In the Kitchen With: Greta, Dani, and Colin’s Roasted Vegetables

In keeping with the post-holidays return to normality (food-wise), we’ve opted to consume mostly vegetables in my home these days. We eat plenty of them year-round, but I’ve taken to my many cookbooks to find recipes from different cuisines to incorporate our vegetables this season. This recipe for roasted vegetables with salsa verde shared with us by Greta, Dani, and Colin from San Francisco-based online grocery delivery, Good Eggs, certainly makes the cut. The beautiful colors of the vegetables, the wonderful taste when they caramelize in the oven, and the contrasting flavor of the salsa verde make the dish a feast for the eyes and palate. You can use any vegetables you like — heartier root vegetables work particularly well. —Kristina

Why Greta, Dani, and Colin love this recipe: Roasting concentrates all the natural flavors and sugars of winter produce. It’s such a simple method, but it’s pretty miraculous to watch hard, cold-weather veggies become supple and sweet after just 45 minutes and a couple of glugs of olive oil. We served them with a briny salsa verde to add a bit of somethin’-somethin’ to the warm, caramelized veggies.

Roasted Vegetables with Salsa Verde

Ingredients

Salsa Verde

– About 4 tbsp. of red wine vinegar

– A few squeezes of lemon

– A tablespoon of shallots, diced

– A handful of arugula, roughly chopped

– A handful of parsley, roughly chopped

– A handful of toasted almonds, roughly chopped

– A handful of Castelvetrano olives, roughly chopped

– Olive oil

– Salt & pepper

Make the Salsa

In a small bowl, combine the shallots and red wine vinegar and set aside. While the shallots and vinegar macerate, mash the herbs in a mortar and pestle with a glug of olive oil (or just chop them finely). Then combine mashed herbs with the rest of the ingredients. (Mashing the herbs with the acids will turn them from their vibrant green to brown.). Add salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Vegetables

– Purple cauliflower, torn into florets

– Beets, scrubbed, trimmed and quartered

– Scarlet turnips, scrubbed trimmed and sliced in half

– Kabocha squash, scooped and cut into wedges (skin on!)

**Any hard veggies will work for this. Choose whatever is in season and looks appealing at the market.**

Roast the Vegetables

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss prepped cauliflowers, turnips, squash and beets in olive oil. Spoon veggies onto sheet pans, making sure they’re not too crowded. Keep the beets on their own pan and add a thin layer of water, so they steam as well as roast. Roast veggies for 35 minutes to an hour, or until they are soft and brown. The cauliflowers and turnips will cook faster, while the beets and squash will take longer.

Serve roasted veggies on your favorite platter in a big tangle, and spoon the salsa verde all over. Serve any extra on the side — it will inevitably enhance whatever else you are serving.

About Greta, Dani, and Colin: Greta Caruso and Dani Fisher create recipes for Good Eggs, an online grocer that delivers local produce, sustainable meat, and other quality staples to customers in California’s Bay Area. The pair develops, styles and writes new recipes each week that are inspired by the ever-changing panoply of produce from Northern California farms. Greta and Dani both learned how to cook in Italy, where seasonal ingredients are paramount, simple cooking is the rule and olive oil is king. Colin has been shooting food photography for Good Eggs since the company’s inception. In addition, he has a number of editorial and lifestyle clients, with assignments frequently leading him to the intersection of food and technology.