When in doubt, don't pout!

Just use your oven!

Please excuse the cheese. I just wanted a good segue into an anecdote I've been wanting to tell. Today, myself and one of my fellow INDV101 TAs, Spencer, were chatting before class started. All of a sudden, he said, "Any sentence that rhymes is true. No matter what." He was completely serious. I, of course, was cracking up, thinking he was joking. He wasn't.

For those of you who are U of A students, I hope you know about the Pac-10 Fitness Challenge. Basically, you register and you record the amount of minutes you've worked out each day from October 25-29. We're competing with several other schools! Prizes are awarded and such, plus it's a good way to support our school. :)  I only found out about it on Tuesday, which is unfortunate because Tuesday is the one day of the week on which I don't work out. And usually on Wednesdays I work out for two hours, but yesterday was too insane of a day, so I only got in less than an hour of work out time! However, I decided I'd make up for that today. I ran for 30 minutes around the track and then did a yoga/Pilates class.

I haven't done Pilates in YEARS. Literally. I forgot how cool Pilates is. This yoga/Pilates combo class was pretty interesting. It had the stretching and strength (lots of planks!) portions of yoga combined with the intense core work of Pilates. Funnily enough, a lot of the core work was exactly what is involved in the P90X "Ab Ripper X" work out. I am quite familiar with "Ab Ripper X" because I did it three times a week this summer. Unfortunately, I don't have as much time and as much ambition as I did this summer in terms of my (soon to be) 6 pack.

Before I start showing food pictures, let me explain the title. Today, I had little time, lots of asparagus, and last night's left-overs for dinner. I was planning on doing something drastic with the asparagus I had, but that would have taken too much time. So I did some typical Tulika cooking, otherwise known as throwing stuff together quickly in hopes that it comes out nicely.

Assorted Roasted Vegetables

I had a lot of asparagus, a few mushrooms, and two tomatoes that needed to be used up.

I was going to add the chopped asparagus into this bowl, but they didn't fit.

I drizzled some olive oil and red wine vinegar into this bowl. Then I added salt, oregano, and fresh chopped parsley. I mixed this around, and arranged it onto a baking sheet.

I repeated these steps with the asparagus.

There wasn't enough room. Out came another baking dish.

I put these in the oven (at 425 degrees) for about 25 minutes. The best thing about this is that you don't even have to do anything to it while it sits in the oven!

Then I flipped each one of these around, and put the dishes back in the oven. If you weren't already aware, you will be now: I like things to be even and/or symmetrical. Especially when cooking.

After 5 minutes, I took them out once and for all.

The asparagus came out so crispy, and the tomatoes and mushrooms so juicy. I can't wait to eat these for lunch tomorrow, topped with some light feta cheese!

//Edit: These tasted even better than I expected, especially with some slightly melted feta atop the roasted veggies. I think I'm going to have to start roasting tomatoes more often.//