Ever since Thanksgiving, I’ve been obsessed with baked vegetables. My friends Ece and Sofia made ~friendsgiving~ dinner for a bunch of us that weekend. Their spread included the most perfectly seasoned baked brussels sprouts, squash and etc. It’s just so easy to make and I’m not sure if it’s healthy but what’s more important is that it feels healthy right? Haha.
I’m no chef, but I’ve made baked vegetables of different sorts a few times now, with different combinations of ingredients and I’m still in love every single time I make it. First, I made red potatoes, broccoli, red onions and some leftover peppers I had from sweet and sour fish. I chose red potatoes because I feel like they’re tastier? Also, potato skins are amazing. You probably already know this but you shouldn’t peel the skins off, they make the potatoes taste better.
All you have to do is chop up the vegetables, put them in a bowl, drizzle some olive oil over it, sprinkle some seasoning on top (I used salt, black + white pepper and my fav paprika), add fresh rosemary and thyme then mix it with your hands (just because it’s funner that way). It’s so unbelievably easy and IT TASTES BETTER THAN IT LOOKS, I SWEAR.
The next time, I made broccoli and onions because I felt that the potatoes—even though they were the most delicious—were a bit too heavy. I added some tomatoes instead. Same procedure, and voilà.
In all honesty, I would have liked the tomatoes to be a little more charred but I guess I don’t know how to do that/should have kept them in longer? (lmk if you know. I can already imagine that my mom will respond to this with a report of a thorough Google search haha)
The evening before I left for break, I needed to use up one last sorry potato so I made baked potatoes but I was out of fresh rosemary so I used dried rosemary and it was good but it just wasn’t the same. The flavour wasn’t as strong and most importantly, it didn’t make my whole apartment smell of rosemary. BUT. I love potatoes in all forms. So it was still good.
Today, I made kale chips! I have always loved kale, especially with quinoa and Sweetgreen’s spicy cashew dressing, ugh, so good. But yeah, I always knew people sold kale chips and I know they’re pretty easy to make, I just never made them. Then over break, my friend Qamarina and I had dinner together and we shared a small kale salad and she said she loves baked kale chips and told me how to make them. So when I got back to Penn, I knew that would be one of the first things I’d make.
It’s the same concept: drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and paprika and bake for 20 mins. I actually thought it would be more complicated than this but it wasn’t. I don’t quite love the smell of kale in my apartment but the kale chips themselves tasted amazing and I’m still munching on them as I write this.
Downside of kale chips: you have to floss before you speak to anyone after. Hahaha. I ate them for lunch and then was 5 mins late to a meeting because I didn’t budget enough time for flossing. I did a quick mirror check before going out and was horrified lol. Crisis averted.
Anyway. I can’t believe I made a whole post on my baked vegetable endeavors. But I just can’t recommend them highly enough. GO MAKE THEM. AND FLOSS. BYE.
Dayana Writes 
THESE LOOK AMAZING.
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