Roasted vegetables are one of the simple pleasures in life. There’s barely any preparation, their unique flavors become sweet and concentrated, and you’re rewarded with a symphony of textures—crispy, chewy, juicy, and fluffy. It’s a great example of food that can actually be healthy and taste delicious, and you don’t have to be a trained chef to make them perfectly. The key is: Don’t complicate it. I have the most success using this simple treatment.

Two things signal roasted veggie perfection: charred spots and wrinkles. While these might be descriptors for something “ugly,” don’t be fooled. The well-browned areas signal delicious complexity of flavor, due to the Maillard reaction, and the wrinkles signal the veggie in question expanded with steam while cooking through, and now has a soft interior and crispy exterior. 

All you need is high heat, a bit of oil, and a generous sprinkle of salt. I usually assemble a mélange of three to five different veggies on one sheet pan, but you can certainly roast just a single type of vegetable instead. 

Trim and prepare your vegetables

If you’re using broccoli, maybe you cut the florets from the woody stalk. If you’ve chosen tomatoes or small pepper, then maybe you halve them or you leave them whole. The most important thing to do is keep the size consistent so all of the pieces cook at the same rate. I like to roast big chunky vegetables, so I’ll prepare them to be inch-and-a-half rounds or hunks. 

Add fat and salt

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I put all of the vegetables in a large mixing bowl, and drizzle about a tablespoon of neutral cooking oil over them (canola or corn oil is fine). Toss about a half teaspoon of salt into the bowl. Using your hands, start to toss the vegetables, scooping the bottom ones up to the top. Every time you scoop, squish and rub the veggie pieces to make sure everything is well coated in oil and salt. 

Roast the veggies

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Dump the contents of the bowl onto a foil-lined or unlined baking sheet. The arrangement doesn’t matter too much, but if I have any veggies with a skin—like halved potatoes or zucchini—I arrange them skin-side down so they’re less likely to stick to the pan. 

Pop the pan into a 400°F oven. Depending on the vegetable and its size, they’ll roast for 10 to 40 minutes. For large cuts, root vegetables, mushrooms, or squash, cook them for an initial 20 minutes. Then give the pan a shake, check on things, and bake for another 10 to 20 minutes, or until you’re satisfied with the color.

Timing differs, but there’s wiggle room

When timing roasted vegetables, practice makes perfect. Green beans might only take 12 minutes while broccoli needs a bit longer, and cauliflower longer still. When in doubt, just stick around and don’t be afraid to check their status, especially with root vegetables. You can always slice a tester to make sure it’s cooked through.

Let the vegetables cool on the pan out of the oven for five to 10 minutes. This gives them time to deflate and emit some steam which will help loosen any stuck ones from the pan. Arrange them on your plates and serve.

If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to roast vegetables in an air fryer, it is, and you should. It’s the same preparation method, but keep in mind that you’re limited by the size of your air fryer—you might have to work in batches if you’re cooking for a large group. 

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I teach a handful of cycling classes every week, and after each one, I grab a spray bottle of cleaner and a paper towel from the back of the studio and give my stationary bike a wipe-down. It only makes sense: The whole point of being on it is to get all sweaty and gross, and it’s inevitable some of that sweat will wind up on the bike.

I have no idea what’s in the bottle of cleaner, as I trust the gym’s cleaning team to provide me with the right tools to keep the equipment in good shape. But when it comes to my Peloton at home, I am the cleaning team, which means I have to be much more on top of things. Here’s what I’ve learned about how to clean every part of the machine after four years of ownership.

Clean your Peloton after every ride

First, keep a microfiber cloth or roll of Clorox wipes nearby so as soon as you dismount, you can wipe down your seat and handlebars. There isn’t a ton of space on the bike itself to hang a cloth, and it’s my duty as a spin teacher to gently suggest you not hang it off your handlebar when you ride, lest you go to grab the bar, accidentally yank the towel off, and lose your grip. (I don’t let people in my classes cover their handlebars with sweat towels for this reason.) I keep a jumbo roll of pre-moistened Clorox wipes on hand and use those on the metal components, seat, and handlebars as soon as I finish a session. It works great.

If you own a Peloton, you’re probably already tired of spending extra money to buy accessories for it, but consider picking up a simple peel-and-stick hook for a nearby wall or even a shoe hanger designed to dangle off the bike itself and stashing your microfiber cloth there for easy post-ride access.

Whether it makes more sense for you to use a rag or wipes, as long as you’re wiping it down after each session, you’re doing enough to keep it from getting too grimy between more serious cleanings.

Do an occasional deeper clean

About once a month, I dampen a rag and use a dot of dish soap, then wipe down the whole bike, minus any of the electrical components, including the outlet cord powering the bike and the wires connected to the screen (which I just wipe down with a dry microfiber cloth). Scrub the base, wheels, various adjuster handles, and everything else, then go back over it with a dry cloth. Peloton’s website suggests using baby wipes for this, but a damp towel works just as well.

