Roasted Winter Vegetable Medley

As I mentioned in the Crop Share spoiler e-mail, Ann on our staff (many of you know her as Tie-Dye Ann!) has been bringing in delicious smelling leftovers of this veggie medley she's been roasting up on a regular basis.  Now the fact that it contains cauliflower and I even thought it smelled good and looked appealing, should tell you something right there!  So Friday night when I got home from a day of Crop Sharing and shivering, I decided to annihilate nearly everything in this week's share by roasting my veggies Ann style.  To say they were delicious is a vast understatement.  In fact, I even made vegan soyrizo mac & cheese (may sound gross, but trust me, it's taco dip on pasta...just minus the calories and cholesterol) which is our guilty pleasure comfort food at home, and both of us finished our veggies before we'd taken 3 bites of the mac & cheese.  The Mister even said, "What on earth did you do to turn this mix of disgusting vegetables into the best thing I've eaten in a long time?"  The secret...roast the heck out of it, a generous bit of olive oil, and Dizzy Pig's Cow Lick Seasoning (available in store).  That's the winning combo!  Plus, I even got super daring and decided to waste not, want not and roast up the cauliflower leaves too.  Amazingly delicious decision!  So whether you use the veggies I did or you come up with your own mix, this is an excellent way to use up your Crop Share veggies, especially any of that hard squash you still have hanging around.

Roasted Winter Vegetable Medley

Ingredients:
1 acorn squash, halved, seeds removed, and cubed
1 head of cauliflower, rough chopped (save the greens!!!)
Cauliflower greens, removed from stalk and rough chopped
1/2 bundle of kale, leaves removed from stalk and rough chopped
1 quart brussels sprouts, stalk trimmed and sprouts halved
4 baby potatoes, cubed
Olive oil
Dizzy Pig Cow Lick Seasoning


Preheat oven to 415 degrees.

Prep all of your veggies and if you're making as much as I did, you'll need 2 baking sheets, one for the greens and one for the rest of the veg.

On one sheet, evenly spread out vegetables, minus the kale & cauliflower greens.  Drizzle with a good bit of olive oil, enough to well coat everything.  You don't want them swimming in oil, but you need enough oil for them to caramelize rather than burn.  Then season generously with the Cow Lick Seasoning.  Toss the veggies to evenly coat each piece and place into the oven onto a lower rack to begin roasting.

Prep your kale & cauliflower greens the same way, and then let them sit tight, as you won't pop them into the oven until the other veggies have roasted for about 15-20 minutes.  Place the sheet of greens into the oven onto a top rack and roast for 5-10 minutes, checking to make sure nothing is starting to turn into kale chips (if so, you may need more oil).  Remove both sheets of veggies from the oven, and combine the greens onto the pan with the rest of the veggies, carefully tossing to mix everything up.  Then place them all back into the oven to roast for another 15-20 minutes.  Keep an eye on things, and turn veggies about every 5-10 minutes to allow browning on all sides.  If after a full 40 minutes of roasting things are still not browning up and the squash is still not soft, then put them back in the oven and make them suffer longer!  They'll be done when they look bronzed like the photo above.

This makes a ton, so it would be a great Thanksgiving side dish, or one to re-heat portions in the oven for a ready-to-go side dish for weeknight meals.