Roasted Cauliflower with Dill Lemon Sour Cream

The best way to cook vegetables is roasting. They retain their flavor and get a bit of flavor emphasis with caramelization. It’s popular to melt a little cheese on top but that seems a bit heavy for lunch. I like the contrast between hot veggies and cool, fresh, and light sour cream.

Preheat oven to 450°

Toss six cauliflower florets, 2 very small onions cut in half, and 3 slices of asparagus cut in half. Toss a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Rub the oil all over the veggies so they are coated.

Roast 20 minutes, turn oven to broil for 5 minutes so the veggies are all browned beautifully.

While roasting, make a sauce with 1/4 cup of sour cream, the juice of half a lemon and some dill weed (to taste), add a bit of salt and pepper.

Roasted vegetables are the best, a light, cool sauce is a delightful contrast. It’s also super easy to make.

Brussels Sprouts in Brown Butter Sauce & Bratwurst

As I have said many times, I am a lazy cook. I also don’t have lots of gadgets. One item I don’t have is a veggie steamer, but I just use a colander inside my pan instead. To make this, I put some water on to boil. While it was heating, I cut the ends off and quartered 10 brussels sprouts and put them in a metal strainer/colander. By then the water was boiling, to clean fewer pans, I tossed the two links of bratwurst in to cook and put the strainer on top of them and put a lid on. The strainer handle made the lid uneven, but that really didn’t matter that much in steaming these fast cooking veggies.

I put a small nonstick pan on medium high and chopped up 2 TBSP of almonds and tossed them in the un-greased pan to roast, shaking the almonds so the flavor bloomed but they didn’t char. I set them aside and added 1 TBSP of butter to the pan, swirling the pan to keep it cooking very evenly and cooked until the butter turned brown. This gives it a rich nutty flavor. I poured the brown butter in a bowl, added 1 tsp of dill weed, salt, pepper and reamed half a lemon into the bowl. I then tossed the brussels sprouts, which were now done, in the bowl. I took the bratwurst and tossed them in the pan for a few seconds to brown a bit.

Bratwurst always tastes good with any of the brassica cultivars, cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, etc. It’s a perfect complement. Brown butter is such a flavorful and easy sauce and I love the flavor you get when you mix it with lemon. This sauce is also delicious on pasta. And just two small pans to clean.

Potato Patties & Turkey/Veggie Saute

This is a perfect way to use up the last of the veggies before your next trip to the market. The night before I cooked mashed potatoes because my potatoes were sprouting. I cut away the sprouts and boiled them up. When they were cooked to being tender enough to put a fork in easily without them falling apart, I drained off the water. For each potato, I added 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, 1 TBSP of butter and 1 TBSP of sour cream . When it was all mixed up, I added dried dill weed, salt and pepper to taste.  They were tasty, but if I am going to make mashed potatoes, I always make enough for patties the next day. To make them, heat your griddle to medium and spray lightly with oil. Make the patties by hand, shaping them to about the size of a quarter-pound burger and put them on the griddle to cook. It takes about 8-10 minutes per side for them to brown to a nice crisp, more  than enough time to make the saute.

For the saute, first put 1 TBSP of olive oil in your pan and heat it medium, adding 1/4 of an onion, chopped. Add a few leaves of tarragon and 3 cloves of garlic. Add 6 oz. of ground turkey (more or less – I added 1/4 of a pkg. from the store.) After the turkey was close to done, I added 1/4 cup of white wine and started adding veggies in order of the time they need to cook. I pulled out the use it or lose it veggies on their last legs. The mushrooms were a bit dry, so I added them earlier than I usually would so they had time to soak up some juices. Here’s a hint, never store your mushrooms in plastic. Put them in a paper bag. They may dry out, but they won’t spoil and you can soak them a bit to reconstitute them and they will be fine. 

I used about 5 asparagus spears, cutting off the ends and chopping them into 1 inch lengths. A few bits were questionable so I tossed them. Putting a lid on I let that cook while I cut the squash. I had a summer squash and a zucchini that I chopped up though I only used 1/2 the zucchini as the rest was too far gone. I tossed those in and put the lid back on while I chopped up a tomato. Before adding the tomato, I added 2 TBSP of dijon mustard and stirred that in. Then I put the tomato in and put the lid on and let it simmer. It finished a bit before the patties were ready so I turned the heat down to low and kept it warm while I waited for the patties to crisp up.

When they were done, I put two on my plate with the saute. The saute actually made enough for three servings, so I stores some for later along with the extra patties I had cooked.