Roots, Shoots, and Squash (p. 344)

This is a roasted winter vegetables dish, but a lot of the ingredients came in my CSA box this week, so, happy Memorial Day! Enjoy some winter veggies.

The nice thing about this dish is that you can pretty much throw in whatever you have and it'll come out delicious, so I made a few changes from the original recipe based on what was in my refrigerator.

The beets are cooked separately and are started before everything else, both to make sure the entire dish isn't pink and also to ensure that the beets are cooked thoroughly. Peel and chop them into small chunks and place them in a baking dish with fresh lemon juice and olive oil.

 In a small bowl, combine minced herbs (I used parsley, but you could use most anything) with chili powder (I used harissa, since I have some and it'll give the same sort of spicy kick) and stir together. The recipe calls for a pinch of this to be added to the beets before they are put in a very hot oven, but I mis-read and mixed the whole spicy herb recipe with the beets. Whoops. I didn't even notice until it was time for me to use the remainder of the mixture.

Anyway. Once the beets have begun roasting (they're supposed to take a little over an hour), begin prepping the rest of the veggies. Peel and quarter the onions and combine in a large bowl with chopped carrots and other somewhat hard veggies -- the recipe called for turnips and celery root, which I didn't have, so I used red potatoes instead. Whatever you use, be sure to wash it, remove any skins, and chop into somewhat bite-size chunks.

These are poured into a large oiled baking dish and then mixed with more olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and the rest of the herb/harissa mixture. I just made a second batch of the mixture and added it all to the potato/onion/carrots.

After about twenty minutes, add squash chunks (and in my case, zucchini chunks) to the dish. Stir well and put back in the oven.

Twenty minutes later, add leeks and garlic and stir again. Check on the beets as well.

Once the carrots are cooked all the way (about 15 minutes later) the dish is ready to come out. Top with the beets, and you have yourself a meal.

This pretty much created a feast -- it's a ton of roasted veggies. Luckily, they're pretty delicious, which I think is thanks to using harissa (and doubling the amount of it.) The veggies have a subtle heat to them, the kind that slowly invades your mouth (in a good way.) Unfortunately, my beets look a little crazy since they were covered in the parsley mixture and were in the oven for such a long time -- they definitely got a little crispy.

beets -- $2.44

squash -- $2.44

zucchini -- $2.44

onions -- $1.63

lemon -- $.42

carrots -- $.89

potatoes -- $2.44

leeks -- $2.49 (2 left)

Total Cost of Roots, Shoots, and Squash: $15.19 (this will definitely be in my lunch all week long -- it makes a whole lot.)