It makes my vegetarian heart happy to start a pantry eating challenge with a fridge full of fresh veggies.  And it makes me worry about 2 weeks from now when there will not be so many fresh veggies left.  That’s what creativity is for, eh?  Until then, I can celebrate a great Meatless Monday day of meals!

A lunch for two in the pantry-eating-challenge used lasagna from the freezer and tons of roasted veggies.  We split one piece of lasagna and then enjoyed roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, and onion.  The veggies were roasted with a homemade “dressing” of maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, and olive oil with a dash of salt, pepper, and thyme.  I tossed the veggies with the dressing in a 9×13 glass pan and stuck it in a 375° oven for about 30 minutes or so, until they were just starting to caramelize.

Dinner eating out of the pantry didn’t look entirely different.  The leftover orange vegetables were put in a glass bowl.  To them, I added beets that were roasted in some lemon olive oil with a sprinkling of salt and garlic powder.

I also roasted a diced bulb of fennel and some brussel sprouts from the farmers market.  They got tossed with a similar balsamic vinegar and maple syrup dressing as the orange veggies from lunch and roasted in the same oven for about 25 minutes.  The brussel sprouts were delicious.  I actually ate about 1/3 of them before they ever made it to the salad.

It must be about done, right?  What else could the girl roast?!  Don’t worry, it’s almost done.  To the bowl of delicious roasted vegetables I added some black beans, cooked quinoa, and chopped parsley.  We drizzled some prepared honey balsamic dressing over the whole mess, stirred it up, and dug in.  Yum.

So what’s the moral of the story kids?  Any roasted veggies mixed with some kind of bean, and some kind of grain, with a bit of dressing, is awesome.  And it uses extra beans and grains you might have hanging out in your cupboards.  And extra salad dressing in your fridge.  Condiments gotta go.