Empty-The-Fridge Veg Tray
We love a fridge-raid dinner for evenings when you don’t know what to cook. This recipe is brilliantly flexible, so you can adapt it based on the vegetables and spices you already have. The vegetables are roasted with a blend of spices and served with fluffy couscous. Perfect for midweek meals and prep-ahead lunches.
Introduction
We’ve all bought and been highly disappointed by the ‘Mediterranean veg ready-to-roast tray’, where the veg just disappears into thin air and everything cooks unevenly. Fear not: I am here. The beauty of this is you can shove in any spices you want to make it your own. This is my favourite way to eat them – mixed through couscous – but you can also easily transform them into a delicious soup, rice, pasta, soups, stews or curries. Make up a few of these and freeze them and you are flying.
Ingredients
| Veg (pick 3-4) | |
|---|---|
| 2 | courgettes |
| 2 | red or white onions |
| 2 | peppers |
| 1 small | butternut squash |
| ½ | cauliflower |
| 1 | sweet potatoes |
| 2 big handfuls of | new potatoes |
| olive oil | |
| Dried spice blend ideas | |
| 1: Cumin, coriander, black pepper | |
| 2: Black pepper, rosemary, oregano | |
| 3: Chilli, cumin, oregano, paprika, garlic powder | |
| 4: Fennel seeds, paprika, basil and chilli powder | |
| For the couscous | |
| 160g | couscous |
| 1 tbsp | dried spice blend |
| juice of 1 | lemon |
| Token dairy | |
| feta, yoghurt or cottage cheese |
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.
Start by chopping your veg. It’s important to consider density and size here. If you roasted diced courgette and butternut squash at the same time, what would happen? Non-existent courgette and raw butternut! So use the rangiri cut (see page 81 of Eat The Food You Buy) for the courgettes – you want big chunks, so aim to get four or five pieces out of one courgette.
Peel the onions. Keep the root intact but tidy it up. Cut each onion in half, then cut each half into four wedges, trying to cut through the root each time so it holds its shape.
I just deseed the peppers, then cut them into quarters to keep them big.
Peel the squash, then cut it in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds. Cut it into bite-sized cubes. Break the cauliflower into large florets. Dice the sweet potato and cut the new potatoes in half. If you’ve got more veg than you need, chuck a portion in the freezer for a rainy day.
Chuck all the veg into a roasting tin. Drizzle with a little oil and your chosen spice blend and give it all a good mix, then roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
Put the couscous in a heatproof bowl. Mix in another teaspoon of your chosen spice blend with a good pinch of salt and a drizzle of oil, then pour over just enough boiling water to cover the couscous. Leave for 10 minutes, until the water has all been absorbed.
Fluff up the couscous with a fork. Taste, then mix through some lemon juice. Taste again and adjust the seasoning as needed.
Plate up the couscous with the roasted veggies and something creamy like feta, yoghurt or cottage cheese.
This couscous will last for 3–5 days in the fridge and is great for lunches throughout the week.
Reviews
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