The Lazy Genius Podcast - #57: The Lazy Genius Guide to Roasting Stuff

Episode Date: March 26, 2018

Roasting is one of the best skills to have in your cooking arsenal, and there's virtually no actual skill required. You just need a three basic rules and the cheatsheet below. Listen to an episode that is guaranteed to change the ease with which you get dinner on the table. Stuff Mentioned In This Episode: How To Know If a Recipe Is Any Good Change Your Life Chicken basic sheet pans for roasting (don't forget to check your local restaurant supply store, and also measure the widest pan that will fit in your oven and go with that... more space = more flavor) download the transcript for this episode Don't forget to grab your free roasting cheatsheet! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Defender. With the towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a waiting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at landrover.ca. Amazon presents Laura versus fruit flies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill.

But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hey, everybody. You're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today, we're wrapping up our series on food basics and talking about roasting. The other episodes in the series, chicken, soup, bread, and salad were about the actual food.

And this one obviously isn't. It's episode 57, The Lazy Genius Guide to Roasting Stuff. And while it's not an actual dish, it's a skill that will elevate so many dishes you do make. Roasting is magic and will seriously change your life. So in the playbook today, we're going to go through the why, the when, and the how of roasting, including the three main components that you need. We're not going to go into too much detail about what you can roast because I have a freebie for you for that. If you go to the lazy geniuscollective.com slash lazy slash roasting, you'll see a box where you can pop in your email and get a roasting cheat sheet delivered to your inbox.

It has a list of ingredients to roast and the best time and temperature to do it. Pop that puppy on your fridge and you are all set. So let's get started. First step, what is roasting? Roasting is cooking food in high indirect heat like your oven and often in one single layer. It gets brown and often like really crunchy on the outside and soft and awesome on the inside. It's pretty simple. Next step, why do you do it?

Why roast? Because it's stupid, easy, y'all. Like, oh my goodness. You literally put food on a giant cookie sheet, pop it in a hot oven and it cooks. If you handle your pan the lazy genius way by lining it in foil and parchment paper, which we'll get to, you'll also have zero cleanup. And the flavor you get from roasting is off the charts. It's so good. You can also roast different ingredients at the same time, including meat.

Your entire dinner can be roasted on one pan and it tastes and looks amazing. If you are not roasting your food, you are totally missing out. So we're going to fix that today. this is going to be a short episode i say that we'll see because there are really just three main components of how to roast the right way first one fat and salt second foil and parchment third high heat so let's just break them down first roasting rule fat and salt you need them both for your food to come alive in the oven without fat the food is likely to burn faster um before the texture is right it doesn't taste as good and it's just the wrong kind of crunchy.

It's burn crunchy. It's not good crunchy. You don't need a ton of oil, but roasting is not a non-fat ordeal. Next, in rule number one, is salt. My middle name should be salt because I talk about it so much. You guys, we don't use enough salt. I just don't.

I'm not trying to give you high blood pressure. I'm really not. I'm just convinced that a lot of us don't know how good food can taste because we don't use enough salt. In both savory and sweet foods. I mentioned some, um, some math behind salt in a post that I will link up to in the show notes called How to Tell If a Recipe is Any Good. You need to pay attention to salt in a recipe because a lot

recipes are wrong. It's just the way it is. You're not trying to get salty food. You just want enough salt to bring out the magical flavor in your ingredients. The right amount of salt makes your food taste like the best version of itself. This is very true in roasting. Salt also draws out moisture, which is good in roasting because it helps get that crisp texture that you want. So salt and fat are imperative. Most of us season stuff with drizzles and pinches, and only you know what your drizzle and pinch actually means. Drizzling on olive oil or canola oil or any kind of oil is a little easier to guess, I'd say, than the salt. But make sure you see a sheen of oil on all the contents of your sheet pan. And for salt, sprinkle on the amount of salt. Sprinkle on the amount of

salt you normally would and then do it again and some of you might need to even do it again just do more than you normally do the first time you roast things and pay attention to the flavor and then make alterations each time as you understand kind of how big your pinch is you'll um you'll just kind of find your sweet spot and then you can use your intuition as you season things you can measure it out in your hand too like you can season not season you can measure your pinch like pinch some salt and then put it in like a little quarter teaspoon measuring thing and see how much it is and then that can kind of help you as your seasoning things as you move forward you don't if you want to get a little bit scientific about it that's very scientific so you've cut up your potatoes you've opened

your bag of green beans you've pulled out your olive oil and your salt now what rule number two foil and parchment you want to line your sheet pan with both Now you can just do one if you want, but let me tell you why I like both. Well, first let me tell you when you need to cover your pan. You can toss everything together on that giant sheet pan and to coat the food and the oil and the salt, right? Which is so great. You can use your hands for that. It's the best tool to kind of toss it all together.

