Okay, the dining room is painted.  Totally off-white and fresh and lovely.  Unfortunately, there is still plastic-covered furniture and painter’s tape and all sorts of things that don’t work for a big reveal photo.

So instead, let’s think about food for a few minutes.  Last week, in the week-o-veggies, I tried a few recipes from Giada’s new cookbook, Feel Good Food.  My favorite was her Vegetables with Chipotle Cream.  Except for one major tweak–adding sausage to the mix.  While roasted veggies and spicy yogurt sauce are wonderful by themselves, we usually include meat in our main courses.

So here’s the adjusted recipe:

Roasted Veggies with Chipotle Cream Sauce and Sausage

Ingredients
Roasted Vegetables:
Vegetable oil cooking spray, for spraying baking sheet
1 small (1-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced into 1/2-inch cubes (3 cups)
2 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
One 15-ounce can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 whole wheat pita breads

Snausages: 1 lb. (or one package–12 oz. or 20 oz. or whatever… just use it all) Andouille sausage, sliced into 1/2″ pieces

Chipotle Cream:
1/2 cup plain nonfat (0-percent) Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon light agave nectar
1 small canned chipotle pepper, finely diced

Directions

For the sausage: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Place sausage pieces (approx. 1/2″ each) in flat layer on baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes, flip sausage over (you should see browned sausage on the side that used to be touching the baking sheet directly), bake for 15 more minutes.  Keep sausage warm.  Try not to eat it all before you make the veggies.

For the roasted vegetables: Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Spray a heavy baking sheet with vegetable oil cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, toss together the butternut squash, zucchini, bell peppers, kidney beans, oil, cumin, oregano and salt. Spread the mixture in a single layer on the baking sheet. Roast until the vegetables are golden and tender, 25 to 30 minutes.

Split the pita breads in half horizontally to make 4 rounds. Arrange in a single layer on a heavy baking sheet. Bake until crisp, 7 to 8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

For the chipotle cream: In a small bowl, mix together the yogurt, lime juice, agave and chipotle pepper until smooth.

Spoon the vegetable mixture on top of the crispy pitas and serve with a dollop of the chipotle cream.  For leftovers, this is equally good with or without the pita at the base.  Mmm.