Our new favorite thing to have in the ‘fridge is a big batch of grilled vegetables. They can be eaten cold as a salad, or warmed and used as a side dish or ingredient for something else – total versatility.
And reasonably healthy, as well.
Today’s batch included:
- broccoli
- cauliflower
- mini potatoes
- asparagus
- green onions
- mushrooms
- yellow zucchini
- mini peppers
- carrots
- beets
The basic is to keep them whole or in fairly large pieces, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and slowly grill until tender – taking items off the grill as they’re done. Once cooked and cooled, they get chopped into bite-sized pieces, drizzled with a bit more olive oil, and a bit of balsamic vinegar – just enough to add a bit of sweetness – not enough to mask the vegetable flavor.
From there, it’s lunch, dinner, side, or snack. Tonight, it was dinner.
We still had polenta from the other night, so I cubed it into about 1-inch cubes and lightly browned it in a skillet. I took it out and added a cubed chicken breast and cooked it until about half-done. I added an almost-ripe tomato from the garden that I chopped, along with a splash of white wine.
Next into the skillet went the grilled veggies, and when they were heated through, I stirred the polenta back in.
A bit of S&P and some chopped fresh herbs from the garden finished it off.
The only thing missing from the vegetables was coen. Gentile’s only had white corn on the cob – and I’m a yellow corn person. I really don’t care for white corn – I find it rather tasteless. I’ll see about getting a couple of ears today and adding them in…
In the meantime, we have lots of good food in the ‘fridge to get us through the week – and plenty of ideas for using it!