Scarlet Roasted Vegetables

The first day of September is just a few days away, so I'm starting to feel like summer is ending. I'm looking forward to the fruits and vegetables that will be locally available in the fall - like squash, apples, and more greens. But I definitely have not experienced a dearth of different ways to prepare the familiar lineup of vegetables I've been eating the last two months. This dinner idea began with noticing that the bottom drawer of the refrigerator had a plentiful amount of beets. I turned to my two vegan cookbooks on loan from the library and was happy to find this recipe that uses beets as a main ingredient: Scarlet Roasted Vegetables, from Alicia Silverstone's "The Kind Diet" book.

This book has lots of recipes, categorized into two "intensities" of vegan-ness: Vegan and Superhero. It also has lots of great food pictures to go with the recipes, as well as a number of informative chapters on meat, dairy, processed foods, and nutrition.
A fair amount of recipes involve using ingredients I'd imagine most people are unfamiliar with (mochi, umeboshi vinegar) or aren't able to buy at common grocery stores (hemp seeds, brown rice syrup). Although, I do prefer the challenge of finding new foods in a grocery store over searching for new shoes. In addition, many recipes can be altered or simplified, and a bunch use pretty common ingredients. The "Scarlet Roasted Vegetables" recipe is one that I definitely quirked, found very simple to do, and I'm sure tasted just as great as its by-the-book inspiration.

My dad gave me some help by cutting up carrots and yellow beans...

... as well as boiling the beets (to make the skins fall off and save time with peeling). I cut up some zucchini and yellow squash to add to the party bowl. Then I gathered the different spices and flavors that would amalgamate and awaken all the vegetables into its delicious scarlet beauty.

Lemon zest (grated from the peels of two lemons), the juice of one lemon, soy sauce, a few bay leaves, parsley, sliced almonds, leeks and halved dried apricots.

It's fun to add something hardy and crunchy (almonds) and something sweet and chewy (dried apricots) to the vegetable medley. I tossed all those ingredients in a big bowl with all the vegetables, along with some olive oil, and combined it well. (The beets were peeled, cubed and added after I took this picture.)

Then I spread out the whole lot over two lightly oiled baking pans.

It does take some time to cut up all these vegetables and flavorings, and then another 40 minutes while it bakes in the oven, but the result is unbeatable.

With some fresh lemon juice squeezed on top of each warm helping, every bite was juicy and robust. With tasty meals like this, it's easy to want to skimp on the chewing and quickly feed yourself forkful after forkful. But since I only let the veggies roast to a nice tenderness that's far from mushiness, the process of eating them provides a nice opportunity to chew on your thoughts while your mouth is closed for extended periods of time. Better chewing makes happier digestion!

The beets did indeed bleed enough to create some fun color swapping. A sugary surprise appeared in every few bites from the dried apricots. Careful crunching of almonds intensified the need to chew thoroughly. All the vegetables contributed to flavor variety. And all loved ones were happy and satiated on the dinnertime home front.

Here's the recipe from the book. (I used a larger quantity of vegetables than called for, so I upped the quantity of almonds, leeks, parsley, dried apricots, bay leaves and soy sauce.)

4-6 shallots, peeled and halved lengthwise (I used leeks)
3 large beets, cut into 1" chunks
2 parsnips, quartered lengthwise (I heard these have a sweet taste, which would have gone great with this recipe; but I used the carrots I had on hand instead)
1 large fennel bulb, halved, cored, and thickly sliced (I don't even know what a fennel bulb is, so I left it out)
1-2 cups kabocha squash, cut into big chunks (peel only if not organic) (I used the zucchini, yellow squash and yellow beans I had on hand instead)
3-4 celery stalks, cut in 1" pieces (I didn't have any celery either, so I left it out)
3-4 dried bay leaves
1/2 cup pecan halves (I used some almonds I had in the cupboard instead)
6-8 dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1-2 tsp shoyu (that's the Japanese name for "soy sauce")
Grated zest of two lemons
2-3 Tbs olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbs fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil one or more large baking sheets.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix to coat the vegetables well.
Spread out vegetables evenly on baking sheets.
Cover with aluminum foil and roast for 40 minutes, or until vegetables are soft when pierced.
Remove foil and roast for another 15 minutes to let the vegetables brown a little. (I only did about 5-10 minutes without the foil because we were huuungry!)
Remove from oven, toss with lemon juice, and garnish with parsley. (I mixed the parsley in with the vegetables and had it all cook together instead.)

Now get out there and create something colorful to decorate your plates and feed your tummies!

Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme

Truth be told, these two men were the inspiration for the most delicious meal I've cooked in possibly my whole life.  When I was about 14 years old, I listened to their "Bridge Over Troubled Water" 25 times in a row.  When I was 21, I danced through a grassy field singing "I'm on my way, but I don't know WHERE I'm goin', but I'm on my way.  Takin' my time but I don't know where...."  My mom introduced me to their music the day I bought "Concert in Central Park" - the last time they had sung together, and the month I was born (September 1981).  I thought I would never see them together in my lifetime; I had been born too late.  But I did.  Twice.  During their reunion tour.

I was about as ecstatic as I had ever been in my life.  Not because they were teenage heartthrobs, but because I had fallen in love with their melodies, harmonies, lyrics and cadences.  And while "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme" was not my absolute favorite song of theirs (but definitely high on the list), it does have the ability to supersede recipe-following and taste-tasting.

The meal idea began to churn when my step-mom and I bought some "baby zucchini," which I had never seen before.  I started imagining how to cook them, and I thought of baking them instead of stir-frying (which is how I tend to cook a lot of vegetables).  Then I imagined a baking sheet full of all colors and shapes of vegetables, sprinkled with great herbs....

A trip to Verona's Thursday farmer's market provided an imagination's worth of vegetables to go along with the baby zucchini...

So I went to work cutting up all these amazing vegetables into the perfect sizes and shapes.  I filled up two baking sheets with the baby zucchini, carrots, little red potatoes (also very cute!), yellow squash, eggplant and cauliflower.  (The corn on the cob was cooked separately.)

And then I went to work creating my dream herb combination: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme!!!

Ok, so there was no thyme growing in a pot on the deck!  But it was on hand (dried) in my parents' goldmine of a kitchen, and the other three were as fresh and local as humanly possible.  I was stoked!  I don't think I had ever cooked (or eaten?) anything with thyme, and I certainly had never had these four lyrical herbs together in one dish!  Did I need a recipe to verify their flavor meldability?  No, not when they were sung together with perfect harmony in Simon & Garfunkel's famous song.  Even though the song sings of impossibilites, I knew this herbal fusion would more than remedy my desire for a delicious dinner.

So I mixed up those herbs with some olive oil, salt, pepper, chives and garlic and smeared it all around on the veggies.  I thought about squeezing some lime juice in with the mixture, because it's one of my favorite flavors, but I thought it might be weird once it got heated up and cooked.... so I let it go.  Trust S&G.

I covered the sheets with aluminum foil to help them cook a little faster (and perhaps keep them from drying out?).  They still took a little while to bake, probably 45 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Also, I had boiled the carrots in water for about 10-15 minutes while I was cutting up all the other vegetables, because I thought they might not bake as quickly as the other.  It all worked out juuuuust right.

Every single one of those vegetables tasted amaaaaazing!  The baby zucchini were not only sophisticated and intriguing, but sweet and flavorful as well.  The eggplant had that great eggplant taste that doesn't exist when they're raw, you know what I mean?  Carrots, potatoes, squash - great.  And would you believe that the cauliflower may actually have been my favorite?  That simple white brassica is like a snowy cloud that melts in your mouth!

Don't let this small serving on the plate fool you - I'm sure each of us at the table had THREE servings of this size.  But there's more....

Did you forget there was un-husked corn in the picture of goodies from the farmer's market?  In the past I would have thought a dinner with a main dish of "vegetables" with a second dish of "a vegetable" would be... weird or unsatisfying or overkill.  In this case, the vegetables were taking so long to bake that we had the corn as an appetizer of sorts.  My preferred toppings for corn on the cob: lime and salt.  If you've never tried it, I would highly recommend it!  So, by time the veggies were done, our plates were empty - save for lime juice and salt.  So we spooned the baked veggies on top of that accidental concoction and I got to add my beloved lime juice flavor to the vegetable heap after all!  And THAT, my friend, was a very fortunate accident!  The steaming parsley-sage-rosemary-thyme-vegetable conglomeration was perfectly accented by the tangy and cold lime juice.  We even squeezed EXTRA juice on top of the veggies.  It was dee-lish.


Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine


Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Without no seams nor needlework
Then she'll be a true love of mine


Tell her to find me an acre of land
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Between the salt water and the sea strand
Then she'll be a true love of mine


Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
Then she'll be a true love of mine


Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

I've never been able to figure out what the song means.  Is it "this is impossible" ?   Or is it "nothing is impossible" ?  Is it a hopeful song?  A song of lament?  A song of acceptance?  Just a reflection that isn't meant to portray any meaning beyond the simple fact that emotion is inevitably evoked in its hearing?  I'm not sure.  But one thing I know, this meal is a true love of mine.