Roasted Beet Salad

8-10 medium striped beets
1 medium red onion
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
1 teaspoon of Maldon salt
1/4 cup of walnut oil
1/4 cup of sweet vermouth

For this salad, I used striped beets also known as candy cane beets.

striped beets

Peel and clean all of the beets and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice one of the beets, so that you can see the beauty of the color variations. Dice the beets into 1 inch pieces, but you can also cut them into different sizes depending upon how you like your beets. The different sizes will give you a variety of looks after roasting.

Place the beets into a roasting pan. Add 1 sliced medium red onion and 1 sprig of fresh rosemary. Break the rosemary apart and sprinkle over the vegetables. Also add 3 cloves of whole garlic, 2 tablespoons of pine nuts and 1 teaspoon of Maldon salt. Drizzle with ¼ cup of walnut oil and toss together to coat all of the vegetables. Roast in the oven for 1 hour at 400 degrees.

beets in roasting pan

After 45 minutes add the sweet vermouth and place back in the oven for the remaining time.

Cover with foil until ready to serve.

Roasted Fennel, Parsnip and Turnip Soup

soup

This soup was created after I was looking to make something with the assorted vegetables I purchased at the grocery store.  I had purchased fennel, parsnip, turnips and garlic, and was looking to create something for lunch on a cold winter’s day.

5 parsnips
6 turnips
1 medium fennel
1/2 C olive oil
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pumpkin oil
1/4 C raw pumpkin seeds
2 garlic bulbs
1 tsp garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tbsp dry vermouth
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 C vegetable broth

Peel parsnips, cut into large pieces and place into a roasting pan. Wash and halve the turnips and add them to the pan. Cut the entire fennel, including the greens and add it as well. Toss the vegetables in 1/2 C olive oil and 1 tbsp salt.

Cut the bottoms off of the garlic bulbs (this is the part with the roots) and slightly break apart each bulb and place into a piece of aluminum foil Drizzle the garlic with olive oil and 1 tsp of salt. Pinch the foil almost closed and add it into the roasting pan. This way you can roast two things at once.

roasted turnips

Place the pan in the oven and roast for 1 hour at 400 F.

I created a quick vegetable broth to use as a base for my soup, but you can easily use just packaged broth. I used leftover leek greens and onions skins and covered them in water in a medium sized stock pot. I covered the mixture and simmered it for about an hour, then removed the leeks and onions.

When the vegetables were finished roasting, I removed them from the pan in small batches to puree in the food processor. Take the garlic bulbs out of the foil and remove the cloves from the bulb and add it into the food processor to be blended in with the vegetables. You may need to use a little vegetable broth to help blend up the vegetables. Once pureed, add into the stock pot. If you didn’t make your own broth, just add it to the pot now.

Once all of the roasted vegetables are pureed and added to the broth, add 1 tbsp of olive oil, garlic powder, pumpkin pie spice, dry vermouth and cayenne pepper.

For serving, garnish with pumpkin oil and raw pumpkin seeds.