The Sheet-pan Trend

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I didn’t intend to be trendy. I really just wanted to do fewer dishes. It seemed reasonable to cook an entire meal on one sheet pan. Who knew that sheet pan meals were going to become the new trend?
If you look around on the Internet, you’ll see all kinds of sheet pan meal recipes. People are putting all their vegetables and potatoes and meats on one pan and cooking them together. Then, one pan to wash!!
In fact, if you walk down the freezer aisle at the grocery store you can find a line from Birds Eye. They come in a bag and are called Sheet Pan or Oven Bake meals. 
But the concept is pretty simple, and is easily tailored to what’s in your fridge for supper. I have done this with many kinds of meats and veggies. The trick is to think about how long you would usually roast each component then do a little math. The longest cooked item goes in first. When the remaining time is how long you want to cook the next thing, add that. Continue in this way until everything is in. I season each item a little differently, but keep the flavors somewhat similar.  Most things shrink as they roast, so you can rearrange and add new stuff. 
This is the easiest meal. It needs to cook for an hour or so, but most of that is oven time.
Here’s what I did for supper tonight:
I served 4 and had a lunch leftover.
I have 5 tortilla crusted tilapia filets from Costco a medium butternut squash and 2 bunches of really pretty asparagus. 
I peeled and cubed the squash. It went into a bowl and got tossed in a tablespoon of olive oil, salt and allspice. Then they went on the sheet pan and roasted at 350 for 25 minutes. 
I took the woody ends off the asparagus and tossed it in oil, salt, garlic and onion powder. After the squash has cooked for 25 minutes I added the asparagus and fish (pre-seasoned) to the pan and returned it to the oven for another 25-30 minutes. 
At that point, everything was ready to eat. Yummy and healthy.



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