THE ultimate ONE-PAN OVEN COOKBOOKComplete Meals Using Just Your Sheet Pan, Dutch Oven, Roasting Pan and More Julia KonovalovaCreator of ImageliciousTHE ultimate ONE-PAN OVEN COOKBOOKJuliaKonovalovaAMAZING FLAVOR, COMPLETE MEALS, ONE PAN! Sit back and let the oven do the work for you with this exciting collection of delicious, convenient meals. Just pop all the ingredients on a pan, slide it in the oven, and you’ve got dinner in no time! Plus, the counters stay clean and the sink doesn’t fi ll up with dishes.Grab your sheet pan, baking sheet, Dutch oven, or roasting pan and you’re halfway to dinner, even on a hectic weeknight. Throw together Spicy Blackened Chicken Legs with Sweet Potatoes and Broccoli for amazing fl avor in a fl ash. While Family-Style Herb and Garlic Roast Leg of Lamb is in the oven, you’re free to play a game with the kids or sit back with a glass of wine. Do you love hosting brunch, but hate scrambling eggs at the hot stove all morning? Pour yourself a cup of coffee and catch up with guests while the Make-Ahead Leek and Goat Cheese Strata heats up. Decadent fruit desserts and satisfying snacks round out your meals. Every dish is created with health in mind, without overdoing the salt and oil. With exciting combinations, and surprisingly quick prep, these recipes will transform the way you cook. JULIA KONOVALOVA received her Bakery Arts Certifi cate from George Brown College and is the founder of the popular food blog Imagelicious. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.“ Julia is an incredible cook, writer and photographer. This book should be a staple for home cooks!”—Mary Tang, TV personality, host of One World Kitchen, creator of Mary’s Happy Belly“ If you are a fan of quick and easy meals that don’t compromise on flavor, then this is a must-have in your cookbook collection!”—Dini Kodippili, author of Secret-Layer Cakes, founder of The Flavor Bender “ Julia’s first cookbook will no doubt leave readers excited to explore the many beautiful and delicious possibilities that wait right behind their (oven) door!”—Sean Bromilow, Taste Canada Gold Winner, creator of Diversivore“ Julia’s gorgeous collection of recipes is as much a feast for the eyes as it is for the belly. It is a tremendous resource for busy home cooks who want to put nutritious, mouthwatering meals on the table. I have no doubt that it will quickly become a family favorite.”—Alanna Lipson, former Food Editor at Canadian Living Magazine“ Whether you’re rushing to make dinner on a busy weeknight or have lots of time to cook on the weekend, Julia’s mouthwatering photos and approachable recipes will have you reaching for your pan and pre-heating the oven every single time.”—Ethan Adeland, co-founder of Food Bloggers of Canada 9 781624 1456435 2 1 9 9 >ISBN 978-1-62414-564-3$21.99COOKING / Methods / Quick & Easy$21.99 USPREMIUM BINDINGSTAYSOPENHANDSFREE8 The Ultimate One-Pan Oven CookbookIntroductionI wish I could start this intro by writing a story about making cookies with my mom for Santa when I was a child. Or, perhaps, writing about slicing strawberries, still warm from the sun, with my grandma at the cottage and making jams when I was nine. But that never happened. Food and childhood intertwine in my mind. Smells and flavors conjure long-forgotten memories and nostalgic moments that I’m mostly sure never even happened. Yet, I don’t have many stories about actually cooking when I was little. I spent hours in the kitchen observing and rarely participating. By the time I became a teenager and subsequently moved to Canada from Russia, I knew a lot about cooking without actually cooking much. If I found myself suddenly without any parental supervision in a kitchen, I’d delve right away into complicated dishes. Beef and mushroom stroganoff and cream puffs were some of the first recipes I made. For almost a decade after, I spent hours, sometimes days, cooking and conjuring fancy and elaborate meals. No wonder I survived mostly on sandwiches in between my cooking feats. Once I got married, my cooking philosophy changed a lot. I stopped with intricate and complicated and turned to simple, yet flavorful. That’s when I discovered oven cooking, got comfortable in the kitchen and taught myself to cook again. I hope that this book will do just that—ease anxiety about cooking, help get food on the table and create time to spend with your family instead of at the stove stirring pots and pans for hours. Cooking in the oven isn’t quick, and you won’t have dinner on the table 30 minutes after coming home—mostly because preheating the oven to the correct temperature takes a long time. But waiting for the oven to heat up is when the bulk of food preparation is done, and once everything is chopped and mixed and seasoned, the oven does the rest. You get to have a glass of wine or watch a TV show or help the kids with homework. There’s no stirring pots, no cleaning the stove or grease-splattered counters, although I usually have a rice cooker going or buckwheat cooking to add to the meal. If you worry that oven cooking is just for cold winter months, I’d like to assure you—it’s not. All the recipes in this cookbook have been developed and tested over and over again during a very hot