Roasted Broccoli and Beyond

There's something comforting about a traditional-looking plate, you know, the protein (in the non-veg world: meat) surrounded by sides, or topped with sauces, served up hot, by mom of course.

Well, mom lives a couple hundred miles away, and you won't find meat anywhere near my plate, but this roasted broccoli, chickpea cutlet and mushroom gravy dinner has me thinking I should ask to be excused from the table when I'm finished to go watch an hour of educational television before bed. Plus, I didn't even have to make it this time, my lovely roomie did all the work, and I got to sit back and enjoy the fruits (rather veggies and legumes) of her labor.

The chickpea cutlets and mushroom gravy are from Veganomicon, a brainchild of Isa and Terry over at the Post Punk Kitchen. If you haven't tried any of their recipes or books, you should. Seriously, these ladies know how to craft some delicious vegan eats.

That leaves us with the side to end all sides...

Roasted Broccoli

Ingredients:

Broccoli (1 medium crown per person)

Olive oil

Sea salt

Optional: lemon juice, garlic, nutritional yeast

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425
2. Cut the broccoli into bite size florets
3. Put the broccoli on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil (you don’t HAVE to do this, but clean up from roasting broccoli can be a pretty tough task without it.) and drizzle with olive oil, tossing a little to distribute it.
4. Add salt to taste (err on the side of caution here, you can always add more later, and well done broccoli is pretty flavorful and a little salty all on it’s own.)
5. Spread out broccoli so it’s not crowded (if it’s packed into the sheet it’ll end up steaming more than roasting. Use more than one pan if you need to.)
6. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes, stir and roast an additional 15-20 minutes. It’s done when the edges are a little blackened. If you want a boost of B vitamins or a little bit of a cheezy taste toss with nutritional yeast when it’s done. Serve immediately.

Optional: After adding the olive oil, for lemony roasted broccoli sprinkle with lemon juice, for garlicy broccoli toss with minced garlic.

Be sure to let this cook all the way. You’re probably going to want to take it out when the edges just start to get golden but trust me, let them get pretty dark (figure ¼-1/3 should be dark brown or black) to really bring out the flavor. The broccoli in the picture probably could have used a bit more time in the oven, but we were hungry!

Even if you don’t think you like broccoli, if you haven’t had it roasted before try it, it may just change your mind.