So there's nothing more delicious, say, than a tart, juicy minneola. Or a nice hard kiwi, with plenty of fuzz to make it sour. But I can barely stand to put a too-sweet, somewhat dried out elderly orange segment in my mouth, and as for mushy, ripe kiwi...forgeddaboudit.
roasted fruits and veggies, 05apr21, oneplus, natural light; cropped Oil & carmelization makes for a relatively appealing look for a food shot.
At the same time, I detest wasting food, especially knowing so many people haven't enough to eat. Besides the fact that it wastes money, and worse (in my view at least) the labour of people who pick the fruit I eat: the least I can do is honour their efforts[1]
marinated onion and ginger slices.
Roasting, besides adding more interesting flavours (& let us be honest here, more fat) can make veggies soft, or sometimes chewy (generally, a more appealing texture.) I already have roasted peppers and tomatoes, which are both fruits, and this was a good way of making less-than-perfectly-fresh-textured ones tasty.
asparagus, marinated & ready to go into the oven. Same basic idea, except the asparagus cooks up faster if they're this thin.
So, when faced with blood oranges that someone else had lovingly gone to a lot of trouble to purchase for me, and which weren't super appealing when I got them, let alone after ignoring them somewhere between a fortnight and a month, why not try roasting them too?
Assorted fruit & veg, ready to roast.
Aaaaaand, amazingly enough it worked. For my taste buds, anyway. Tried it again...and it was still yummy. So here's an ingredient list, with approximate amounts[2] ; note that the last 4 ingredients combine acid, sugar, salt & oil:
- orange, peeled into sections, with pith threads & other mouthfeel icky stuff removed
- elderly kiwi, sliced (ends removed)
- half a videlia type onion, cut into eighths
- 6–8 garlic cloves, peeled
- 4–5 ginger slices
- peels from one lemon
- juice from half of one, too
- 1–2 t molassus
- 1 T soy sauce
- 1-2 T olive oil
method:
- assemble marinade, fruit & veges in sealable container
- let sit 12–24 hours, shaking or upending occasionally to distribute marinade
- Bake in 400 degree oven until everything starts to carmelize. Er, 15–25 min?
- place orange segments or onion pieces atop lemon peels to keep them from blackening.
- arrange the largest or wettest pieces along rim of baking sheet, where things cook faster.
For the asparagus, sub maple syrup for the molassus, add dried kung pao peppers for the ginger—otherwise basically the same.
[1]Besides, yanno, voting them better working conditions and wages, and other obvious things. I don't suppose my ‘thoughts and prayers’ mean anything more than those to animals supposedly thanked before slain, or the Japanese custom of thanking broken tools for their service—though that too resonates.
[2]Because it was basically dump a bit of this or a glug of that...
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