summer. The beauty of cooking in the oven, especially making complete meals in one pan, is that you don’t have to actually be in the kitchen while the food is roasting or baking. So, even though the kitchen will most likely get hot from the oven, you won’t! Cooking in the oven means you will get a delicious and wholesome meal with little hands-on cooking time and a lot of flavor!Cooking NotesFor years I struggled with cooking in my fancy oven. Renovating my kitchen, I spent weeks, if not months, choosing the stove I wanted. In the end, I chose something relatively high-end with nothing digital. Recipe after recipe, I was perplexed—30 minutes to cook chicken in the oven? Forget about it! It wouldn’t be done after 50 minutes or 75. I had to allocate at least 11/2 hours for baking or roasting a simple chicken breast. 9Finally, I knew I had to deal with this issue and hire someone to look at, and possibly recalibrate, my oven. In a last-minute decision, I chose to try something else before spending hundreds of dollars on the assessment. I bought a new oven thermometer and a meat thermometer. I had a few oven thermometers in the past, usually purchased on an impulse at a grocery store. They never worked properly. My current meat thermometer seemed okay but it was old and cheap, and I wanted a change. After some research, I found two products and decided to give them a try. Neither were that expensive. The oven thermometer cost about fifteen dollars on Amazon and was recommended by many people and culinary sites. The meat thermometer cost a bit more, but at 35 dollars on Amazon, it was still not a huge investment. Once I received my new toys, I started testing them. To my astonishment, it turned out that my oven was perfectly calibrated, almost to a degree. It just took a really, really long time to preheat to the required temperature. I thought I was putting my roasting pans filled with food into a 350°F (176°C) preheated oven when in reality it was only 300°F (149°C). No wonder everything took two or even three times longer to cook. My new meat thermometer also surprised me. There was a difference of 20 degrees between my old and new gadgets. Apparently I had been overcooking meats for years. When cooking in the oven, it’s really important to know how your oven actually works. Some run colder, some hotter. Five degrees may not make a difference in cooking time but 10 to 15 degrees might. I highly recommend investing in an oven thermometer, as well as a meat thermometer, to make sure that all meats are cooked to their safe internal temperatures. Unlike cooking temperature, which needs to be precise, seasonings are very individual. Contrary to popular chef teachings, I don’t use a lot of salt in my cooking, and although I included some measurement of salt in my recipes, the saltiness of the food is a personal preference. For most people, the amount of salt that I use is not enough, so make sure to add salt to your taste. I find that many meats and even vegetables have enough natural sodium in them that there’s no need for all the salt. It wasn’t a quick change; I gradually reduced my salt intake over the years. Now, I let the natural flavors of the ingredients speak.I also like to have a little spicy kick in my food, so I use chili powder and cayenne pepper often. My mom, on the other hand, can taste even a quarter teaspoon of black pepper and considers it spicy. Just like with the salt, feel free to omit the pepper if you don’t like heat or increase it for a spicier dish. If you are just starting out on your cooking journey, try the seasonings I list in my recipes, and then adjust to your taste when you cook something again. It’s important to develop your own palate, and it will happen over time. If I don’t have time to add the seasonings and herbs I list in the recipe, or if I run out of some of them, I use my favorite secret ingredient—Mrs. Dash seasoning. It’s a blend of many spices and herbs that adds a wonderful savory depth of flavor to any dish. You can find it at almost any grocery store, or buy it online. In many of the recipes, I add notes for substitution of ingredients: parsley instead of cilantro or dill. Apples or no apples. Little variations to flavors. Feel free to experiment in the kitchen. If you don’t like broccoli, use cauliflower, or change up trout and use salmon instead. Add garlic. Omit onion. All these changes, of course, will result in a different flavor profile but this is how new recipes are created. I strongly believe in being creative in the kitchen. It’s what makes cooking fun and relaxing instead of stressful. To me, cooking isn’t a chore—well, sometimes it is. But most of the time I love the creativity that cooking allows me to explore. 