Roasted Roots

What.a.day. It started out bright pitch black and early in the pouring rain when my loving husband, who could have stayed in bed as long as he wanted, bundled up and drove me to work so I could get a bunch of stuff done before our company-wide meeting. I ended up being very lucky as the horrendous MBTA had yet another disabled train or whatever excuse they were using today and many of my co-workers came to the meeting late. Eek! Even though I am an hour early every day, I was still stressed. More than anything I HATE being late! The meeting came with breakfast, so I had a half of a blueberry cream cheese Danish which was okay and some verrrrrry yummy, juicy Odwalla orange juice. I rarely drink juice, so this was quite a special and refreshing treat for me! The meeting went well and then after that. . . Well I would rather just skip it. After work, I had an appointment at a new salon to get my hair colored, something was desperately needed. Tips in the South End is so named because they don’t accept them! It is a cozy, two floor salon with hardwood floors and the funniest two male salon owners ever! One of them has an adorable white bulldog which is actually the reason I stopped to make an appointment in the first place. I was seated and had my consultation, then was offered wine! With a glass of red in hand, and some trashy magazines, I was quite happy with my hilarious company and comfortable seat. I have not been as happy with the outcome in a VERY long time. And it was super cheap for Boston, only $75. For the quality of the work and the relaxing experience, they could definitely be charging more! It was a good way to end another not so great day. Dinner tonight was quick and I will write more about that at another time, but tonight I wanted to include some photos of last night’s dinner, roasted roots!

First, this month’s wine club haul, 3 Pinot Noirs and a 2003 Tempranillo from Gundlach Bundschu. Sweet!

As I was making our roasted roots dinner, I was certainly singing Rusted Root songs 😉 Potatoes, parsnips and carrots were cut into small pieces and rolled in olive oil with a couple of drops of habanero oil.


I put them in the oven at 420 degrees for about 30 minutes. While they were cooking, I continued with my completely veggie full day. Literally all day I had fruit (2 apples with Blue Diamond almond butter) and vegetables. I have just been in the mood for lots of fruits and veggies, and I think yesterday I had about 15 servings! I snacked on grape tomatoes dipped in a little olive oil with a sprinkle of sea salt:

And I ate this wonderfully addictive, delicious, crack marinated pickled vegetable giardiniera from Pastene.

My next quest will definitely be able to make my own giardiniera. SO good. When the veggies were done roasting we ate them fry style with ketchup and Frank’s hot sauce.

Afterwards, we had the best banoffee pie we have ever made! While smoothing the toffee bit over the graham cracker crust, the cold sticky toffee started pulling the crust apart. At first it seemed disastrous until we decided to fully mush the toffee in with the graham cracker, then to press it back into the pie plate. Topped with bananas, it was an ooey-gooey buttery crust, and I had two pieces. I wish I had taken photos of the process. I will definitely be making this again, and I think next time I may pour a thin layer of melted chocolate on before the bananas. YUM. I am packing up my bag for a morning gym stint before more meetings tomorrow. It is almost the weekend! I have a lot on my mind including lots of weekend plans and my trip to San Francisco for the Foodbuzz Festival next week. My mind is racing a million miles an hour, and with lots of ideas in my head, real time and progress feels VERRRRRY slow. One hour at a time I say! Are you going to the Foodbuzz Festival? Let me know! I also just want to say that I plan on blog reading/commenting catch up on the plane to San Francisco and I can not wait! I love reading all of your blogs, and I love being trapped on a Virgin America plane for 6 hours to read blogs! Wheee! G’nite everyone!