{win win win} How To: Simultaneously Clean out Your Fridge, Get Your Vitamins, and Shrink your Muffintop

Want to get rid of all that skanky produce in your CSA box or bottom fridge drawer? Want to get all your vitamins and minerals in one meal? Want to shrink your muffintop? Boy, have I got good news for you. Here’s how it works:

Heat your oven to 350. Put a piece of foil or parchment on a rimmed baking sheet. Add peeled and roughly chopped root vegetables like carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes, rutabagas, etc. They can be kind of gnarly and skanky and overripe–it’s OK! Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Now, add softer vegetables, like onions, tomatoes, leeks, and garlic cloves. (I used way overripe, mushy, squirty, bruised tomatoes, that I would otherwise have had to throw away.) Drizzle with oil again and salt and pepper again. Roast for another 30 minutes to an hour, until vegetables are soft and starting to brown.

Pick up the foil and slide all the vegetables into a big soup pot. Add 4 to 8 cups of vegetable stock, salt, pepper, any herbs you have (like parsley or thyme) and bring to a boil. Boil for about 10 minutes. Let cool and puree in a blender until pretty smooth. You can eat it as a soup…

Or, you can use it as a healthy pasta sauce. Just add some of the pasta water and some of the soup to the pan with the pasta and saute for a few minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan and add chili flakes, chopped fresh sage, or cumin.

Clean fridge, check – loads of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and so forth, check – and if you eat this often enough, I guarantee your pants will feel looser in a couple of weeks!