Fresh Assorted Fried / Roasted Vegetables

In my last post, I showed you how to make my Salsa Meatloaf, and on the plate I had my favorite fresh roasted vegetables.  My family loves these, with any meal, and they taste so different from any other vegetable serving, that they are gone right away!

In this vegetable dish, I have many vegetables!  Keep in  mind, these are all FRESH veggies, nothing from a can!  Zucchini, carrots, yellow pepper, red pepper, onions and some spices, that's it! 

If I had had other fresh veggies on hand, I would have used them, too!  These are just what I had on hand at the moment.  Sometimes I use tomatoes, or broccoli, or celery.  Anything will work, as long as you like them!  What I find, is that when I use all these different veggies together, my kids will try them and find that they really do like them.  So, they'll eat more, and that's great!

To begin with, I chopped my carrots, and cooked them in water briefly, just to soften them up a bit.  I knew everything else I was using would cook quickly, and the carrots would take longer, so I wanted to cook them up and soften them a bit.

Not long, just a few minutes!

Next, I chopped the rest of the vegetables I would be using.

Make them into big chunks, not small.  You want something to bite into!

 I took out some chunked zucchini from my freezer and let it thaw (this just took a few minutes)

Pour some olive oil in your frying pan.  About 2 Tbsp. I had some minced garlic and I put that in the oil.  To this I added the onions and peppers in the pan, on a med/high heat and gave them a quick fry...stirring as they fried, until they were nice and browned on one side. 

The carrots were added next, and I kept stirring until they also were browning nicely.  Last, I added the zucchini.  This was because they were the softest vegetable (remember I took them out of the freezer), so they would take the shortest amount of time to cook.

I shook on some Lemon Pepper Seasoning, and some pepper (because I love pepper!).  Then I served on the dinner plates:

This is so easy, and quick, and it's a great way to use up your vegetables!  Serve it over rice, and you don't even need to have a meat (we love it this way, too!).

Let me know if you try this, and how you like it and  if you add anything to yours!

Enjoy!!

Leftover Vegetables

Who doesn't have leftover vegetables after suppers? 

We always seem to have some, no matter the amount.  Instead of throwing them away (wasteful), I have something that I do to use them up that I thought I'd share.  After supper tonight, we had some peas left over, and since there weren't really enough to add to the 2 meals I made from the meal leftovers, I added them to my "vege bowl".

My bowl isn't anything fancy, just a butter bowl I use over and over.  Anything would do. 

Each time I have veges left over after a meal, I simple add them to the bowl. 

After the bowl is full, I made homemade vegetable soup!  Yum!  The butter, and seasonings I add to my veges when I cook them, really add to the flavor of the soup, too!
So far in this bowl, I have corn, beans and peas.

Try it, tell me what you think!

Leftovers

Something that is really frustrating to me is having to clean out the fridge.  Oh, yeah...... and finding tons of once good leftovers now shriveling away and to the point of disgust.  Relate, anyone? 

When I think of how much I have thrown away, it's not a happy thought.  Remember your parents telling you about those starving children in China who would love to have your food?  I have friends who right now have just returned from Haiti where they are in the process of adopting 2 children.  They have been to Haiti 3 times now, and the stories they can tell about those kids who actually are hungry all the time, is so incredibly sad.  I'd love to have them all over for dinner and fatten their little bellies up, that's what!

But, since I can't really do that, I can at least take care of my leftovers and do right by them, right?

Obviously we aren't the quickest or the best at eating up left over food, and I have taken action.  Now, after supper, I package up the leftovers into meal size dishes and freeze them for later.  I do have a food saver and use it quite often, but hadn't used it for this purpose before.  Since I don't plan on keeping these meals in the freezer for long, I find that the cheapo Glad containers are fine and suit my need just fine.  Also, I used some tv dinner trays that I had.

This is our last meal I froze:

Marinated Chicken, Seasoned Rice, and Baked Beans

 Yummy.

I filled each little compartment of these little tv trays for the kids':

Then I covered with aluminum foil, wrote on the top what's inside:

 I have enough different meals like this frozen in the freezer, that a few different nights we can all have "Homemade TV Dinners"!!  How great is that?  Each of us will pick out which meal we want, I can pop them into the microwave and Voila!  supper is served.

Now that's the kind of easy I like.