Wednesday, September 19, 2012

RECIPE (long overdue): Sweet and Spicy Leftover-Veggie Skillet

Sorry for the delay in posting...I've been in DISNEY!

Okay. So I know I technically haven't posted in eight weeks. Long story short, "Disney brain" is a real affliction and it starts very early for me.



I mean, in addition to my usual workload, I was very busy counting down, thinking about Mickey-shaped pretzels, brainwashing my boys*, buying Phineas & Ferb t-shirts, etc.

Now here we are, two months later, and I'm like, "Oh right. I have a blog."

So, as you may remember from previous eco-braggy posts, I joined a CSA this summer. (Did I mention I joined a CSA? Because I joined a CSA.) The upside of a CSA is good karma and a general sense of crunchy righteousness. The downside is having a fridge full of vegetables we're not familiar with, which have a very organic tendency to go bad after a few days, with complete and utter disregard for whether I feel like eating white eggplant this week.

So I needed to come up with a veggie skillet recipe STAT to make use of the leftover veggies. CSA pickup is on Friday, so the skillet usually becomes Wednesday's emergency-rotten-veggie dinner plan.


It's super easy. You'll need:

  • 1 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp ground cilantro (or 1 Tbsp fresh cilantro)
  • 1/2 tsp Papa Joe's salt (or a mix of sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder)
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a skillet.

Drop in your veggies.

Mix the spices in a bowl, and sprinkle them over the veggies until it looks pretty seasoned. Don't just dump the whole bowl in the skillet! It all depends on how many veggies you have sitting around -- you may not need the entire bowl of seasoning. No one wants to be crunching on chili powder!

Stir it all around until the veggie look cooked. That's usually about 7-10 minutes, but again, it'll depend on how many veggies you're trying to use up.

The combo of spices may sound weird, but trust me on this one.

Enjoy! The summer harvest is almost over {sniffle}**.

* "In 47 days we'll be eating breakfast with Gooooofyyyyyy!"
** That was both a mournful sniffle and the delightful sound of fall allergies. Leaves, would you just fall on the ground so I can breathe again!