We have a Friendsgiving celebration with Corey’s high school friends each year on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s a pretty big deal in our friend group. Everyone gets dressed up and brings an assigned dish (or two) and we all gather at a house to spend the day together.
We travel a lot for the holidays since our families live about an hour and a half apart, so it’s nice to have the whole day on Friday blocked off for time with friends. And since everyone is assigned their dishes ahead of time, you know you’re going to be getting a good meal that evening.
This year we were assigned the duty of bringing side dishes and we thought we’d start testing out a few possible side dishes ahead of time.
Enter oven-roasted root vegetables.
This is a super simple recipe that turned out absolutely delicious. AND it’s healthy, so it can help to offset the holiday desserts you know you’ll be eating.
There is a little bit of prep time, but I promise it’s worth it. Turn on your favorite podcast (or Christmas music — it’s never too soon for some Michael Buble, right?) and get to peeling!
Roasted Root Vegetables – 4 servings
Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/2 red onion, sliced down the middle and chopped to hold pieces together a bit
2 large Yukon gold potatoes, chopped
2 parsnips, peeled and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled and separated
2-3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp sea salt (I have completely replaced my regular old salt with sea salt and lemme tell ya, I couldn’t be happier with the switch)
Freshly ground black pepper (don’t skimp on this! It adds a good amount of flavor)
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F
Line a baking sheet with foil
Cut your vegetables into 1 1/2 inch pieces and place on baking sheet in a single layer
Drizzle the EVOO over the vegetables and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Toss the vegetables to coat evenly with EVOO
Roast for about 50 minute to 1 hour, using a spatula to stir the vegetables around every 15 minutes or so to keep them from sticking to the foil
We’ll likely be tripling this recipe if we end up using it for Friendsgiving and I might try making it a few more times with another ingredient or two (I REALLY want to try to add in butternut squash), so you might be seeing an updated version of this recipe in the coming weeks.
Also, if you have any sides you’d recommend for our Friendsgiving situation, please send them my way!
