I feel like I’ve been eating a lot of soup lately, and getting a little bored.  I am not really craving salads either.  But I have to bring more vegetables into my diet somehow to balance holiday indulgences.

I decided to roast a big batch of vegetables this week, and luckily found some good sales on produce.  I bought an onion, zucchini, carrots, baby bella mushrooms, trimmed green beans, and grape tomatoes.  Most of these aren’t seasonal or local, but some days you just do the best you can.

Sometimes I use a soup mix packet to season the vegetables prior to roasting.  But that seemed silly since I have a well-stocked spice cabinet.  I did some Internet research, found a few good recipes, compared the ingredients to the spices I had on hand, and ended up with the recipe below.  I was able to use at least one local ingredient; the honey is from a beekeeper that I know personally!

After being roasted for almost an hour, the vegetables had a very rich flavor, and the juice from the mushrooms and tomatoes created a sauce.  Although the recipe contains a touch of cinnamon and honey, the sweet taste is very faint, and just offsets the spiciness of the chili powder and cayenne.

You can serve the vegetables (with a slotted spoon!) alongside any meal, or you could mix them into a dish of whole wheat pasta.  I am sure they would also be good on top of whole wheat pizza dough, or perhaps a baked potato.  The possibilities are endless, and it feels good to have a dish of vegetables that I’ll be happy to dig into all week long.

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Vegetables

1 Vidalia onion, peeled and sliced
2 zucchini, cut into 1″ cubes
1 (8 oz.) package baby bella mushrooms, cleaned
2 pints grape tomatoes
8 oz. baby carrots
2 T olive oil
1 T honey
1 t chili powder
1/2 t coriander
1/2 t paprika
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t cayenne pepper

Place vegetables in a large bowl.  Add oil and honey, and stir to coat.  In a small bowl, mix spices.  Toss spices with vegetables, and stir to coat.

Place in a large baking dish coated with cooking spray, and bake at 400F for 50-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.   (The best way to roast vegetables is in a single layer; inevitably I always have too many vegetables for that though!)

• sides