Roasted Roots with Chicken Sausage

I started a long post about how my eyesight came to be when really all I wanted to say is that I’m bummed I have to get new glasses. Well, I have a new prescription. Trust me, I’ll spare you the whining. It’s not how I really wanted to spend my day. I also didn’t want to spend my day with dilated eyes, but we can’t always get what we want now can we?

To compensate, I killed it at the gym this afternoon. I’ve been doing box jumps throughout my workouts lately, but only today did I start jumping to a new box height. I haven’t exactly measured it, but it’s probably nearing three feet. I knew I was ready to go up, probably have been for a few workouts, but there was a definite fear hanging over me. I mean, what if I missed the jump and fell? I’ve seen the photos of people bashing their shins on it [and I’m wearing shorts 99.999997% of the time]. I haven’t missed a jump yet. I’ve come close, but not quite. It was absolutely exhilarating to nail it. I proceeded to do 8 rounds of 12 of them at the new height. 10 if you count the two rounds where I just stepped onto the box to psych myself up. No going back now!

Now that fall is here all I want is roasted veggies. Okay, so maybe not all the time, but definitely a lot of the time.  I get pretty impatient about it, though. To really do it right, it takes a good 45 minutes in the oven at minimum. I don’t always have that kind of time, but the pay off is worth it when I do. I decided to change it up and do a sweet potato and a turnip instead of just a ton of sweet potato. Next time, I’d love to get a little parsnip action. I don’t show parsnips and turnips enough love. I’m usually just sweet [hah!] for the sweet potato. Whenever I have the oven on for more than 30 minutes, I have a tendency to throw a whole head of garlic in there. Eating a whole head of roasted garlic is divine. It’s best done alone, I’m sure. That’s usually when I do it, so I don’t have anything to compare it to.

After about 20 minutes into the roasting process, I added a chopped up chicken, spinach, and feta sausage. It cooked during the last 25 minutes or so. Stirring is essential to a good roasting of vegetables so they cook evenly. Uniform shapes are also important. I had a really high vegetable to sausage ratio, but these kinds of things are adjustable to your situation, which I love. I heaped the pile high, then scattered a bunch of feta cubes and a healthy drizzle of olive oil. Yum.

Ingredients

• 1 medium sweet potato, cubed
• 1 medium turnip, cubed
• 1 large raw sausage of choice, cut into even pieces
• 1 head of garlic
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• feta cheese, crumbles or buy a brick of it and cut it into cubes

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with a Silpat or aluminum foil. Put the sweet potato and turnip in a large bowl, cover with a heavy drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss to combine. Start light on the olive oil and add more as you see necessary to cover each piece evenly. Spread the vegetables out evenly on the baking sheet.

Cut the top off of the head of garlic so most of the cloves are exposed. Drizzle it with olive oil, and wrap in a sheet of tinfoil.

Place the baking sheet and the garlic into the oven. Stir the vegetables after 20 minutes and add the sausage to the pan. After 30 minutes has elapsed, remove the garlic and unwrap it so it can cool. Don’t make the mistake of leaving it closed because it was still super hot when I finally pulled out the vegetables.

After 25-30 minutes more, check the vegetables. They should be a nice golden color and easily pierced by a fork.

Place the roots and sausage on your serving platter. Remove the cloves of garlic from their wrapping and scatter on top of your root heap. Do the same with the feta. Enjoy.

I’ve found I like this a little better cooler than fresh from the oven. The flavors seem to smack my mouth around a bit more, and I like it. By all means, do what y’ou’d like.