Wednesday's GHI: Toaster Oven & Roasted Root Veggie Recipe

So you guys know how by now that being frugal is the name of the game for me. I try to save money wherever I can without feeling like I'm sacrificing. If it's worth the splurge, I'm all for it (I'm looking at you truffle salt), but if there's a cheaper alternative that doesn't feel like a sacrifice, you better believe I'm jumping on that.

Enter: toaster oven. When we were putting together our wedding registry, I knew that I wanted a toaster oven instead of just a regular pop-up bread toaster. At the time, I was really just thinking about the dinky little toaster oven that I grew up using (no offense Mom) that we would use to make cheesy bread as an after school snack, and I later started to use to make my decadent garlic bread recipe. It was this teeny little thing with heating elements on top and bottom, and my mom would put a piece of whole wheat bread in there with a slice of cheddar cheese, she'd cut up an apple, and voila - after-school snacks were served.

But in doing my research for our registry, I found that toaster ovens have come a very long way. And I found a model from Breville that I absolutely adore - it's their compact model, since we don't have a lot of counter space, but it's a full-feature design. The only thing it doesn't have is convection or pressure-cooking features, which I'm totally fine with. It has a bunch of settings, but the ones I use the most are toast, bake, broil, bagel, and defrost. It has two racks which can hold a lot of bread if I were to use it just for toast in the morning for a large crowd. But what it has that I love is a great bake / broil feature.

This is where we get into my frugality. It takes significantly less energy to heat up that little metal box to 350* than it does to heat up our standard-sized oven. And the energy is much more efficient - it's electricity through high efficiency heating elements vs. our gas oven. It also cooks more evenly and doesn't have as drastic of hot/cold spots as our gas oven does. So whenever I possibly can, I opt to use my toaster oven to bake rather than the conventional oven. I would say that I use the toaster oven more than 75% of the time I need to bake something. And this size oven is JUST big enough to fit a standard 12-inch frozen pizza (yes, we eat frozen pizzas every now and then... we're human too). I cook everything in there including meat and/or veggies I'm roasting, any type of broiling that needs to be done, desserts I'm baking (it's perfect to throw on just a couple of cookies, or bake up a quick cobbler to use fruit that's about to turn mushy). It fits my 8x8 glass pyrex baking dish and came with a broiling pan that I can use too. The cases where I'd opt for the regular oven instead of the toaster oven are if what I'm cooking is too big (either a roast, or anything in a 9x13 or one of my big gratin dishes), or if I need a dry heat. The gas oven provides a dryer heat because there's more circulation with the extra air that fills the big space, and the flames help it remain more dry. One example is if I'm making croutons, I'll most likely use the regular gas oven. But most of the recipes I've posted on the blog so far that were done in the oven have used the toaster oven.

The moral of the story is that I recommend a good toaster oven. You'll likely use it more than you think you will, it will simplify your time in the kitchen, and it will potentially save you money on your energy bills.

The recipe that I want to feature in my toaster oven is a Roasted Root Veggie Medley. It's super simple, but crazy healthy - tons of antioxidants, and lots of vitamins in the rich colored veggies!

Ingredients:
2 large beets - peeled and cubed
1 large sweet potato - scrubbed and cubed with peel left on
2 carrots - peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths (you can halve the lengths if they're too big), or ~1.5 cup baby carrots, halved
2 tbsp coconut oil
salt & pepper to taste

• Put the 2 tbsp of coconut oil into the bottom of your roasting pan, and put it in the oven while it's preheating to 400* and while you prep the other veggies
• After the veggies are cut and the oil is melted, toss the veggies in the pan with the oil to coat evenly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss together again
• Bake at 400* for about 45 minutes or until roasted, fork-tender, and browning on the outsides (take out the pan and mix up the veggies at least once during roasting)

Parmesan Crusted White Fish

I told you guys that I have 3 seafood recipes... one Asian-inspired, one Italian inspired for Salmon, and one Italian inspired for white fish. Here's the white fish recipe!!

It's a Parmesan "Crusted" Tilapia inspired from a recipe I found on Sparkpeople.com, which is a health and wellness website. The crust is in quotes because it's not a crunchy crust with any type of breading, it's more of just a Parmesan layer. Call it what you will, it's delicious.

The ingredients for the "crust" are:

~1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp softened butter

1.5 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp celery salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

(optional) Granulated garlic to taste

1/2 - 1 lb. fillets of any white fish (tilapia, sole, flounder, trout, snapper, etc.)

1. Preheat your broiler. Put aluminum foil on a baking sheet and spray with nonstick cooking spray

2. Combine all ingredients except the fish and set aside.

3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat; flip fillets, and coat with the prepared Parmesan cheese mixture. Broil until golden and bubbly and the fish flakes easily with a fork. Avoid overcooking the fish! Use trial and error in your oven (or toaster oven in my case) - for mine, I actually do not pre-cook the fish, I just coat them with the topping and broil. But try it out for yourself and see how quickly your oven cooks it!

