I love mixed roasted veggies, esp. at this time of year, when squash and sweet potatoes are part of the mix.
The problem is I live alone. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to cut one potato, one onion, three brussels sprouts, etc., each night – also, you don’t get as big a variety of veg. If I chop up a whole lot of stuff at once, option one is to cook it all at once, then nuke the leftovers on subsequent nights. The texture on said reheats is not optimal.
It occurs to me that option two is to chop all the veg at once and keep the chopped veg in the fridge, cooking one serving per evening. Will just covering the bowl with plastic suffice to keep them from browning? Should I cover with cold water, or will they absorb that and get soggy?
I’d toss the chopped veg in oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, herbs and seasoning then put in a covered container or tied bag in the fridge.
Over the course of the week you should be able to take a good handful out each day to roast. You may find that some veg respond better to this treatment than others but none will come to any harm.
Depends on the vegetable. Cauliflower will brown slightly, broccoli won’t. Onions won’t go brown, carrots won’t brown, turnips won’t brown at first (they will after several days), potatoes will brown almost instantly, etc. winter squash won’t brown, neither will sweet potatoes.
At any rate there’s nothing wrong with vegetables that have slightly browned on the cut end. It’s just oxidation.
I think ziploc bags keep cut veggies better (they allow less fresh air to enter) but a bowl with saran wrap should be fine, as long as the bowl is more full of veggies than air.
No, I wouldn’t freeze for roasting as there’s a significant output of water from household freezing; it will be really wet. Freezing is great for veggies that will be eaten as is, or used in soups or stews where a crisp texture is not the point.
And if you do want to freeze, there’s only a few vegetables that can be frozen raw. Starchy veg like winter squash and potatoes, can only be frozen cooked. High fiber dark green veggies like broccoli, green beans, brussel sprouts, and most dark greens, should be blanched for 2 minutes in boiling water. I think enzymes somethingsomething ice crystals somethingsomething The Joy of Cooking and the Blue Book agree, so its true.
I’ve done this and it’s worked well for the short term. Olive oil and a spice blend over the cut veggies, then into the fridge for later. I don’t think I’ve ever gone past two days of storage, and it’s almost always just potatoes and sweet potatoes. They don’t brown much, in my experience. And besides, the oven is going to brown them anyway, right?
What I do more often is to make a giant batch of whatever roasted veg I like, then store the cooked stuff in the fridge for reheating over the next couple of nights. I find that if I reheat them in the oven, they turn out great. Microwave reheating works fine in a pinch but they lose the crispiness the oven gives them.
Cutting everything you mentioned except potatoes will work fine. Don’t freeze them though. Home freezers can’t get cold enough and a slower freeze results in larger ice crystals forming. These crystals then poke and break the cell walls of the veggies and when they thaw, they turn mushy.
Hard squashes and carrots will keep quite well for days on end. Softer veg like onions and peppers will keep several days. Soft veg like summer squash will keep a day or two. Potatoes will keep cut if you immerse them in water, but it will take up more space in your fridge.
I’ve thought about buying one, but wasn’t sure how much it would help keeping stuff fresh.
I had a bag sealer 25 years ago. It used boiling bags and would seal them. It wasn’t a vacuum sealer. Worked pretty good except the bag had to be perfectly clean to seal properly. I used to cook a roast and divide it up in those boiling bags and freeze them. I got rid of it after buying my first Microwave.
I just prepare all my veggies except for white potatoes and store it in large Tupperware container in the fridge. I don’t like to add the herbs, because I like to vary them, but I generally toss the veggies in the olive oil at this point. I roast enough for one night in the toaster oven and I am good to go.