Hello food lovers near and far! I hope your day is off to a wonderful start or has been pretty fantastic, wherever you are in the world.
So, you know how lately I’ve been obsessed with making big ol’ one pot vegan meals lately? Yeah, well apparently that’s not what’s happening today. For some reason I decided that I wanted smashed potatoes because, let’s face it, smashed potatoes are awesome.
But also they are kind of a lot of work in this heat. You have to boil’em and then let them cool before you smash’em and and bake them until crispy. Okay so it’s not that much work, but it’s more than I’d ever want to do…unless I really wanted smashed potatoes.
Which I did.
Apparently.
But you know what else I really wanted? Roasted carrots. I even picked through the carrot bin in the produce aisle in search of the perfect roasting size carrots for this particular occasion, so it’s not like I was shocked to create this meal, just surprised. Still I really wanted them both and when I went to the grocery store on Monday (grocery day), I bought both ingredients with this specific purpose so I don’t know why I’m acting all brand new right now. 😛
Okay, but seriously. I wanted carrots and I wanted potatoes. But I worked out so I also needed some protein and that’s where the vegan sausage come in and I’m from Chicago so can you really eat any kind of sausage without onions and bell peppers? I think not!
And that’s the incredibly long-winded stage set for how this delicious weeknight vegan dinner came to be.
And you know what? It was freakin’ delicious! I mean maybe I was just hungry, but even the Hubs agreed that it was pretty dang good.
There’s no cutesy name for this, although I am sure I made one up because you have to name recipes something when you put them into cronometer, but for our purposes here this is just a yummy vegan meal.
Kitchen Tools:
*Cutting board
*Kitchen knife
*Stock pot
*Baking mats
*Vegetable peeler
Ingredients:
*Vegan sausage
*Whole carrots
*Small potatoes
*Onion
*Bell peppers
*Oil (optional, not necessary)
*Garlic (whole head)
*Sweet chili sauce
Instructions:
*Preheat oven to 185C/375F
*Clean potatoes and pop them into a big ol’ pot of water and bring them to a boil for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and then let cool.
*Slice the top off a head of garlic and set it on the baking sheet.
*Rinse and dry carrots and then season with any flavors you want, I went with garlic, black pepper, sweet paprika and sweet chili sauce. Place on baking mat. Cook 10 minutes before you add items in the next step.
*Chop onions, bell peppers and vegan sausage into similar-ish sizes so they cook evenly. Season and place on baking mat, cooking for 10 to 15 minutes or until the sausage are warm and the onions & peppers are how you like them.
*When the garlic is golden, remove from oven and let it cool before you handle it.
*Once the potatoes are cool, pour them onto another baking sheet and use something heavy–I used a Maker’s Mark rocks glass b/c of it’s heavy bottom–to smash the potatoes. Season on both sides and cook 12 to 15 minutes before flipping them over, then cook for another 12.
*Plate it all up and put it in your nom-nom spot!
And if you’re feeling like you want a little something fresh in your life, grab some items from your veggie crisper and whip up a side salad. As you can see from the photo this was close to grocery day because I’m using 2 types of tomatoes in the salad…use what you’ve got, it’s better to eat it than waste it!
And that’s it for another vegan weeknight dinner recipe! I do not recommend doing this vegan dinner when it’s higher than 30 degrees outside. It will be wickedly delicious and you’ll burn good calories, but goodness I was drenched and that was no bueno!
When you crave potatoes, what kind do you want?
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The Spicy Spatula 
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