Roasted Vegetable Fritters

Veggie fritter with yogurt/sour cream sauce

Wandering through a grocery story is the happiest of places for me. Filled with infinite possibilities of things I might prepare. Delicious things. Salty things. Simple things. Complicated things. I seldom look at plantains and only see plantains. Instead, I look at plantains and construct a meal of coconut black beans and brown rice with fried plantains and sliced avocado and pico de gallo. It isn’t just a thing- it is a crucial part of a something larger- necessary scaffolding to craft a larger building.

Lately, though, I’ve grown bored. A strange fascination with ancient grains (pearl barley, millet, and faro so far) has left me in a rut of boiled grains with roasted veggies and green gravy to finish it off. Hearty. Delicious. But also too routine for me squeeze any joy out of it right now.

This afternoon I lamented how sad my Instagram feed has become that nothing is striking my fancy- nothing has inspired me to drop everything and make…whatever. A few years ago a picture of furikake sprinkled over avocado toast blew my mind with its simplicity- so much so that I baked a loaf of bread that night so that I could have bread to smear avocado on, sprinkle the furikake I ALWAYS have in my cupboard, and add my own twist of chopped tomatoes. 

But that was ages ago.

What have you done for me lately...ohhhhhh IG?

Non veggie ingredients

And then I saw it- a picture of the most perfect looking veggie fritters I’d ever seen. Perfect enough that I went to the FeedFeed bio and clicked on the link to find the recipe. At its base was a processed and packaged set of ingredients that I would never buy but also…it was something that I could construct based on my own palate and vegetable drawer. 

Enter: roasted cauliflower, mushroom, zucchini, butternut squash, potato, onion, garlic fritters.

Clearly the name needs work but the finished product was pretty amazing. 

Start with whatever vegetables you have, cut them into half inch cubes, toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil, and roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I did a mix of potatoes with the butternut squash because, especially roasted, the sweetness of the butternut squash can be distracting in a savory dish if not balanced. 

Once those veggies have caramelized, let them cool then pulse them in the food processor (not too much, you don’t want mush) with cooked faro, parmesan cheese, flour, salt/pepper, and eggs. The batter will be wet. Spoon two tablespoons of it into a hot cast iron skillet with a thin layer of vegetable oil (on medium) and fry on both sides until browned. Pair with the dipping sauce and enjoy.

Vegetables ready to be roasted

Ingredients:

Fritter

5-5 ½ cups of raw vegetables

4 cloves of garlic

2 eggs

¾ cup of pecorino Romano cheese

¼ cup cooked faro (2-1 water/grain ratio)

½ cup of flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Dipping sauce

¼ cup plain (full fat) Greek yogurt

2 tbsps of sour cream

1 small clove of garlic (minced)

¼ teaspoon cumin

Half a green onion (stalk and bulb minced fine)

4-8 leaves of basil (sliced fine)