And that means you don't need an extra bowl, which is fantastic. Fewer dishes. Amen. And then when the roasting is done, you grab the foil on the parchment and you throw it in the trash and you have a clean sheet pan that you can just stick back in your cabinet. It is the easiest cleanup on the planet. I realize it also might not be the greatest thing for the planet. If you're in a no-waste house, I admire that. And I will not make anyone feel guilty about living either way. We all make sacrifices, right?

In different areas. And we don't need to carry the burden of making every single decision from a place of ecological responsibility. If you do that, I am so glad that that makes you come alive. If you don't do that, I am so glad that you have found things. things that do make you come alive. In our house, we recycle, we donate stuff, we shop secondhand when we can. I'm okay with the tradeoff of having a little more trash that saves me easily 15 minutes of sheet pan scrubbing at the end of a long day. But you do you, right? Always. You guys do you. Okay, so why both foil and parchment? Again, you don't have to, but here's why I love to.

Foil, it transfers heat well, right? It reflects the oven's heat back onto the food and it helps create that lovely golden color. But a lot of times, especially if you're holding back on the oil a little bit, the food can stick to the foil. That's where the parchment comes in. Food just doesn't stick to parchment like ever. It just doesn't stick. So you start with your large sheet pan. I get mine at a local restaurant supply store. I mentioned that in the last episode about salad, about those stainless dough bowls that I use. I love to get big sheet pans at restaurant supply stores. So Google your area and do the same because they're so much less expensive. And you you're supporting a little business, which is always fun. So line that large sheet pan with heavy duty

foil. I always buy the rolls that are a lot longer, you know, the ones I'm talking about, those really giant rolls. So they cover the entire pan in one sheet. You can certainly take two long pieces from like a regular roll and crease them together. But fat often, it like finds its way there, man. It seeps through that crease and then you have to wash the pan anyway. So no thank you. buy the long heavy duty foil it's it'll serve you well in this in this situation so layer your sheetpan with foil and then put one sheet of parchment on top of the foil it doesn't have to necessarily go to the edges it's just insurance against sticking that's all it's there for so the foil still transfers the heat the parchment it doesn't get in the way of that roasting process at all right so don't worry about

that and then you get the crunchy texture and zero sticking praise hands so fat and salt foil and parchment And finally, the third rule, high heat. If your oven is lower than 400 degrees, you're not roasting. You're baking. Go higher than you think. Don't be scared of heat. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next.

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You'll notice that in the roasting sheet sheet, if you get that in your inbox, that most of the temperature settings are in the 450 range. Just don't be afraid of high temperatures. That is how roasting becomes magical. Now, let's run through a couple of scenarios quickly. Let's do a little troubleshooting. If you are intentionally using less fat for health purposes and don't want to douse the food and olive oil, set your oven about 25 to 50 degrees lower than that.

that sheet says to. Otherwise, your food is likely to burn before it's fully cooked because the oil kind of acts as like a shield a little bit. And if you have less oil, then you have less protection. So you might want to drop your temperature just a little bit. Now, the flavor and the texture won't be as good is as if you are going to use a little bit more oil and the highest heat, but it'll still work fine. It'll be fine. Just watch out for how those two components are connected because they are, the heat and the fat. Next tip. If you want maximum crunch and crisp. brown edges. The pieces of food that you're roasting should be spread out a lot. One layer, not really touching each other if you can help it. If you roast cubed potatoes when they're spread out

versus like snugly crammed into the pan, you're going to have two very different looks and textures. Both will be fine. Both will taste great. But the more space between your food, the crispier and more golden brown, that food will be. It just depends on what you want out of it. Okay? Next step, you can roast multiple ingredients together on one pan. If you look at the cheat sheet, you'll want to notice any ingredients that have pretty different cooking times. You don't have to cook things together that cook at the exact same temperature in the exact same time. Obviously, that's like an easy choice, but they can be different. You just want to just want to pay attention. So if things have more than say like a 10 minute difference, like if you plan, here's an example,

If you plan on roasting onions, carrots, and potatoes together, you want to make sure that the potatoes are cut just a little bit smaller than the onions and the carrots because potatoes take longer to roast than onions and carrots do, at least to get to that crunchy texture you might want. So if they're all the same size, by the time the potatoes are done, the carrots and the onions are more burned. Okay. The more you roast foods, the more you'll notice how certain foods respond to your oven's heat and you can kind of adjust. you just want to make sure that things that take a little longer are cut a little bit smaller. If you make a sheetpan full of sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts and bacon, let's say, and the bacon and sprouts burn before the potatoes are done, next time keep the sprouts whole, say, and use like bigger pieces of bacon or cut the potato smaller than you did the first time.

You learn something new every time you roast about what you like, about what texture you like, about what flavors go together, and kind of how things respond to your oven. So it's not going to end up bad. You're always going to learn from every pan of roasted stuff. So just start to pay attention how those things interact with each other. You can also roast meat and vegetables together. I'll link to Change Your Life Chicken in the show notes, but it is one of the most popular posts on the Lazy Genius website for good reason. It will literally change your life.

