Crispy Parmesan Veggie Sticks

Sometimes planning what to cook feels like a futile exercise in free association. Making one thing leaves you with a lot of leftover ingredient A, so you buy ingredients B and C to make another dish, but then you're left with too much B, so you run out and get D, E, and F, but E is only sold in bulk so you hunt desperately for other things to do with it before it goes bad, and so on and so forth.

Its difficult to buy ingredients in the proper quantities when cooking just for yourself or for a few people- hence the plethora of random ingredients cluttering my cabinets and my refrigerator (flaxseed, anyone?). But lately I've been trying to use up the food I already have before running off to the store. Sometimes this is successful (like when I used the parsley and lentils left over from this meal to make this salad), and sometimes it's not (like when I was left with a boatload of dill after making this casserole and for the life of me couldn't think of anything to do with it. I think its still in the back of the fridge somewhere).

I'm doing well this week though, and to make this snack I scheduled another date with Panko breadcrumbs (evidently pronounced pahn-ko, not pain-ko, an embarrassing revelation I had when I asked for it at the grocery store last weekend) to create a healthy treat that has all the satisfying crunch of french fries but with a whole lot more vitamins and a whole lot less fat. These veggie sticks are great served with tomato sauce, aioli, or honey mustard. If you make them with seasoned breadcrumbs they might even be good all by their lonesome. I used asparagus and zucchini but I bet other vegetables would be good as well.

Crispy Parmesan Veggie Sticks
adapted from How Sweet Eats

Ingredients:

• Asparagus spears (the thinner the better)
• Zucchini, sliced into wedges
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (seasoned or plain)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup ground or finely grated parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and spray with cooking spray (if you don't have a wire rack, just the baking sheet is fine, but you will need to turn the sticks over halfway through the cooking time).

With the egg whites in one shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs, flour, parmesan, salt and pepper in another, dip the veggies first in the egg whites and then the breadcrumb mixture.

Unfortunately I could only find this thick asparagus, but thinner spears will be a whole lot crispier!

Arrange veggie sticks on top of the wire rack/baking sheet.

like modern art, no?

Place in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes, until the breadcrumbs turn golden brown. Remember to turn the sticks over once midway through cooking if you are not using a wire rack.


Yum scrum!