— ingrid ortega

Well, how I understand it is that, for example, when you are roasting, let's say brussel sprouts, they are usually on a sheet pan and they are exposed to heat and air that circulates in the oven, and that they will come out with a certain crispiness. And also you'll notice that they're caramel. They will caramelize beautifully and give you the sweetness that is in a lot of vegetables, and not just root vegetables like, uh, carrots, but also things like cauliflower and butternut squash. But roasting, uh, that's roasting baking is that you're going to put them into a pan that's sort of like putting them into a football stadium and they're going to cook on the field. So there is not as much, uh, direct heat. They might steam a little bit and it will change the texture and the color of your vegetables. I always like to roast my vegetables. Uh, that's my preference in a nice hot oven, uh, at 425 degrees. And, uh, I just have to tell a very quick oven story. So this morning, uh, as I was preparing, uh, this lunch for 60 people at an urban farm in Philadelphia, and for those of you who are Plant Pro students, I always harken back to the benefits of doing the shindig because the shindig is such a wonderful experience in terms of learning how to prepare food in bulk, how to plate food in bulk, and also to have people enjoy food. So this morning, yesterday I tested a sandwich that I made, and the bread got the roll, got too soggy, so I decided that I would toast them in the oven. And then I did a test to see how it stood after an hour, and it, the texture was fine and it didn't fall apart. So this morning when I got up at five o'clock, I turned my oven on to 525 degrees to do sheep pan toasting of these whole wheat English muffins. And I kept thinking to myself, I am doing so well. I'm right on schedule. Well, what happened was that every time I looked at the oven, I thought it was 5:25 AM instead of 5 25 degrees Fahrenheit, so maybe you had to be there with me. It turned out that it was 10 after seven. I had to leave my house in a couple of minutes, but I got everything done. Just a little oven humor. Um, and also to talk about the benefits of doing the, uh, the shindig.