Back to My Roots

Autumn is a wonderful time at the farmer's markets. Crunchy apples, juicy pears, and fresh-from-the-dirt root vegetables. Decided to whip up a roasted root vegetable medly a few days back, on a stay-at-home fall Saturday.

The recipe was quite easy aside from a solid half-hour of chopping. We cut half-inch wedges of pumpkin, acorn squash, turnips, parsnips, onions and potatoes -- enough to fill up a large Le Creuset 'French Oven'. All that got mixed up with a generous sprinkling of olive oil, salt, pepper, brown sugar, and cinnamon. We added fresh rosemary sprigs on top and a few garlic sections with skin left on.

Baked the whole thing at 400 for about 50 minutes, stirring once or twice. About halfway through, the delicious smells of the sweet pumpkin and the parsnip began to seep into the room... The dish was incredible. A variety of sweet and earthy flavors blended with a bit of spicy cinnamon tickling the tongue. The pumpkin and acorn squash became a rich orange mash that held the solid parsnip, turnip, and potato all together. We squeezed the roasted garlic out of their skins and stirred them through the mixture to add a little extra punch. Delicious!

This could be a meal in its own right, but I paired with my new favorite honey-glazed chicken breast recipe and a nice rich glass of red wine.