#I threw some oregano and red pepper flakes on top though because that's what I had

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Focaccia watch has ended

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Unpinned - One Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies

New year, new blog post. As I sit here eating my chicken kielbasa leftovers, I’m inspired to reflect on my hopes and dreams for the months ahead. To say that the end of 2018 was a bit hectic and difficult would be…lacking. There were a number of days when I didn’t eat a single meal at home. There was a whole week when I didn’t spend more than an hour awake in my own apartment. I was working 14 hour shifts, drinking a whole lot of coffee, and enjoying an unhealthy amount of takeout. So here we are, dear friends - finally fancy free and ready to be a human again! Which brings us to:

A really lazy first recipe attempt! No but seriously, I read this over once and didn’t even bother to look at it as I cooked. Here’s my attempt at a barely-referenced version of Chelsea’s colorful One Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies

Verdict: Is the Pintrest photo complete bullshit? - Not really, no

Is it crazy expensive/time consuming/confusing? - Nope!

Does it taste good? - It’s fine! I mean, slap a little sriracha on there and it’s pretty good, otherwise it tastes like healthy food.

One Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies

Ingredients

2 cups (~1 small) red potato

¾ths pound green beans

1 large head of broccoli (~ 1 and ½ cups)

1 and ½ cups chopped bell peppers 2 large or 6-7 mini sweet bell peppers

9 ounces smoked sausage I use turkey or chicken, not ground sausage

6 tablespoons olive oil

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes optional

1 teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried parsley

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Serve with: fresh parsley, quinoa/rice, lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Line a large sheet pan with foil or parchment paper.

Prep the veggies: chop the red potatoes (pretty small pieces here so they will be tender in time), trim the green beans and halve (see video above recipe), chop the broccoli, chop the peppers into thick squares, and coin the sausage in thick slices.

Place all the veggies and sausage on a sheet pan. Pour the olive oil and all the spices on top. Toss to evenly coat all the veggies and meat.

Bake 15 minutes, remove from the oven and flip/stir all the veggies around. Return to the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until vegetables are crisp tender and sausage is browned.

If desired, sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan cheese over the veggies and sausage as soon as they come out of the oven.

Enjoy with rice or quinoa and fresh parsley if desired.

I was feeling like a bit of a trash monster due to all the not eating anything healthy stint, so my only criteria for this meal was a) vaguely healthy and b) easy, so once I saw the words ‘one pan’ and ‘broccoli’ I was sold. Reading up about Chelsea on her blog I appreciated that she actually studied health/nutrition and didn’t write eight paragraphs about Jesus (no dis to those who love reading about the Lord’s blessings on a food blog, it’s just not my jam). Bonus points for meeting my three-word-title criteria.

So this isn’t exactly everything you need - I also grabbed a bag of carrots and threw a few in there, and you’ll notice a startling lack of cheese in this photo. It was not until three days later, while eating this dish as leftovers and writing up this blog, that I realize I completely forgot about the cheese element. Clearly all that overtime in December broke something in me. How could I forget the cheese. How.

Chop your big broccoli into little broccoli.

Chop your big onion into little onions. Chop your little garlic into even littler garlic. Drown all of the above in olive oil, aka nectar of the cooking gods.

The recipe calls for red potatoes, but Allan had grabbed a bag of mixed potatoes from the store so I just pulled out and used the ones that were vaguely in the red color family. Side note: there’s rice cooking in my beloved $5 CVS rice cooker in the background, but it’s SUPER SPECIAL rice, because it’s being cooked entirely in freshly made turkey stock that I made from my grandma’s leftover Thanksgiving bones. Awwww yis.

Chop them into what you think are small enough pieces and drown in olive oil.

Realize there’s no way in hell those potatoes are gonna roast through at that size, so after carefully arranging them on your pan, go back and take every single one off individually to cut it in half again.

Ahh, much better. Tiny ‘tatoes.

Since your guy doesn’t like peppers and your pan is a little lacking in color, chop up a handful of baby carrots and add them to the mix. This is really going off the rails though, because everyone knows that carrots are some of the hardest veggies on the block. By adding them in place of gentle, soft peppers, will I doom my dish to undercooked failure?!

Don’t forget your green beans! They’re annoying as heck to trim, aren’t they? Stupid little buggers, each a different length, slightly bendy, impossible to line up and chop all at once. Who do they think they are, anyway?

Admire your pan of raw ingredients after slicing your turkey kielbasa - it almost looks like edible food! Pat yourself on the back! You chopped a bunch of raw things and mixed them together!

MAGICALLY COOKED FOOD!

Now the point of this recipe was to make up lunches for the week, so line up all your matching take-out containers and fill ‘em up with special Thanksgiving-reborn rice, leftover spinach (and/or raw cherry tomatoes when you realize you don’t have enough spinach) and your beautiful sausage veggies. BAM. Three days of lunches for us!

Relax with your stuffed animals and a whiskey sour, you earned it.

Final final verdict: Silly easy, fairly healthy, and a good base for meal prep. 10/10 will lazily make again.