Roasted Roots

Here's one of the ways I've used all those carrots.

This simple method works with many the root veggie ~ try parsnips and turnips this way! It's easy and crowd pleasing. Since moving to California, I have developed a great appreciation for fennel, as it grows wild here even in the medians. It works like onion, but adds a fresh, mild anise flavor.

Roasted Beets and Carrots with Fennel

serves four as a side dish

1 tbsp butter (don't be afraid to use more!)

1 tbsp olive oil

3 medium-sized beets, scrubbed

2 large carrots, scrubbed

1 regular-sized fennel bulb

sea salt to taste ~ start with 1/2 tsp

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Quarter the beets, and chop them again in half in a way that makes roughly uniform chunks. Do the same with the carrots, again with the goal of making roughly equal-sized pieces with the beets. This will help them cook in about the same time. Cut the fennel in half lengthwise, and then slice it lengthwise from there into thin pieces.

In a roasting dish (I love earthenware ~ I've found every piece I own at thrift stores for cents!!), place the beet and carrot chunks and the fats. Cover. Put the dish in the oven and roast, stirring a couple times to coat the veggies in butter and oil. When the veggies begin to yield to the press of fork tines ~ maybe 20 minutes, add the fennel slices, stir and cover again. Roast for about 10 more minutes, or until the veggies are tender but not mushy.

the best

I devoured Molly Wizenberg's book, A Homemade Life. The story compelled me. Tales of Paris, and all the food food food romanced me. I am pleased with how it has inspired me to write even more in my blogs, including this food blog which had cobwebs on it from Anjali's arrival in October. I look around at my life and see the poetry, I smell the fragrances, and I appreciate the beauty, and love, in a fresh way. What a gift! There are also many recipes that I'm looking forward to trying ~ one for buckwheat pancakes (I loove pancakes), a cornbread recipe that has cream that oozes through it (love cornbread and cream), some fun salad concoctions and too many cake recipes to name. I've always been afraid of baking cakes, that I just didn't have what it takes to be a cake baker (she is a cake baker ~ with weights and precise measurements; I'm a soup maker ~ add a little of this, a blob of that until it tastes good), but with her zeal and reassurance, I think I might have the nerve to give one a try. Perhaps that last chocolate cake recipe with only a tablespoon of flour! Sounds like a good place to start.

But now that I'm walking away from the story ~ finished it in just three enthusiastic evenings of bedtime reading ~ I think the best thing I've taken away from A Homemade Life upon initially setting it down is = I've started eating chocolate with my bread. Without a special occasion ~ other than the occasion to eat chocolate with bread. ;-)

This morning I fried my eggs, over medium, and then a slice of 100% rye sourdough bread (no caraway seeds) in the leftover butter (plus perhaps a pat). Then while it was still hot and bubbling with butter, I laid two squares of Green & Black's Dark 70% on top (you wouldn't think that rye would be good with chocolate, but I urge you to give it a try ~ real rye, not that white stuff with the caraway seeds that supposedly indicate that it's "rye"). They melted into puddles with just the little G&B leaf imprint left of the solid rectangle by the time I got to the table. If that isn't a way to start your day off right, I don't know what is.

Thanks, Molly! :-D