Veggie Bundles, Take Two

The last veggie bundles I made tasted so good that I was inspired to use this simple technique again when Naomi and Sam came to dinner.

All you do is slice fresh veggies onto a square of parchment paper, add herbs and a dot of butter and bake. Last time, I folded the paper into tidy packets - this time, I thought gathering the four corners together and twisting would give it more flair.

I also played with the contents a bit - added a dab of lemon butter, thinly sliced marinated artichoke hearts and two colors of sweet cherry tomatoes (the yellow ones thanks to Chilebrown and Ms. Goofy who grew them in their garden) to the zucchini, sliced fennel, slivered shallot, pitted Tuscan table olives and sliced pattypan squash. Sprinkled with some Mediterranean herbs and baked the bundles at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

As each guest opened the twist, the bright colors and the lovely aromas revealed the veggie treasure inside the festive presentation - and then we had fun making basketballs out of the paper and shooting hoops into the kitchen sink!

If you want to discourage such rowdy nonsense, use the tidy packets but for maximum fun I'd definitely recommend the twists.