Craving . . . Delicious roasted vegetables!

"When it's Christmas man is bigger
and is better in his part;
He is keener for the service
that is prompted by the heart.
All the petty thoughts and narrow
seem to vanish for a while,
and the true reward he's seeking
is the glory of a smile.
Then for others he is toiling
and somehow it seems to me,
that at Christmas, he is almost
what God wanted him to be."
~Edgar A Guest

Wouldn't it be wonderful if people wore their Christmas cheer, and practiced their Christmas love for the other 364 days of the year? I think it would be great!!!



As you may or may not know I joined another cooking group several weeks ago, called Craving Ellie in my Bellie. We're a relatively small group so far. Once a week we each cook a delicious recipe from the cookbook, The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger. This is a lovely book, jam packed with delicious recipes for the types of food that most people really enjoy, but done in a much healthier way. As the book says, "good health isn't about deprivation, it's about good choices."

We're a very small group right now, so that makes visiting each blog and the blog roll quite manageable. Not only that, but this week it was my turn to choose the recipe, and I was delighted. The recipe I chose for this week was "Jewel Roasted Vegetables" on page 244 of the book. It makes a change to be cooking something relatively healthy to share on this blog, not to mention, I think it would make a wonderful side dish for your Holiday Dinners! Last week macaroni and cheese, this week . . . these luscious vegetables . . . who knew eating healthy could be so delicious?????



*Jewel Roasted Vegetables*
Serves 6

This recipe calls for a delicious mixture of roasted carrots, sprouts, beets and garlic. I didn't have any sprouts in my fridge when I went to make it and to be perfectly honest Todd is not overly fond of them in large doses. (Or as he puts it, they disagree with him and we all know what that means!) In any case I substituted the sprouts with some cubes of butternut squash and sweet potato, which went really well!

4 medium beets
3 TBS olive oil
1 1/2 pounds carrots
1 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts
8 large cloves of garlic, left unpeeled
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
1 TBS chopped fresh thyme

Pre-heat the oven to 190*C/375*F. Put the beets into a small baking dish and rub them with 1 TBS of the oil. Cover with aluminum foil and then roast for 30 minutes.

While the beets are roasting, peel the carrots and cut them into 1 inch thick rounds. Trim the Brussels sprouts and cut them in half lengthwise. Put the carrots, sprouts and garlic cloves into a large baking dish. Toss with the remaining 2 TBS of the oil. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper.

After the beets have been cooking for 30 minutes, add the large pan of vegetables to the oven, separately, and cook everything for one hour longer, giving them a good stir once or twice.

Remove the beets from the oven and transfer them to a cutting board to cool. Stir the thyme into the other vegetables and let it continue to cook for another 10 minutes while the beets are cooled and cut.

When the beets are cool enough to handle, after about 5 minutes, peel, then cut them into 1 inch chunks. Remove the other vegetables from the oven, toss with the beets, season with some more salt and pepper as needed, and then serve.



(Psst . . . I'll share the recipe for that delicious looking chicken tomorrow!)


Next week's recipe will be Cornmeal-Crusted Roasted Ratatouille Tart, Page 98-99, as chosen by The Wiivers.



If you would like in on the fun and would like to cook some healthy, yet tasty recipes all you need to do is to get the book, "The Food You Crave, Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life, by Ellie Krieger, and then send an e-mail to cravingellieinmybelly@gmail.com . In the meantime be sure to hop on over and check out the blog roll so that you can see some of the other delicious versions of this lovely recipe. (It really was quite, quite tasty!!)