Notably, I tried to move my seat the other night and found that my adjuster handle was stuck. There could be two causes: It’s been way too long since I cleaned it and that thing got sticky and nasty or I used too wet of a rag last time and it got gummy with dried soap. Either way, that’s not good for the bike I spent so much on, nor is it good for me to have to deal with. Today, I cleaned it with a damp—but not soaked—soapy cloth, making sure to get in every nook and cranny. Then, I went over it with a dry cloth to make sure no soap remained behind.

Wipe in all the nooks and crannies, like the adjustor handles.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

Take care with the screen

To clean the screen, Peloton recommends first holding down the red button on top until it powers down, then using an ammonia-free cleaner designed for use on LCD, plasma, or other flatscreen, and wiping with a microfiber cloth.

Windex is a suitable option, and that’s what I use once a month, or when the screen is visibly covered in dust, dry sweat, or whatever else. When powered off, the screen is incredibly reflective and difficult to photograph, so forgive me, but in the photo below you can see the improvement made with just one pass of Windex.

A little before-and-after action with the Windex
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

Other Peloton cleaning recommendations

If you’re feeling uneasy about using your existing cleaning products on the bike, consider investing in some designed for use on workout equipment. Wipex comes recommended by users on Reddit and is an affordable option that can ease your worries about what you’re slopping all over your $1,500 device.

During your monthly-or-so deeper clean, don’t forget about the mat you have probably placed under the machine—wipe that down with a damp rag and a dab of dish soap or the Wipex cloths too.

Finally, you should also be cleaning and deodorizing your shoes. Because the Peloton has no straps that enable you to wear regular athletic shoes, like most bikes at studios do, you have to ride using specialty cycling shoes. That’s an annoying added expense, but it can also cause some stink, since those shoes are only used for sweaty activities and never get to leave the house and feel a nice breeze.

Wipe down the exterior with your Wipex, Clorox, or soapy cloth, but to deodorize the interior, sprinkle some baking soda and leave them overnight before vacuuming and wiping it out. Full disclosure: I don’t do that because I leave mine clipped to the pedals at all times and irrationally hate clipping and unclipping them. As a result, they’re always hanging upside-down when not in use, so baking soda will fall right out. I spray the interior of mine with a mix of half vinegar, half water, then let them air dry for a day. It works great.

Spritz the inside of your cycling shoes to keep them odor-free, please.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

After OpenAI, Perplexity AI is joining the “deep research” bandwagon. And it’s doing it in a fairly interesting way. Following in the footsteps of DeepSeek‘s “reasoning” model, Perplexity is the first major AI provider that’s offering a Deep Research feature for free users, too. By comparison, OpenAI’s Deep Research feature is only available in the $200/month Pro subscription.

Deep Research is an upcoming AI feature that takes a bit of time, but performs dozens of related searches, goes over hundreds of resources, and uses a reasoning model to logic out each prompt in a step-by-step process. You can get similar results from tools like Copilot’s “Think Deeper” feature, sure, but what sets Deep Research apart is that it puts all of the info it’s collected together into a comprehensive, white paper style report.

Deep Research is free for all logged-in users, though you’re limited to just five queries a day. But if you’re paying for Perplexity Pro (which costs $20/month or $200/year), you get up to 500 queries a month. OpenAI’s Deep Research feature is limited to 100 queries a month for now.

Although, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature takes a lot of time. Up to 20 minutes. It asks follow up questions, shows all the complex steps involved in its process, and spits out a very long report at then end. Perplexity’s Deep Research feature is kind of a lite version of that. You get a response in 2-4 minutes, so your results will naturally rely more in searching the web and data collation than deep interpretation on the part of the AI. OpenAI is using its upcoming o3 reasoning model for Deep Research, but Perplexity hasn’t mentioned any details about the model it’s using.

Credit: Perplexity

In Humanity’s Last Exam, a commonly used AI benchmark consisting of over 3,000 questions across a number of topics, Perplexity’s Deep Research scored a 21.1% on accuracy, which is much higher than DeepSeek R1 (8.6%), and Gemini (7.2%). OpenAI’s Deep Research still has the lead with a 26.6% completion score, but a silver medal is respectable here given the tool’s much lower barrier to entry.

So, how does this change how you might use Perplexity? So far, AI chatbots have been all about multiple prompts. You ask a question and prompt again and again to get to detailed answers. But with Deep Research, you can ask a single question and be done with it. The more specific and verbose your prompt, the better the bot’s research and report will be, but the AI can now give you pages of info in response to much less prompting. And once your report is generated, you can download it as a PDF.

Credit: Perplexity

Over on its blog, Perplexity has highlighted multiple examples of the kind of difference Deep Research can make. Where the default model might givee an overview with bullet-point answers, Deep Research will instead come back with multiple paragraphs, detailed reports, and more expanded formatting.