There were some good tips in the video, but are people really hand-turning over every single potato wedge or carrot slab? That part seemed overly finicky.
I’ve gotten pretty laissez-faire about it the past couple years but my fool-proof technique is:
Put my big cast iron skillet in the oven and set the oven to preheat to 450
While the oven preheats, prep the veggies.
For each lb of veggies, mix 1 T olive oil to 1 T spices/salt in a large bowl, then dump the chopped/sliced/wedged veggies in and toss to coat. (I can fit about 1 lb in my largest skillet without crowding)
Toss the oiled and seasoned veggies in the hot skillet. Give them a jiggle/flip after 15 minutes then check starting around 15 minutes later. (Or, if I’m lazy, just set the oven to turn off after the second 15 minutes and let them sit in there until you’re ready. They mainly just get better.)
Amen. I realized last summer that I don’t even need to peel them. If my bananas are getting on the edge of over-ripe and I’m not ready to use them, I just toss them in the freezer as is. When I want a smoothie, I just peel and break in half then add the other ingredients to the blender. They still peel just fine, IME. And agreed - freezing the bananas makes the smoothies creamier.
Life has got better since I learned about parboiling roast potatoes. I give them a 20 (edit - “minutes”) boil before they go into the oven, and wonder if I should step it up a bit more.
We just made potatoes like that a couple nights ago. Boiled some small ones until done, smashed them, sprayed with oil, and sprinkled with whatever seasoning we had and parmasean cheese.
The step you’re missing is to coat them in fat after the parboiling. Put them into a bowl, add a bit of salt and your favourite kind of fat (duck fat, goose far, butter, olive oil, schmaltz, or whatever else you want/have on hand) and vigorously shake to coat the potatoes and also to fluff them up into a fat and potato paste that covers the pieces and turns into crispyness in the oven.
I’m sure you’ve already guessed that the recipe is amenable to creative (and practical) additions. Here’s my typical every-other-day workout (weights and cardio) smoothie. Yes, it’s packed with calories (~1500, last I checked), but my workout days (in the early evening) involve very light, healthy lunches, and this smoothie replaces my dinner. Play with the ingredients’ quantities; as with my cooking, I eyeball everything:
What you do is you take cream top yogurt, skim the cream off the top, strain what’s left and thicken with skim milk powder. Voila, zero fat content, but thick. It’s kind of powdery too, unfortunately, but there you go. Typically, Greek yogurt here in Canada made the traditional way has 6% milk fat.
Chinese cooking, esp. Cantonese cooking, had known this for hundreds of years. Cantonese call it “wok-hei” 鑊氣, or “breath of the wok”, which is basically the high heat you get from the food when it’s been stir-fried with a wok. It’s just not the same using (relatively) low-heat ranges at home using a pan or a skillet.
Oh jeez. Damn typing fingers. 20 minutes, and given that the more broken up they are the more chance there is for crunchy bits, I think one could extend that by a fair bit.
