All right, already!!

Last night at 10:54pm my mother received an e-mail from a friend asking for this recipe. It's my fault really. Last weekend Ryan and I went to my parents' house and had dinner with them and their friends. The pot roast was heaven, but the big winner of the night was this roast vegetable dish. I waited a whole two days before I made it again for us. And I had promised to blog it, but then the time just got away from me. So in order to stave off any other Christmas crises, here's the recipe.

ROAST CARROTS, TURNIPS AND FENNEL
from my mom
Serves 4 as a side dish
Cooking time: 1 hr

INGREDIENTS:
1/8 C olive oil
1 t salt
pepper
5 carrots
3 tennis ball sized turnips
1 smallish bulb fennel

DIRECTIONS:

Get out a small roasting pan, and preheat your oven to 425F. Peel the carrots and cut off the tips (top and bottom). Cut the bottom half off your carrots and cut that in halves lengthwise. Then cut the tops in half lengthwise and then again lengthwise. Next cut the fennel. Take off the furry fronds and the end of the bottom. Then chop into half inch strips. Put the carrots and the fennel in the roasting pan together. Finally, peel your turnips and cut off any icky ends. Chop them in half and then in pieces that are of uniform size, and about the same size as your carrot sticks. Add the 1/8 C of olive oil and salt and pepper. Toss well until everything is coated. Put the pan in the oven and roast for 30 minutes. Then toss gently to give everything a chance to be in the best roasting spots. Cook for another 30 minutes, but check every 10 minutes or so to make sure things aren't burning. The fennel especially can burn if it you cut it too small. The carrots cooked the most slowly for me. If they're really not cooking at an even pace, you can always pull out the fennel pieces and put them back in for the last few to heat up again. You shouldn't need to do this, just giving advice should things go very wrong. If you cut things in pieces of the same size to start you really should be okay. At the end, taste for salt and pepper, add more as needed. Serve and wait a few days. See if you get demanding late night e-mails looking for the recipe. Breathe easily and send them a link here, I'm already on it.