I’m just getting lazier and lazier the older I get. But I’m still hungry. I don’t suppose that will ever change. So I like sheet pan meals.
For anyone who hasn’t been obsessively reading the food columns lately, sheet pan meals are just that: a dinner where the whole thing—excluding a possible salad, of course—is roasted in the oven on a sheet pan. This is particularly a great option for vegetarian meals, since all you really have to do is douse prepared veggies with olive oil, salt, any spices you feel like that evening, and spread out on a parchment paper lined sheet pan. Well, you don’t need to line the pan with parchment paper, or foil even, but it makes clean up a lot easier. And in the cold months, after everything’s cooked and eaten, I just roll the parchment paper up and stick it in the woodstove fire.
The only thing you have to be careful about with sheet pan cooking is that different veggies, and indeed, different proteins, might need different cooking times. You have to fool around with this and figure out how well done you like everything, time accordingly. My own feeling is that veggies roasted till caramelized are best, so I have a tendency to let them go the distance whatever they are. Sometimes I do half one kind on one side, and half one kind on the other.
The husband loves potatoes, so I do them this way quite a lot. For example: sliced, tossed with olive oil and preferred spices (his particular favorite recently is a Penzey’s mix called “Ethiopian blend,” but I’ve done smoky paprika to great effect as well), spread out, roasted at 425 for about 25 minutes to a half hour. Sometimes I do the same to cauliflower and put it on half the sheet with potatoes on the other half. This with a green salad makes a great meal for the two of us, especially with a hunk of cheese on the table as well.
This week: two different nights, two different sheet pan meals. First was a sneakily unvegetarian layering of potatoes, broccoli and (gasp) hot Italian sausage. The sausage goes on top, dripping its juices down onto the veggies, something even my vegetarian husband can’t resist as long as I don’t make him look the sausage too closely in the eye. I got the idea for this from a recipe I found for shelf stable gnocchi. Figuring since the husband loves potatoes in practically any form he would love gnocchi too, I cooked that one up. Halfway through the meal, he looked at his fork skeptically and said, “I don’t know why people feel the need to mess with a perfectly good potato,” so that was the end of that recipe. Except. I loved the idea. So I adapted. Like this:
For two people:
Slice two medium potatoes about a quarter inch. Any kind. Peel or not, depending on how good the peel looks to you (no sprouts or green bits!), and how much you like peel.
Toss in a large bowl with olive oil to coat.
Take a head of broccoli, about ½ or ¾ pound, wash, slice the stems thinly, break the florets into pieces about two inches long.
Toss with the potatoes. Grate one or two garlic cloves over all.
Salt. Add red pepper flakes if you’re so inclined (I am). I also added a sprinkle of granulated garlic I had handy. You may wish to do something similar.
Toss again. Spread out in one layer on a parchment paper covered sheet pan.
Then take ½ pound of Italian sausage, hot or sweet. The original recipe calls for taking off the casings and forming little meatballs that you scatter atop the veggies. But I’ve found that just cutting the sausage into whatever shape you feel like eating (quarter it, or slice it or even leave it whole after pricking the skin) works just as well. Lay these on top.
425 degree oven for 25 minutes or so. Have some grated Parmesan ready to sprinkle atop and mix in as the whole dish comes out of the oven. Squeeze a lemon quarter over all and serve with more lemon wedges and grated Parmesan. As well as more red pepper!
I love that dinner. It’s great reheated for the nonvegetarian’s lunch too. Sssshhh.
Then at the end of the week, a day before our local farm produce guy, Vicente, would arrive to sell his lavish array of veggies, I decided to clean the fridge out of the remains of the prior week’s shop.
So I pulled out the huge stainless steel bowl, and proceeded to throw in the following:
Four mushrooms, quartered.
1 onion, chunked.
Half a head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled.
1 head of broccoli, stems thinly sliced, flowerets separated into small pieces.
1 peeled carrot, sliced thinly.
A bit of red cabbage, sliced thinly.
I tossed all of this with some olive oil till coated, then with curry powder, salt, red pepper, and cayenne to taste (we like spicy, I’m sure that’s been made plain in these posts?). Laid it in a single layer on the parchment covered sheet pan.
425 degree oven. 25 minutes. It smelled wonderful. When it came out, I scattered a bunch of snipped chives atop, just because I had some, and because I like adding something green at the last minute.
We had this over jasmine rice, with dollops of Greek yoghurt and spoonfuls of mango chutney from a jar I found hiding in the back of the fridge. For a little side salad, I mixed a small diced cucumber with more Greek yoghurt, a bit of olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a smashed garlic clove. Oh, and I also had a dish of leftover fennel salad, just the bulb tossed with olive oil and lemon, snipped fronds added for extra flavor. That was nice, too. We had this spread with glasses of rose.
That was a really good dinner.
Sheet pan cooking. There are those nights where it just can’t be beat.