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Chilled Roasted Vegetable Salad with Horseradish-Dijon Dressing

August 14, 2012 By Kate 2 Comments

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Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve had a rather strong obsession with roasted vegetables. I just can’t seem to get enough of them and I’ve yet to find a veggie that I don’t enjoy in its roasted state. They are most definitely my favorite side dish of late; sometimes even filling in as a main course. The rest of my family is on board with enjoying them frequently in addition to our dinners, but I’ve had a more difficult time convincing them of the benefits of roasted veggies as a complete meal. Oh well…

The heat of the summer kept us from enjoying steamy plates of these beloved veggies on a regular basis. But that all changed a few weeks ago when I was introduced to a new method for serving my favorite side dish at a family party. As I watched the caterer uncover a tray filled with a heaping portion of chilled roasted vegetables, I was instantly smitten. And after that first bite, I was a goner. I couldn’t wait to get home and play around with this new method so that we could enjoy it on a regular basis.

So far I’ve been thrilled with every combination I’ve thrown together, but this one is by far my favorite. The tanginess of the dressing is a perfect complement for the crisp, freshly roasted veggies and the flavor is just as great in leftover form.

Chilled Roasted Vegetable Salad with Horseradish-Dijon Dressing

  • 1/2 lb. broccolini, trimmed
  • 1/2 lb. baby Portabello mushrooms, quartered
  • 1/2 lb. asparagus, trimmed
  • 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed
  • 2 medium-sized yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thickly sliced
  • 1 red pepper, sliced
  • 1 T. olive oil
  • 1 t. salt
  • 1 t. garlic powder
  • 1/2 t. pepper
  • 2 T. dijon mustard (use your favorite; I like stone-ground)
  • 1 T. horseradish
  • 1/3 c. water

1. Combine vegetables in a large bowl. Add olive oil, salt, garlic powder and pepper; toss to combine. Spread vegetables onto foil-lined baking sheets. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, or until veggies are crisp-tender and lightly roasted.

2. Let vegetables come to room temperature and then transfer to the refrigerator. While the vegetables chill, whisk together the mustard, horseradish and water. Pour the dressing over the veggies and toss until combined.

3. Chill dressed veggies until serving.

One word of warning – you may want to let people know ahead of time that these are chilled veggies so that they don’t get a shock when they take their first bite. The first time I served this, my husband was expecting to bite into hot vegetables and was a little thrown. But trust me, as long as you don’t shock your family and/or guests, they’ll absolutely love enjoying this dish!

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Balsamic Spinach & Water Chestnuts

February 29, 2012 By Kate 3 Comments

I’ll be the first to admit that our kids are a little strange. When you consider the fact that they love spinach, I think you’ll agree with me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we introduced them to Popeye and the power of spinach early on. Or maybe it’s because it’s been a regular part of their diets since they started eating solid foods.

Whatever the reason, I choose to not examine it too much and just enjoy it while it lasts. Spinach gets added to a ton of our meals but when it comes to serving it as a side dish, I usually rely on my  Creamed Spinach recipe and that’s it. While that’s delicious and fine for an occasional side, I’ve been trying to lighten our meals up a bit (more on that below). So I decided a new go-to spinach side dish was in order and that’s how this dish was born.

The balsamic flavor, with just a touch of dijon mustard, it a great compliment to the spinach and the water chestnuts add a great crunch. It’s not creamed spinach, that’s for sure, but it’s still delicious!

Balsamic Spinach & Water Chestnuts

  • 1 T. olive oil
  • 1/2 Vidalia onion, diced
  • 1 16 oz. bag frozen spinach (or about 1 1/2-2 pounds fresh spinach)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 1 can sliced water chestnuts
  • 1/3 c. balsamic vinegar
  • 2 t. sugar
  • 2 t. dijon mustard
  • 1/2 t. each salt, pepper, garlic powder

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add spinach and water chestnuts; season to taste with salt and pepper, and cook an additional 5 minutes.

2. While the spinach cooks, whisk together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour into the skillet and cook for 1 minute. Enjoy!

Now, as I mentioned above, I have been working to lighten things up a bit because 2012 is the year when I finally lose some weight and get fit! Since I started in early January, I’ve lost 15 pounds and have about 20-25 more to go. This will only minimally affect the content here because there are 6 other people in this house that have to eat and none of them are trying to lose 40 pounds. (Plus honestly, they’ve all come to expect eating a certain way and I’m all for that!)

But, if you’d like to follow along on my weight loss journey, I’m blogging all about it for HealthyWage. You can check out my first post here if you’d like.  Anyone else working on losing weight this year?

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Very Veggie Pasta

January 23, 2012 By Kate 1 Comment

Life is good around our house. We’ve lived here for a year and a half and I think we’re finally starting to feel like we’ve done every project that we’ve wanted to do. Since the start of the year, Eric has painted and rearranged all of the kids’ bedrooms and we’ve done some redecorating in a few of the rooms. Our project list gets smaller and smaller each week.

Now that we’ve gotten all of that work taken care of, I need to start really focusing on some new meals on a more frequent basis. We’ve been eating a lot of our old favorites lately, and while no one is complaining, I’m really itching to get back to spending more time working on new recipes.

This dish originally started out as sauteed veggies, but as they were cooking, I decided to mix things up a bit for a new side dish. It turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to the Parmesan Chicken Fingers we had for dinner and I think it would go great with a lot of other meals too. In fact, it’s robust and flavorful enough that it could easily serve as a main course too. I’m definitely excited to make this again in the future. I’m thinking I’d like to make some on a Sunday night and then eat it for lunch for the next few days. It would be perfect for that.

Very Veggie Pasta

  • 2 T. olive oil
  • 1/2 lb. sliced mushrooms
  • 1 red pepper, sliced
  • 1 12 oz. bag frozen French-style green beans, thawed
  • 1 t. salt
  • 1 t. oregano
  • 1 t. dried basil
  • 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 1/2 t. pepper
  • 1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
  • 1/2 lb. cooked pasta

1. Heat olive oil and add mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes, until the start to brown. Add sliced pepper, green beans and seasonings and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in tomato sauce and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

2. Add cooked pasta and stir to combine well. Enjoy!

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