I hope you enjoy. Please leave your comments below!

I had some sole fillets in my freezer so that's what we used!

Starting from the top going around clockwise: Parmesan cheese, black pepper, celery salt, onion powder, dried basil, butter, mayonnaise

I top my fillets before baking. This time they were teeny fillets and I actually had to layer 2 of 3 on top of each other to get a piece of the size I wanted that would make sense to crust. If you're working with good sized fillets, follow directions above until you know how your oven cooks.

Delicious golden crust

Flowers from my overgrown sage

Herb Crusted Salmon in Parchment

I am a sucker for good seafood. I tend to travel to places where seafood is a staple dish - Greece, Hawaii, Costa Rica, San Francisco, etc. The problem is, I don't get very creative when cooking it myself. I'm solid in terms of crustacean recipes, but when it comes to fish, I have three recipes - two for salmon (one Italian-inspired, one Asian-inspired), and one for any white fish (parmesan crust that will be featured very soon). So here's the Italian salmon one.

I chatted up the fish monger at Whole Foods and picked out a beautiful piece of salmon. Whole foods can be expensive if you do all your shopping there, but I go there for any animal I'm going to eat. When it comes to animal protein, I am way more concerned with quality, organic, local when possible than I am about produce. I also am a huge environmentalist, and the factory farm industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gases and why our planet is falling apart. So I appreciate the fact that Whole Foods cares about sustainability and sources most of its products from organizations that care about that too. Yes it's more expensive, but totally worth it to me. And plus, since it's more expensive, we tend to ration it out a bit more which is not a bad thing from a nutrition and environmental perspective. Replacing animal protein with veggie protein a few times a week is a GREAT way to keep your body detoxed and help keep your liver and GI tract healthy. 

Additionally, re-read the first sentence of the last paragraph... one of my favorite things about Whole Foods is how knowledgeable the staff are in their respective departments. The conversations I've had with the butchers, fromagers, and fish mongers are miles above what I feel like I could get out of the staff at most other grocers. So when I have questions or need to talk before making a purchase, it's ALWAYS Whole Foods for me.

Ok... to the "recipe." And again, we already learned how I write "recipes" - there isn't really any measuring. I took pictures of each step this time though, so you could follow along.

My ingredients: Sodium-free Italian Seasoning blend, dried basil, granulated garlic, salt, pepper, lemon slices, and olive oil. In a perfect world, I would have used several cloves of fresh cut garlic, but it was 8:30pm and I was hungry so I went with the quick stuff. Still delish.

Here's the order to sprinkle them all on the salmon: Salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic (granulated or fresh), basil, Italian seasoning. I just do a couple of drizzles - not a lot. Salmon is a very fatty fish to begin with, though it's amazing healthy fats that your body needs and that are necessary for proper neural activity and also good for your eyes. So don't over-do the oil, you're basically just putting a little bit on so that the herbs stick to the salmon. You could even use an olive oil cooking spray if you wanted. And as for the herbs, you can see the thickness of the "crust" that I use.

Then layer the lemon slices on top of the salmon like so...

And fold the parchment around the salmon to make a packet. Do your best oragami so that the parchment is actually sealed. The point is that as the fish cooks and gets hot, the parchment traps in the steam, and your fish basically steams. This keeps it moist and flaky and delicious. So use a lot of parchment - then fold two sides towards the middle, hold them together up above the fish, then roll down towards the fish till sealed. Then crimp in both open sides to fully seal.

Cook at between 375 - 400 for ~20-25 minutes. Depends on your oven and on the size of the piece of salmon. Warning - if you have any loose edges on the parchment (like I had here), IT WILL SMOKE in the oven! So either tuck in all loose ends, or go for 375 and a slightly longer time.

To test if the salmon is done, stick a fork right in the middle. It should flake away pretty easily. If you got a good quality salmon, please don't cook it to death... if the middle is slightly darker than the edges, that's ok. And probably preferred.

I meant to get a picture of it completed and unwrapped, but I was starving and forgot. So here's the skin in the cooked parchment after removing the flesh and portioning it out.

My serving - about 5 ounces. I love fresh lemon on my seafood, because it helps me use less salt, which is my weakness! Less sodium = less water retention!

It always comes out so incredibly moist, flaky, and delicious!

Because I can't just have salmon, we made a quick salad with whatever veggies we had in the fridge. Romaine lettuce, yellow peppers, onions, kalamata olives. Dressing is always the same: red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, granulated garlic. Dress lightly, toss, taste, adjust ingredients, toss, taste, repeat until delicious.