredients:
- 4 carrots
- 1 yellow squash
- 1 zucchini
- 2 cups Okra
- 1 cup Sugar Snap Peas
- 4 potatoes
- 3 Swiss Chard leaves
- 3 Jalapenos (kept on the side as Eric doesn’t like them)
- 3/4 tsp Kosher sea salt
- 1/2 tsp Herbamare
- 2 tbsp cold-pressed sunflower oil
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions: Preheat oven to 425F. Wash and chop all veggies. Place chopped veggies on 2 greased baking sheets. Drizzle oil over top and massage into veggies to spread evenly. Sprinkle on sea salt, Herbamare, and freshly ground pepper. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and flip veggies and bake for another 35-40 minutes until golden brown and slightly crisp. Serve and sprinkle on additional sea salt if necessary. Dip in ketchup and enjoy!
Massaging in the sunflower oil to coat the veggies:
We had it with ketchup on the side for dipping and it was superb! We especially loved the Okra and potatoes. Just lovely.
I was so pleasantly surprised by the Okra…it is so good. Almost similar to a zucchini in taste. When I compare a veggie to zucchini I mean that it is mild and the taste would blend into virtually anything. Okra would be amazing dipped in some sort of batter and baked to a crisp!
I proceeded to make a delicious dessert that I will be telling you about in my next post…
Breakfast this morning was another smooth as silk Purslane Green Monster…
It included: 3 cups Purslane, 1 cup almond milk, 1 tsp maca, 1/4 cup frozen blueberries, 1 large frozen banana, 1/2 scoop Amazing Grass Wheatgrass powder.
And a piece of Chocolate Blueberry cake. This is a healthy cake made with spelt flour, blueberries, ground chia seed, maple syrup, cocoa powder, etc….and delicious.
Sometimes on your Sunday morning, you just need a little cake and Purslane.
The recipe for this cake will be in tonight’s post! Stay tuned.
Eric and I are off for a brick workout now. Other plans for my day off include reading EPL, cleaning, meeting girlfriend for tea, working on online print shop, chopping veggies for the week ahead, and some travel planning. Should be a good & busy one!
Enjoy your Sunday! See you tonight.
Haha, send the spare kale my way! Tha stuff is like gold dust over here :P
Can’t wait for tonight’s post – the cake looks FANTASTIC! And hey, if yu can have it for breakfast too, then it’s a double win :D
Have a good day!
congrats on your new engagement :)
i want to eat everything on this entire post…the roasted veggies, the cake, the GM…LOVE it all!
Is that the cake from FFV?! I made that too, subbed Spelt, and made a whole bunch of other changes to make it my own – a-ma-zing! I’ve been topping my overnight oats with it and it’s like pure heaven. I can’t believe how moist the blueberry puree makes the cake. It’s so good drizzled with coconut butter too. My family could not believe it was fat free and vegan and the words “Gloria, you’ve really outdone yourself” actually came out of my dad’s mouth :) Can’t wait to see how you ended up making it! Enjoy your day!
Nice crop of veggies…looks like you have even more veggies to plough through, which means more delicious eating adventures!
I hope you have a great day off from work! Was the okra sticky inside? I couldn’t seem to get past that the one time I tried to eat it.
I wouldnt say sticky but it was a bit slimy…i loved it!
Dont you just love free food??/ I cant wait to hear more about the Cake!! It looks delish!!!
Do you make your own ketchup??
I do…I use tomato paste, a bit of sea salt, and tiny bit of sweetener, to taste :)
“you don’t say no to Italians with an over-flowing veggie garden.”
haha great advice! i do very much hope you end up building a veggie garden … we are currently planning mine and i am soooo excited. fresh chard from the back yard? here i come! well, next year.
i love to carry my farmers market leafy greens like bouquets too! they’re stunning. sometimes i think about using leafy veggies as centerpieces at my (potential, currently nonexistant, future) wedding.
thumbs up on the cake for breakfast! blueberry+chocolate=divine!
I hope you and kale are very happy together :)
I was watching Top Chef reruns yesterday and one of the contestants actually did a tempura-fried okra. I totally want to get in on some of that action!
Holy Veggies! They look amazing. I had a kale infused GM this morning. So good. I have been on the hunt for purslane but no luck here in Western Massachusetts. I tried a couple of farmer’s markets and Whole Foods. I had never heard of it before you mentioned it, and now I am so intrigued.
Enjoy your day off!
Okay, as I am from the South, I have to recommend that you try fried okra. I know, I know . . . . it’s not healthy, but just fry one little piece and you will overflow with joy! We don’t fry it with tempura, but that does sound interesting!
I concur! I think this is the way it is meant to be eaten. & I am sure there is some way to health-ify it! :)
Please try this! Fried okra has always been one of my favorite foods to eat as a treat! :)
Yes, fried okra is the only way I’ve eaten okra and it is soo good!
I was thinking about making a blueberry cake, this one looks great!! Can’t wait for the recipe!
Wow, what a generous load of veggies! Next time, be sure to take the celery root along with the tops. You can make a wonderful soup out of it or even roast the root like you did with the other veggies.
I love days off! So glad you got to sleep in and take it easy for a while.
Yummy garden goods!!! I’ve been getting tons of kale and other goodnesses including tomatoes from my garden. You should TOTALLY do a garden next year! You’re perfectly suited to it! I can’t imagine all the things you could do!
Enjoy your day off! Sounds like it’ll be a fun one!
What a sweet couple to give you all those gorgeous looking veggies! The blueberry chocolate cake looks incredible, can’t wait for you to share the recipe :)
The desert looks so good!
You can tell apart the real foodies as the ones who think that veggie roast looks just as yummy as the cake.
Hey, I actually had a question for you! It’s a bit silly.
You cook a lot of veggie dishes and obviously eat a lot of veggies. But you’re always busy. Can you give us some tips for whipping up veggies fast? What kinds of prep work do you do? You mentioned chopping veggies with your hubby…is that the veggies you plan to eat for the next few days? I’m a busy college student, so I always like to learn ways to make stuff faster. Even though I love cooking, too much time in the kitchen = crazy Mimi.
On Sunday I take about 1 hour and chop everything in sight. It doesnt seem like much time but I can often prep veggies for the whole week in that amount of time! It helps :)
All that lovely veg how nice! my dad has an overflowing veggie garden its wonderful! so much better than shop bought!
looking forward to the next post! x
speaking of veggie bouquets, i went to a play at my university last year and instead of flowers, a lady was carrying a head of broccoli wrapped in that plastic flower wrap! i died. best idea ever.
The blueberry chocolate cake looks like it stepped out of the pages of Food Vogue ;) Love it!
And do you know there is a growing trend of actually using hearty leafy greens in bride’s bouquets…it looks great! Weird, but quirky and fun!
Nice veggie haul!
That cake looks amazing! Can’t wait to hear about it!