This post is part of a blog carnival called Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by Shannon at her awesome blog, Rocks In My Dryer! Join the fun by reading, commenting, and submitting your own post!
My husband attended an after-funeral gathering on Saturday while I was still out of town. At the end of the event, the hostess urged him to take home an entire, uneaten, huge, overflowing veggie tray from a big box store, complete with baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, mild peppers, and two kinds of dipping sauce. A cornucopia of crunchy, healthy goodness. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is completely full right now. We took the tray apart, separating the veggies into their own individual ziploc bags. We've been snacking on the veggies for lunch for 4 days now. I noticed that they are starting to not look quite as fresh. I decided to get creative with them and use them in recipes - why not?
Broccoli: steam in boiling, salted water for 5 minutes - should be shockingly bright green and still have a good bite to them. Toss with cooked (al dente) rotini pasta, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, pinch red pepper flakes, generous dash Tones Italian seasoning, handful parmesan cheese, dash pepper, salt if needed. My sons and husband scraped the bowl clean last night - no leftovers.
Carrots: steam in boiling water until very tender - don't you love their lovely orange hue? Mash or food processor 'til fairly smooth. Spoon into 1 cup storage containers. Freeze until you need carrots for carrot cake or winter soup. From the recipes I've looked at, you can substitute at least 1 generous cup of mashed carrots interchangeably in most carrot cake recipes. Try The Pioneer Woman's Carrot Cake - I'm going to try it today!
Cherry tomatoes: slice tomatoes in half. Add chopped scallions, finely chopped cilantro to taste. Add 1 finely chopped, seeded serrano chilie. Squeeze juice of half lime over all. Salt to taste. Awesome salsa for your eggs or top a salad with it, sprinkle with mexican cheese, crushed tortilla chip for great light lunch salad. I've also tossed this with leftover pasta, leftover chunks of chicken, chopped mild peppers (from the tray) - makes a different pasta salad.
Sugar snap peas: stir fry always works with these. I'm thinking of making fried rice for my sons for lunch today - if I chop these coarsely, I'll use in place of regular peas. Yum!
These creative twists on my veggie tray work for me - hope they work for you too!
