Roasted Mexican Veggies

As I’ve been mentioning lately, I’ve recently been trying to experiment with different flavors and types of cuisine (like the Vegetable Curry I’ve literally made FOUR times in the past two weeks!).My family – and The Boyfriend – have been making fun of me forever about how my favorite foods are those that are the most bland with “mushy” texture (like oatmeal, mashed potatoes, couscous, etc).

So I’ve been dutifully proving them WRONG by making all these great dishes with amazing flavors that I’ve never used before, but now find myself completely in love with. Curry powder, cumin, and chili powder are among my new favorites!

I’ve always had trouble with Mexican cuisine specifically for some reason. I love to eat out at authentic Mexican restaurants with my family (Sidenote: For YEARS as a kid, my family would go to the same Mexican restaurant in Providence every Friday night called El México.), but I’ve been having trouble making this type of food and having it actually come out tasting good. Maybe it’s just because I don’t like corn (I think all the Mexican recipes I’ve tried out have included some type of corn). Also, it probably has something to do with the fact that I only like black beans in Black Bean Soup.

I don’t know if this REALLY counts as authentic Mexican cuisine, but that doesn’t really matter to me (haha)! I’m just glad I was finely able to make a fairly Mexican-tasting dish that didn’t come out completely awful (thanks to Edible Perspective for the awesome recipe I used to base this dish off of!). I only wish I had some tortillas to really make this thing a meal.

Roasted Mexican Veggies (based off of The Edible Perspective’s recipe)

Ingredients:

1 can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 cup large black olives, sliced
2 green bell peppers, diced
1 med. yellow onion, chopped
2t chili powder
1/2t salt
2 large garlic cloves, minced
black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400˚.
Heat a medium skillet on medium heat and sauté diced green bell pepper and diced onion until tender (about 5 minutes); remove from heat.
Pour pepper and onions into a medium bowl. Add drained diced tomatoes, olives, spices; stir until fully combined (add more or less spices to your liking).
Spread on a baking sheet, and roast at 400˚ for about 10min, stirring once after 5 minutes.
Let cool, add more salt and pepper to taste… Enjoy!