Rustic Veggie Melt

The other day I needed a quick dinner and I ended up with a delightful meal worth posting.

My sister works at New Seasons and is able to bring home a lot of produce for free. When ever something is dropped or bruised or on the verge of going bad they set it aside. It's from this group of veggies she can pick some for us to enjoy at home. She brought home a lot of squash, peppers and onions which she chopped and roasted. I walked in when the veggies were coming out of the oven, which drastically reduced my overall cooking time, but it's still easy. Here are the instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Rinse and chop various veggies, in this case we had green and yellow squash, red and green bell peppers, yellow onions and whole cloves of garlic. Toss veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can add fresh herbs too. We had thyme, rosemary, and oregano. Roast in glass baking dish until all veggies are cooked through and starting to brown, tossing at least once. Remove from oven and set aside to cool slightly.

Increase oven to Broil.

Cut thick slices of sourdough and lay them on a flat cookie sheet, covered in foil if you like foil.
Scoop some of the roasted veggie mixture onto each slice of bread and spread it to the edges. Sprinkle with fresh chopped basil or other herb if you have it. Then layer some jack or mozzarella cheese over the top. Place in the oven on middle rack and watch until the cheese just starts to bubble and the edges of the bread are toasty. Remove from the oven and seve immediately.

I didn't have the energy to make a whole salad to go with this so you can see I just tossed some avocado pieces with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Total time with roasting veggies is about 1 hour (most of which you are sitting while veggies cook)
Total time with pre-roasted veggies is about 10 minutes. If you pre-roast veggies they can be stored in the frig for a few days and you can have this meal for an easy lunch or brunch with an egg on top.

Enjoy!