Side dish/ Vegetables

Grilled Vegetables with Balsamic Dressing

Can be prepared ahead of time and just waiting for your guests.

Whatever you are planning for your Memorial Day celebration, these vegetables are easy to make and will be a hit at your party.

I loved grilled vegetables mainly because I don’t have to cook them. Usually, anything grilled falls on my husband. For this recipe though, I decided to do them on my cast iron grill top inside because sometimes my husband tends to over grill vegetables leaving them charred and burned.

I did make a cool discovery doing these vegetables. I used my waffle cutter to cut my vegetables. So when I put the vegetables on the flat top grill, the waffle cut of the vegetables left marks on them like they had been done over a grill.

For some reason every time I make grilled vegetables (and I posted some roasted root vegetables back in the fall) I can never get a good picture of them. They taste wonderful but do not photograph well. I’m thinking if you see a beautiful picture of roasted or grilled vegetables in a magazine, the photographer must have waved his magic wand and created some magical setting that took a great picture of a heap of grilled vegetables. Maybe a little torching, painting with oils, I don’t know but I want to eat mine, not just look at them.

So I hope you will try this recipe even though the pictures don’t do justice to the recipe.

Any vegetables will do. These were wonderful.

Grill onions and peppers first.

Next, grill the zucchini and yellow squash.  Looks like grill marks but made from using the waffle cutter.

Grill the par-boiled potatoes and mushrooms.

Quickly grill the asparagus.

Dressing ready to be tossed with the grilled vegetables.

Grilled Vegetables with Balsamic Dressing

(adapted from Everyday Italian  Giada De Laurentis)

Ingredients

  • 1 red bell pepper seeded and halved
  • 1 yellow squash sliced lengthwise or into rounds 1/2" thick
  • 1 zucchini sliced in circles or slices 1/2" thick
  • 1 Japanese eggplant cut into 1/2" rounds
  • 1 lb. button mushrooms sliced in half if large
  • 1 bunch asparagus trimmed and cut in half
  • 1 medium onion cut into wedges
  • 6-8 baby purple new potatoes par-boiled, cut in half
  • 1/4 c. plus 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 3 tsp. chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
  • 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil leaves
  • 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

Instructions

  1. Heat up your grill pan or prepare the bar-b-q grill. Brush all the vegetables with 1/4 cup of the oil to coat lightly. Sprinkle vegetables with salt and pepper. Working in batches, grill all the vegetables until tender and lightly charred all over, 8-10 minutes for the bell peppers and onions, 7 minutes for the zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant and mushrooms and 4 minutes for the asparagus and potatoes. (You have already parboiled the potatoes so they only need to brown a little.)
  2. Arrange the vegetables on a platter.
  3. Whisk the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, balsamic vinegar,garlic, parsley, basil and rosemary in a small bowl to blend.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Drizzle the herb mixture over the vegetables. Serve the vegetables, warm or at room temperature.

Recipe Notes

**Note. The original recipe called for 3 x the vegetables I listed and 1/3 of the spices. I used the amount of vegetables above and increased the 1 teaspoon of each ingredient to 3 tablespoons.  I also substituted white onion for the green onion and added in the purple new potatoes. So, you see, you can change the recipe any way you like.  Her original recipe said it would feed 6 people. My 1/3 recipe was enough for 8-10 at least.

Let me know if you try it. Bon Appetite!

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