Let's Roast It!

Since I started using FitDay to keep track of my daily food intake, I've become more aware of eating a greater variety of food in order to be more nutritionally balanced. Eating whole food is obviously better than processed food so it was a good motivation for me to get back into the kitchen at last. We are now knee deep in winter and local produce leans heavily toward all kinds of root vegetables and winter squashes. Not a bad thing at all if you, like me, loves sweet potato (especially the Japanese variety used to make yaki imo, yum!), pumpkin, butternut squash, daikon, and kabocha!

The easiest way to cook these colourful vegetable is to roast them. As long as I am not short on time, all I need to do is to cut them up and let them take care of themselves in the oven. Roasting really concentrates the flavour. With the high sugar content of these vegetable, the deep caramelized flavour after roasting is the number one reason why I love this cooking method.

For dinner tonight, I split an acorn squash in half, rubbed it with a bit of olive oil, and roasted it cut-side down. Even without any seasoning (who needs salt anyway), the squash was delicious. The golden hue of the flesh was such a beautiful contrast with the dark green edible skin. Besides, acorn squash is the perfect size for a dinner for one!

While the acorn squash was roasting, I didn't want to waste a hot oven. So I grabbed everything in the kitchen that I could roast. The result? A dish of carrots and shallots glazed with balsamic vinegar. Who would have thought that a dish I threw together on a whim would turn out so good? While it was cooking, my whole house smelled delicious. I can't wait to visit a farmer's market tomorrow and see what kind of treasure I bring back home.