A Lunch of Roasted Vegetables

I am leaving for vacation this coming weekend and am so excited about it! It is my family's annual trip to Summit County, Colorado; a Ford family reunion of sorts. We spend a week on the slopes, eating tasty food, drinking some good wine and local beer supplied by Applejacks in Denver, and enjoying everyone's fabulous company. It is certainly one of my favorite trips and I am so excited to snowboard on the snowy slopes!

Since I am going to be gone for about 9 days, I am starting to think about all the food I have in my house and what I am going to do with it before I go, as I do not want it to spoil. Today, I also happened to be thinking about lunches for the week. Standing at my kitchen cart, which is the home to all fruits and veggies that don't require refrigeration, I grabbed a butternut squash, some potatoes and a few sweet potatoes. Digging through my refrigerator's vegetable drawer, I found some carrots and beets. Clean them off, dice them up, add some spices and throw them in the oven to roast and I've got lunch for the week!

I keep the skins on the potatoes and sweet potatoes, since they have lots of good nutrients in the skin. If you do this, be sure to give the potatoes a good scrub with a potato scrubber or clean kitchen scrubber. It is fine to remove the skins, too, as it will not affect the flavor.

This dish incredibly simple and really delicious. The sweet potatoes add a brown-sugary, almost indulgent sweetness that compliments the earthy flavors of the other ingredients. Feel free to use other vegetables, like turnips, parsnips, red potatoes, and other kinds of squash. You'll find this recipe to be very versatile to what is available in your kitchen. Just remember to keep it local if you can :)

Enjoy!

Roasted Vegetables with Fresh Rosemary

Makes 1 large pan, good for at least 1 week of lunches for 1 person

1 small butternut squash, peeled, cleaned, and diced into 1-inch cubes*

2 sweet potatoes, cleaned and diced into 1-inch cubes

5 baby yukon gold potatoes, cleaned and diced into 1-inch cubes

2 carrots, peeled and diced as above

1 bunch beets, tops removed, cleaned and diced as above

2 tbsp olive oil

2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary, removed from stems and roughly chopped

Salt & fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place all vegetables into a large bowl. Add oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper; toss to coat.

Turn the vegetables onto a baking sheet lined with a non-stick mat or into a large baking pan.

Roast for 15-30 minutes, until all vegetables are fork-tender. If you are using a deep baking dish, stir the mixture a few times during baking. (Baking times will vary depending on if you have it in a large baking pan or in a single layer on a baking sheet.)

*Note: I had a rather large butternut squash needing to be used, so I used half of it for this recipe. The other half I cleaned and diced just the same, but froze individually and then transferred into a container to freeze for later use.