Yes, another recipe post from yours truly! I was, and have been, and still am, on a root vegetable kick. Never mind they’re not in season–we had some parsnips sitting in the bottom of the crisper. (Who knew you could keep ‘em that long? Not I!) So, do this and your taste buds will thank you: (PS: Bonus secret side dish recipe at the end!)
Coarsely chop all the vegetables that have been sitting in your fridge for the last 3 months. We used parsnips (about 2 small ones), carrots (about a cup), potatoes (2 medium), onions (1 medium). Toss with olive oil and Penzey’s “Northwoods Fire” seasoning (or fake it with salt, paprika, chipotle pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, rosemary and garlic). Throw into a roasting dish. Put some meat in there if you want. We had a pork tenderloin which I dug out of the freezer and used. This sounds like an abuse of meat, but the tenderloin had been in the freezer since the fall of the Roman Empire and also wasn’t that good in the first place…the manufacturers had “helpfully” soaked it in a solution of like 18% salt/preservatives/fake flavoring. So it’s not like a good piece of meat went to waste in this dish.
Anyway. Stick the whole thing in the oven at 375-400ish (our oven is totally not temperature-consistent..I think it was around there). If you are feeling energetic, sear the meat before you do this. Otherwise be lazy like me and just roast.
Our meat took 40 minutes to cook, but again, that was probably due to the oven temperature sensor not behaving. Figure about 30 minutes for a tenderloin–for other meats or cuts, use your judgment. 10 minutes before it’s done, do two things:
First, sprinkle a handful of raisins into the mix. Dried fruit is really good with pork. I don’t know why this is. Prunes would have been even better, but at Chez Scrapple we don’t often have prunes lying around.
Then, get out some kale. (This is the super-secret side dish) Chop it, get rid of the toughest stems, rinse, whatever you like to do with kale to prep. Toss with a 50/50 mixture of olive/canola oil (this per Kim O’Donnell @ Washingtonpost.com who definitely knows what she’s talking about), a little hot sauce, chopped garlic, and a handful or two of pine nuts. Put in another roasting dish and add to the oven. Ten minutes later when your meat/veg are done, the kale is done too. Unless you like it a little toasty; I’d never roasted kale before and after 15 minutes, it was done and just on this side of burnt. Which was great, but I can imagine it’s not for everyone.
If your veggies aren’t cooked through when the meat is done because you chopped them too roughly (like mine), psst, you can totally cheat. Microwave the stubborn ones with a little stock of your choice (I wanted to use pork stock, but couldn’t find our stash–so some absolutely delicious homemade chicken stock went in instead) and seriously, you won’t be able to tell the difference. Maybe picky people could, but my veggies still tasted roasted, not microwaved, even after a quick zap.
The best thing about this meal is not how easy it was (it was), or how few dishes there were to clean up (hardly any), but how, if you’re restrained with the meat, it’s an incredibly healthy dish. I stuffed myself for under 500 calories. And, as I’ve been telling folks, the freelance life is really not conducive to healthy eating. (No stairs to take instead of the elevator, no parking lot to park at the far end of…and the fridge is RIGHT. THERE. ALL. DAY.)
PS, Chris liked it too.
