Eat Your Veggies

Our roasted chicken dish with accompanying roasted vegetables is a trojan horse. I’m not saying that the chicken, which takes 3 days to prepare (brining, air-cooling, prepping, cooking) isn’t amazing in its own right. It is. But I think the true star of the show are the roasted vegetables that go with it.

In the accompanying photograph you will find: fennel, parsley root, turnip, parsnips, various types of carrots, and potatoes, red and yellow onions, garlic, radishes, yams, sweet potatoes, leeks, jerusalem artichokes etc. Given the varying heat sensitivity of these various vegetables, roasting them at one time is a bit of challenge. Unless of course, you’ve had any experience camping out and roasting veggies in the campfire.Some need to be wrapped in aluminum foil, some do well tucked in under the whole chicken, some do quite well just getting beautifully caramelized in the bottom of the pan.

I suppose it’s a function of my age, but I truly believe there is something in here for everyone. Hate fennel? No problem. Try the roasted leeks? You think garlic is too sharp? See how sweet they are once roasted with a bit of olive oil and se salt and wrapped in a aluminum foil (same with the beets).

Which leads me to wisdom beyond my years. “Try it, you might like it,” my mom used to say when we were kids, echoing the mantra from Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Now my mom couldn’t cook vegetables to save our lives. But god bless here. She filled the house with all sorts of weird looking and weird sounding shit, What is now fashionable these days to call “Superfoods.” I guess the swiss chard doesn’t fall far from the tree.