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02 December 2011

Thanksgiving: Roasted Vegetables

Roasting is a good idea for autumn vegetables whether it's Thanksgiving day or not. It would be nice to have for a big Thanksgiving crowd because you can make massive quantities of it by buying normal quantities of several kinds of vegetables. This bowl of chopped vegetables lasted three people for at least four meals. Oh, and it is delicious. And its so great to have more vegetables at Thanksgiving feasts, they are so typically carb-heavy and turkey-emphatic. I don't have anything agains carbs or turkey, but I do love extra variety, and you (probably) know by now how I feel about vegetables.

vegetables, pre-roasting, so pretty!
Preheat oven to 425. Cut up you favorite autumnal vegetables into similar sized pieces. Some good vegetables to start with (and I'm sure you'll have more ideas): Brussels sprouts, carrots, summer or winter squash, onions, mushrooms and celery, and now that I think of it, cauliflower would be a good addition, too. Toss the generously with olive oil, add mashed roasted garlic (optional) and any spices you want. I just used black pepper.

Place in a single layer in a pan, sprinkle with coarse kosher salt, cover with aluminum foil and put in the oven. After 30 minutes or so, the vegetables should be making a lot of bubbly noises in the pan, and will be starting to look a little more cooked, shrinking and losing form somewhat. If that is what's going on, take off the foil and let them roast about 10-15 minutes more, turning occasionally with a spatula, you should start seeing darker edges on some vegetables, they should all be tender and shiny, and the mushrooms should be shriveling up.

I made these again tonight to eat with gnocchi. I tried steaming the less tender vegetables (carrots, Brussels sprouts and celery) to see if it would speed up the roasting time so that it could be more of a make-ahead dish, but steaming didn't cut down appreciably on the time needed for roasting.

roasted vegetables

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