28 The Ultimate One-Pan Oven CookbookThick Oven OmeletThis thick oven omelet is a staple at Russian cafeterias in schools and daycares. It’s delicious to eat warm but also great cold. Don’t worry about using so much milk and cream; combined with eggs, this omelet will become really tall and spongy with a delicious caramel-colored crust. It tastes light and airy. Slice it and serve on bread for a quick morning meal. Serves 6 to 8 1 tsp butter 6 large eggs 1 cup (240 ml) 2% milk ¼ cup (60 ml) half-and-half (10%) ¼ tsp salt Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Spread the butter all over your baking form. I use a 5 x 10–inch (13 x 25–cm) form. You can use a regular loaf pan. The narrower the pan, the fluffier and taller the omelet will turn out. In a big bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cream and salt until smooth. No need to whip it, just mix it all together until well blended. Pour the eggy mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes. The omelet will become fluffy and tall but will deflate a little bit once out of the oven. Note: If you’d like to increase or decrease the recipe, then the idea is that you use 50 to 60 milliliters of milk or milk/cream mixture for each egg. Try this plain version first. Later, you can add fillings like mushrooms, ham, bell peppers or cheese. Simple Soups, Salads and Sandwiches 111Creamy Roasted Eggplant SoupI grew up eating eggplant, and it is still a favorite of mine. My husband, however, isn’t really a fan of this vegetable. This soup is one of a few recipes where he loves the flavor. The smoked paprika in the soup complements the charred vegetables. The garlic adds sweetness and cayenne pepper makes it just a little bit spicy. It’s really easy to make, as you just roast the vegetables and then puree them with a bit of stock. You can even roast the veggies a day before, and blend everything and heat it up when you plan to serve the soup. Serves 2 to 41 large tomato, or two medium (about ¾ lb [340 g]) 1 large Italian eggplant (about 1 lb [455 g]) 1 large bell pepper: red, yellow or orange but not green (about 1/2 lb [227 g]) 5 large cloves garlic 1 tbsp (15 ml) olive oil 2 cups (480 ml) vegetable stock 1/2 cup (120 ml) half-and-half cream (10%) (optional: use more stock instead for a vegan version) 2 tsp (5 g) smoked paprika 1/2 tsp salt, or more to taste1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional) Crackers for servingParsley or cilantro for serving Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Prepare the vegetables by slicing them in half lengthwise. Remove the stems from the tomato and eggplant. Remove the seeds and white ribs from the inside of the pepper. Place all the vegetables in a roasting pan in one layer, cut-side up, and scatter the garlic in between the vegetables. Pour the olive oil over the vegetables and lightly rub all over. Roast the veggies in the oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until the vegetables are fully cooked and soft, flipping them halfway. When turning the vegetables, cover the garlic cloves with halves of the pepper to prevent the garlic from burning. No need to peel the vegetables, but if you’d like the soup to have a smoother consistency, you can easily take the skin off the vegetables after they are roasted. Once the vegetables are cooked, roughly chop them and place in a blender with the stock. Blend until smooth.Pour the soup into a pot and warm gently to your desired heat level. Add the cream and spices; mix. Serve with crackers and cilantro or parsley. Note: For thinner soup, add a little bit more stock. 170 The Ultimate One-Pan Oven CookbookRoasted Berries with Orange MascarponeJust like many of my recipes, this one was born out of necessity. I was cleaning out my freezer before the birth of my daughter and found a few half-empty bags of frozen berries. I’m not a big smoothie fan and making a pie seemed too daunting at that point, so I threw all the berries together in a roasting pan, added a bit of orange juice and some cornstarch to slightly thicken the sauce, and a delicious, light and easy dessert was created. Months later I added mascarpone cream to make this recipe a bit more special and festive. Serve it in a big roasting pan, family style, at the end of dinner, or in individual ramekins. Serves 4 Zest of 1 medium navel orange, divided Juice of 1 medium navel orange, divided ¼ cup (60 g) mascarpone 1 tbsp (15 ml) maple syrup, or more to taste2 tbsp (20 g) cornstarch 3 cups (445 g) frozen mixed berries Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C). Prepare 4 small ramekins or one small roasting pan, about 1-quart (1-liter) in size. In a small bowl, mix together half the zest, 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of orange juice and mascarpone until smooth. Optionally, add 1 to 2 teaspoons (5 to 10 ml) of maple syrup to sweeten the mascarpone. In a medium bowl, mix together the rest of the orange juice with the cornstarch until the cornstarch dissolves. Add the rest of the zest, maple syrup and frozen berries; mix well. Pour the berry mixture into the ramekins or the roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes. After half an hour, the juices will thicken slightly and the berries will become soft and luscious. Serve with generous dollops of orange mascarpone. Note: Feel free to add extra maple syrup to the fruit if you prefer a sweeter dessert. I made this with frozen strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. I once added frozen cherries to the mix and also tried it with strawberries only. We hope youenjoyed this EYB Book PreviewThe complete book is available from all major booksellers. Or use the "Buy Book" button and help support EYB.Next >