And I have the dozens and dozens of emails and comments and Instagram messages to prove it. I love it. A lot of you make it weekly. which, I mean, really, I'm just so psyched about it. It's the coolest thing. It's so delicious. And it is the perfect, perfect example of the magic of roasting. You put everything on a pan and you cook it and you have dinner. So check that out. You can see that in the show notes, but you can see how meat and vegetables can go together in that context. Different types and kind of cuts of meat will roast different ways. And some aren't as appropriate for roasting. But just know that it is possible if you

want to play around with roasting both meat and vegetables at the same time. Or you can just roast a big tray of vegetables and then grill or saute your meat. You know, it'll still save you a ton of time and dishes if you do it that way. Another kind of seemingly like hoity tooty tip, but still super important. Buy yourself an oven thermometer. Not to like test the temperature of the food, but to test the temperature of your actual oven. They're just a couple of bucks at Walmart, but most of us don't have accurate oven readings. Like what it says on your, you, you know, clock read out is is not the actual temperature. My oven runs about 25, 35, 35 degrees cooler than the oven says. So if I want something to roast at 450, I usually set my oven to

480 to compensate. This is so helpful to get recipes tasting their best. So look into getting an oven thermometer. It just hangs on one of the oven racks on the side and it can stay there. And all you have to do, the next time you preheat your oven, see what the thermometer says and what your oven says. So when your oven dings and it's like, hey, I'm at 400. Look at your oven thermometer. Does it say it's at 400? It might not. And then you'll kind of know which way to lean. It is just such a great piece of information to know, especially because like 25 degrees, it can actually, it can be a pretty significant difference with certain foods. So it's worth checking out. A final word about roasting. You can roast foods in a big roasting session,

like throwing sheet after sheet in the oven on a Saturday. or when your oven is still hot one night after cooking dinner. And the best reason to roast ahead of time is that so many roasted vegetables are delicious, reheated or even cold, and can be used in a ton of ways. A ton of ways. Throw them in salads. We talked about that in last week's episode. So good.

Toss with grains in like a bowl for a hearty lunch. You can layer it in sandwiches and grilled cheeses. You can just reheat them simply as a side at dinner. Throw them into soups. serve them on top of rice with like storebought rotisserie chicken really anything roasted vegetables are magic they are just so good and absolutely one of my favorite things to make because they taste amazing and they require virtually zero work or cleanup is so great okay so remember your three rules fat and salt for flavor and texture foil and parchment for easy cleanup again you'll you don't have to

use both but i told you about the benefits of using both and then high heat this is not not optional for optimal roasting happiness. And once you print out that cheat sheet, you have a good starting point to play around and kind of see what foods you love roasted and which ones you don't. So please give roasting a try. Please. I'm, I'm not going to beg you for anything. I might beg you for this. You need to roast. You need to roast things. It's just a life-changing skill to have. And anybody can do it because it requires hardly any skill. As long as you know those three things, those three components, you're pretty much good to go. So give it a try and then come join me on Thursday on Instagram around 1215 Eastern and ask me your questions.

If you are listening to this episode later in the week, then when it's released or like months later, don't worry about it. You can head to the show notes where I will link to like the posts and the products and stuff I mentioned and where you'll see the video of that Instagram live conversation, assuming that it uploads properly, which has happened unsuccessfully a couple of times before. So there you go. But the show notes for this episode can be found at the lazy geniuscollective.com slash lazy slash roasting. All right. Let's do our lazy genius tip of the week as we close up shop. A lot of you have had great success with the lazy genius cleans the bathroom episode. I am so glad. I'm so glad. You're all like stoked about bathrooms. A few of you have messaged me

saying that one way to get your bathrooms cleaner more often is to have a set of supplies in each bathroom. That way, there's no gathering tools and cleaners. You just get started when you're able to, because everything's there. If you have a home with more than two bathrooms or bathrooms that are kind of far apart in your house, this might be just the lazy gene district you need to do it as often as you want to. Now, I'm not going to tell you how often that is, because we all get to decide what clean means for us. But having identical products in several locations, that might be a really great thing for you, a great investment. So try and see if it works. okay that's it for today thanks for listening and thanks for asking such great questions and engaging in this food basics series we've been doing it's just been so fun next week we're starting a new series but we will certainly come back to more food and cooking basics in the future of course i love it so much

if you have any topics that you want to see happen for a future food series let me know in the comments for this episode at the lazy jeanestcollective.com slash lazy slash roasting i am so honored So honored truly to have spent a few minutes with you today, and I hope that you roast something in the next 24 hours. That's your homework. Very delicious homework. That's all for today, my friends. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. See you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, If you don't change it, you think it's good enough. Is it?

I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.