Roasted Roots and Squash

There are a lot of recipes of this kind out there. I’ve been roasting these vegetables together and alone for ages. I’ve been particularly inspired by two recipes. First by Ina Garten’s idea to take leftover roasted veggies and make a tasty pureed soup (I don’t remember which cookbook of hers that I saw that in, I don’t own it). Second, The Splendid Table offers a great variation from Sally Schneider’s A New Way to Cook.

Roots and Squash Ready for Roasting

This is another one of those recipes that is more of a concept. You can use all, some, or one of the vegetables listed here, or come up with your own mix. The combination below is the one I’ve settled on as my favorite, but I’ll work with whatever I have on hand. I find the combination of very sweet carrots, sweet potato and squash plays nicely against the relatively sharp taste of rutabaga and the nutty taste of parsnips. The subtle differences in texture also work well.

A lot of people moan and groan when you mention rutabagas (or turnips) and parsnips. I think that like many vegetables, these have not always been cooked to their best advantage in the North American kitchen. All I remember of these as a child is waterlogged mush that had been boiled almost past recognition. Roasting concentrates their flavors and gives them an appealing texture.

Roasted Roots and Squash

Makes 6ish servings depending on what else you’re having and how hungry everyone is.

2 small or 1 large sweet potato

3 large carrots

4 medium pasrnips

1/2 a large rutabaga

1 small butternut squash

2tbs olive oil

salt and pepper

minced parsley (optional)

Heat oven to 425 F.

Peel each vegetable (seed the squash) and cut into cubes about 1/2 inch cubes. Lay the cubes in a single layer on two rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast 10 minutes and shake the pan or stir with a spatula and roast another 10 minutes until tender. Don’t over cook or the carrots, squash and sweet potatoes will get very mushy and the rutabagas and parsnips will get all leathery and chewy. Adjust seasonings and sprinkle with parsley before serving. These still taste good even when they have cooled to room temperature.

A large batch is a good thing---leftovers taste good and also make a tasty pureed soup.

The finished roasted veggies (with Kasha)

The Kasha recipe is here.

Veggie Burgers and Millet Mash

After the dairy laden richness of Thanksgiving, we were ready for a vegan meal. We were pretty hungry, so something hearty was in order. With what I had on hand, I decided on two recipes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman : Spicy Autumn Veggie Burgers and Millet Mash.

Here’s the thing about veggie burgers, the frozen ones from the store are dreadful. I won’t name names, but you know them, forlorn little hockey pucks that grilling only serves to further toughen. I only eat them out of total desperation, or when absolutely necessary to be polite ( “we know you’re a vegetarian and we didn’t know what to feed you so we bought you these _____ burgers…”). One of the greatest sections in How to Cook Everything covers many different kinds of veggie burgers. I’ve been making tofu burgers and lentil walnut burger for years, but these recipes take it to another level. Many of them have vegetables as the primary component. Vegetables in a veggie burger, imagine that. The Spicy Autumn Veggie burgers are primarily bean, sweet potato and kale. Totally good for you, filling but not heavy, versatile in topping possibilities and darn good.

The burger mix

I’ve rediscovered millet this past year. It was a staple in my pantry a little over a decade ago when I was working in health food stores for two main reasons: it’s cheap, cooks up quickly and has a decent amount of protein. For some reason I sort of forgot about it, but now I can tell you it’s in my cupboard to stay (and not just for bird food). It is kind of bland, perhaps a better way to put it is that it has a mild flavor. Toasting it is the first step in cooking it that really brings out the flavor. It makes a good base to top with other more strongly flavored dishes and takes on whatever seasonings you favor. Millet mash is something of a classic veggie dish, I do remember eating it at health food restaurants and in vegetarian homes. I had never made it before. Since I had the other two main ingredients, cauliflower and some garlic for roasting, I decided to give it a whirl.

toasting the millet

I also caramelized some onions to have on the side. I did top some of the burgers with cheese, goat cheese actually, upon request.

It was a tasty and satisfying meal. More photos here.

Thanksgiving Feast 2008

I’ve been thinking about restarting this blog for a while. It seems only fitting to make the first post on a holiday centered around food.

This year, it was just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner, so I decided to keep the meal fairly simple. I enjoy cooking, however I was looking forward to a relaxing few days off, and I didn’t want to spend all of my time in the kitchen. I also wanted to keep the leftovers to a minimum. I like leftovers, but not days and days of them.

We don’t eat dessert very often, so the Thanksgiving pies are something we really look forward to, and definetly made the cut. Another perennial favorite is oyster casserole, which is very rich, so I made that the main course. I wanted two vegetable sides that were relatively simply and not at all rich. We love roasted sweet potatoes so that was a natural departure from the more complex sweet potato casserole. I decided on skillet green beans with orange, maple and pecan. I also usually make another old favorite cumberland cranberry sauce from my battered copy of the Vegetarian Epicure.

Unfortunately none of the pictures came out well enough to be worth posting.

Since their classic recipe has been our favorite for years, I tried the revised pumpkin pie recipe in the current (Nov/Dec 2008) issue of Cook’s Illustrated. It was a bit lighter on the spices and replacing dried ground ginger with grated fresh was definetly an improvement. Maple syrup was added as a sweetner, something I had sometimes used as I appreciate the flavor of dark maple syrup in baked goods. It also incorporated sweet potato with the pumpkin. I have to say I like sweet potato pie as much as I like pumpkin pie, but I’d rather keep those two flavors separate. For future pies I think I’ll incorporate the fresh ginger and maple syrup in the classic recipe.

Instead of apple pie, I decided to make apple crisp, which I usually make a couple of times each fall. I used the three varieties of heirloom cooking apples that I have been enjoying in crisps this fall: calville blanc d’ Hiver, Black Gilliflower (a.k.a. Sheep’s Nose) and Belle du Boskoop. Each has a different level of sweetness and acidity and different texture when cooked. These heirloom varieties also have a floral quality missing from the modern varieties. I keep the seasoning of the filling simple, cinnamon, dark maple syrup, lemon zest and juice. As usual, I baked extra sharp cheddar cheese in the crumb topping. It was a success.

My husband is an idea man. On our way back home from a late morning stroll, he suggested having dessert first. So we had our pies (made the day before Thanksgiving) at lunchtime and ate the rest of the meal for dinner. We’re going to do this every year! We had a chance to enjoy our pie on an empty stomach and still have our fill at dinner.

For the roasted sweet potatoes, I again turned to the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Their excellent technique made this simple and delicious dish the best roasted sweet potatoes I’ve ever had. This is how I will be cooking them from now on.

For the green beans I improvised from a few different recipes combining orange juice and zest with maple pecans in a skillet. This would have come out better with younger and more tender green beans. In the future, I am going to stick with roasting any green beans that do not come fresh from the garden.

I have been making baked oyster casserole for years. Oysters, a little cream, bread crumbs and a little butter on top. It’s good, but I thought it could be better. I looked around on my usual recipe sources on the internet for ideas. I settled on Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Oyster Casserole on Epicurious. I left out the mushrooms (that just seemed odd to me) and replaced the bell pepper with celery and the scallion with shallots. It was delicious, the creamy sauce wasn’t too heavy and really allowed the briny taste of the oysters to shine through. I had planned for the cumberland cranberry sauce to complement the creamy casserole, but I forgot to serve it! I’ll have to come up with another dish to serve it with this weekend.

And there you have it, a mix of old tried and true favorites and some new ideas made for a great meal.