Roasted Winter Veg

    A winter staple for me is what I think of as my Roasted Winter Veg. I invented it last fall, as a vegan entree for my youngest brother's wedding reception. My brother is a chef and cheesemaker, his wife is a baker, and his friends are all foodies, many of whom are vegan. The Roasted Veggies were a huge hit. I tweak the recipe every time I make it, depending on the vegetables at hand. Three must haves though, are yams, beets, and apples. Okay, I know, apples are not a vegetable, let's not argue the fact. So here is the basic recipe:

Peel and cut into 3/4"-ish cubes:
3 large yams, 3 medium beets, 1 apple, about 1 cup of winter squash (Delicata, Blue Hubbard, Acorn, sweet heirloom pumpkin, etc...).
Also: 1 cup organic baby carrots, 1 small, thinly sliced sweet onion.
Pile into a bowl, drizzle with 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup or maple syrup (or don't add any sweetener, if you don't want to). Sprinkle with about 2 teaspoons sea salt. Toss together until everything is nicely coated with the oil.
Put in a lightly oiled casserole dish of proper size, shallow and wide is better than deep. Bake at 400 until it looks kind of overbaked. I like it to cook long enough to start caramelizing. This can take 2 to 3 hours. If you want it just cooked through, 1 to 1-1/2 hours is plenty.

This recipe is easy to tweak with whatever winter veggies you like, and you can add all kinds of deliciousness like dried fruit (dried cherries are amazing in this) or nuts.
If you want to be a little naughty and throw veganism to the wind; crisp, crumbled bacon really adds to the sweet/salty/savory awesomeness.

This dish holds over very well, and is easy to take to potluck events. I will nosh on this for days.