Vegetables: Surprisingly good for you (+recipe)
By jesslawless on May 13, 2013, in BlogThis is a slightly more nutritious meal than Skittles and a Red Bull
As a young undergraduate, I used to while away my finals week in the sweet blue glow of the vending machine in my dorm. I’d pad down to the first floor in my socks at 2 a.m., fading fast but with the fix in sight: Skittles and/or Starbursts, then some Cheetos for, you know, protein. Now, at the not-so-tender age of *cough*, I can’t look at Cheetos without bile rising in my throat. I am eating a mint Oreo as I type this, though, so all is not lost. But seriously, man cannot live on Skittles alone after the age of 25. I’ve tried it.
After a lifelong aversion to anything leafy, green or with redeeming nutritional value, I’ve discovered I actually LIKE vegetables. No qualifier–I like them. They are yummy. I spent all of last week with a bone-deep, undeniable craving for sauteed spinach. Spinach! Me! Liking spinach!
As I progress into adulthood, I find that startlingly many of the things you know you’re supposed to do but don’t are actually important. Like sleep. And exercise. It’s a dear dream of mine that I will one day write a book about the stuff you legitimately actually have to do to survive/thrive (sleep) and those you can ignore (sorting laundry by color–obviously, just don’t ever buy anything white and you’ll be fine). Vegetables will get their own chapter. Vegetables are amazing. They are filling and give you vitamins and make you kind of happy after you eat them. Vegetables/Fruit for the 2016 presidential ticket, y’all.
Easiest way to get vegetables to be edible or even delicious: Roast them. It is criminal how easy it is.
Roasted Green Beans of Deliciousness Recipe
Ingredients:
Green beans, trimmed and washed
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 450. No, really. Just do it.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil.
3. Put the green beans on it–I hope you got the ones that come already trimmed, your time is valuable!–and spread them out.
4. Drizzle olive oil over the beans. Don’t sweat it if they don’t all get covered. This ain’t rocket science.
5. Put salt and pepper on the beans, to taste.
6. Put the baking sheet in the oven.
7. After 15 minutes, use a spatula to move the beans around and get them all rolled into some olive oil. I would not recommend completing this step while the baking sheet is still in the oven.
8. After another 15 minutes, turn the beans again.
9. If you don’t like charcoal-y food, somewhere in the neighborhood of now, you should get the beans out of the oven and eat them. If you do like very burned things, give it 15-20 more minutes and delicious charred green beans shall be yours.