Comfort, In Many Colors

My mother is not much of a cook.

She may not like me telling you this, but she won’t argue it. She doesn’t like all the effort that goes into preparing food, which then gets eaten so quickly. So much work for such little payoff. Baking she can get behind—a loaf of bread sticks around for a while. But dinner, she says, takes more time to make than consume. I suspect that, given the option, she’d become a breatharian and be okay with not eating much, if anything, at all.

My mother is also a vegetarian, and quite concerned with healthy eating. Dinner at her house is generally steamed vegetables or stir-fried vegetables. When I was growing up these dishes didn’t even include seasoning—salt was banned in our house for many years. This may be the reason that both my brother and I developed an interest in food and cooking at an early age. The joke in our family is that we taught ourselves to cook in self-defense.

But there is one dish my mother makes that I love and crave. It’s not something I grew up eating but a few years ago—six or seven years now—my mother started making roasted root vegetables for Thanksgiving.

I don’t know where she found the recipe—I don’t think she even knows where she found it. In fact, when Thanksgiving rolls around each year, she can never quite remember how the dish is made. Every time it’s a little different—based on what is in the market and what ends up in the fridge. It’s a simple thing—a variety of root vegetables, cubed, and roasted with olive oil, salt, and rosemary. Carrots, parsnips, turnips, celery root, beets. Hardly a recipe, really, but I crave this stuff something fierce. To me, it tastes like comfort.

It does take a little effort on the dicing front, I will admit that. My mother is not generally a dicing sort of a cook. Her miso soup is the heartiest thing ever—a stew, really, filled with huge hunks of potato; any self-respecting Japanese housewife would be appalled at the travesty. But even my mother dices for this recipe. Small cubes of vegetables, in many colors.
The size is important because they cook up all soft and the flavors meld and it becomes a sort of vegetable porridge-y thing, at least that’s how comforting is feels. My little niece Alice—not yet two years old last Thanksgiving—loved this dish. It’s like vegetables, kiddie style—not quite baby food, but soft and easy to eat. She spooned up bite after bite of the stuff.

For me this has become my most comforting food ever. Though my mother is not much of a cook and this isn’t something I ever ate as a child, to me this has the flavor and feeling of mother solace. Last October, when I first heard about the food allergies I had to deal with, this was the food I wanted for comfort—and happily it is gluten, egg, sugar, and dairy free. Back then I didn’t know how to make it—I never had before. I just waited for Thanksgiving to roll around each year and my mom made it for me.


This dish was holiday food, one of those things you only eat on a special day. But last November I watched as she prepared it, cubing the vegetables, chopping the rosemary. This year I'm busting the roasted root vegetables out of the Thanksgiving niche; it’s far too good to be confined to only one day a year.

I even liked this stuff back when I hated beets, something I have—shockingly— overcome (there is hope for you yet, Pim!).

And really, it is just so pretty, how can you resist?


I know everyone is getting excited about spring around the corner, and I am too. I had my first asparagus this weekend (courtesy of a non-vegetarian who, nonetheless, does a great job of grilling veggies). But before everything comes up pea shoots and fava beans, there’s a little winter to shake off yet.

Perhaps you too have a bag of winter root vegetables tucked somewhere back in the bowels of your refrigerator (it’s amazing how long these things can hang out).
Perhaps you live someplace where spring is still a few months away.
Perhaps you're down under and autumn is making its way towards you.
Perhaps you just need a little bit of comfort, in many colors.

Here’s the dish for you.


ROASTED ROOT VEGETABLES: COMFORT IN MANY COLORS

To be true to my mother’s “recipe,” you’d have to just toss a bunch of root vegetables together, for she really does make it differently every time. But those in need of a little guidance, this is what I did:

Two large beets
Two large rutabegas
One medium celery root
Five carrots
Five parsnips
(Mom also sometimes puts in turnips as well, you could also add yams or sweet potatoes)
Two tablespoons olive oil
Fresh rosemary to taste (I used about 1 1/2 tablespoon)
Kosher salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 350°
Peel all the vegetables and cut in a fine dice.
Chop the fresh rosemary (as my brother pointed out, last Thanksgiving, rosemary is a strong taste and you want to make sure it gets chopped uniformly and there aren’t large needles of it to chop down on and be overwhelmed by—like the ones I tossed in at the last minute when it wasn’t “rosemary enough” for my taste).
Toss the vegetables in olive oil, in a large baking dish, and add the rosemary and salt. Toss again to mix. Bake at 350° until the vegetables are soft (about 30-45 minutes, depending on how many vegetables and the size of your baking dish.

This makes a huge pan—enough for a family Thanksgiving with leftovers. Feel free to cut the recipe in half for everyday consumption.