Roasted Vegetable Spread

  Life gets hectic this time of year.  Meetings, responsibilities, and getting ready for all the upcoming holidays and events...meal planning is something I'm going to have to invest my time in.  This week, I'm planning out my lunches.  On the menu?  Fresh salads, fruit, and sandwiches.  Right now I'm roasting off some vegetables for one of my favorite sandwich spreads, a recipe from food geek - Alton Brown.

Roasted Vegetable Spread

Ingredients

1 small zucchini, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced into rings
1 onion, sliced and seperated into rings
4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces cream cheese
salt and fresh ground black pepper

  Start by preheating your oven to 400°F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

  Take the zucchini, bell pepper, onion rings, and garlic cloves and put them in a small mixing bowl.  Drizzle the veggies with the olive oil and mix them up until all the vegetables are lightly coated in oil.  (Clean hands are awesome for this job.)  Spread them out in a single layer on your prepped pan.  Put the pan in the oven and roast the vegetables for 30-45 minutes.  The time depends completely on how thin or thickly you sliced the vegetables.  You will need to pull them out and stir them occasionally.  They will be ready when you are getting brown edges on the food.  Keep an eye on that pan - there's a fine line between roasted and burnt.  Let the vegetables cool.

  In your food processor, combine the roasted vegetables and cream cheese.  Pulse until you reached the desired consistency.  AB likes his spread slightly chunky - and so do I.  I like seeing what's in there.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:  If you are wondering which episode this recipe was featured in, it's "Sandwichcraft", season 8, episode #114. One of my favorite episodes, it was written to get families - adults and kids - together working in the kitchen.   Now before you think I'm off my rocker, no, I don't have the episode numbers memorized.  But I am a big fan with AB's new cookbook.  Being as meticulous, he has it divided by episodes with tons of info.