fun with veggies

In an effort to eat more vegetables, I tried a few new recipes over the past week and I loved every one of them.  I even have high hopes that maybe one day my husband will also partake in one or two of these.  :o)

First, baked zucchini sticks with sweet onion dip.  This one is a bit more labor-intensive than what I normally do, but totally worth it.  The dip tastes better after at least an hour in the fridge, too.  The recipe for this can be found here.

Next, roasted green beans with parmesan.  This recipe is SO simple.  Roasting the green beans makes them nice and crispy, and really, not so much like green beans anymore.  And even parmesan cheese from a can is crazy-delicious after it gets all browned in the oven.  I ate these with leftover sweet onion dip and it was almost like eating a snack version of green bean casserole.  YUM.  You can find the green bean recipe here.

Finally, baked squash chips.  No kidding.  A friend at church has a garden, so yesterday a bag of yellow squash was up for grabs.  I got three small ones and decided to try this recipe today.  The trick is to use a cooler oven (200 degrees) and just leave them in there for 2 or 3 hours (mine took around 2 and a half).  So they're super simple to prepare, it's just a waiting game until they're done.  They're worth the wait though because they really do get crispy like normal chips.  They just shrink a lot, so the amount you see in that picture was seriously from three squashes (and of course I ate all of them!).  Next time I'm going to season them better; I was paranoid about putting TOO much salt on them, but I don't think I put enough on there.  I might try some pepper or garlic powder next time too!  You can find the recipe here.

I'm very excited about these new recipes and how well they turned out.  Even if they take a little work beforehand, they're worth it if only to help me eat a little better.  Enjoy!