Chef Paul's wonderful roasted root vegetables - Fox 2 News Headlines

By Chef Paul (HAP) -- What is it that takes all these "not so tasty" vegetable and turns them into really flavorful treats? Roast them!

Roasting bring out all the sweetness from vegetables - like these beautiful root vegetables - and makes simple vegetables taste fantastic.

The dry heat of roasting helps to caramelize the outer skins of the vegetables and helps bring out more of the flavonoids that raw vegetables have. Dry heat also reduces the moisture in the vegetables and concentrates and makes a richer flavor than the raw vegetable have originally.

It was believed that cooking vegetables made them less healthy. It has been reported in the New England Journal of medicine that in fact cooking vegetable enhance some of the health benefits of vegetables. They did find that Vitamin C was hurt by cooking vegetables but the upside is that vitamin C is prevalent in so many other fruit and vegetable that we consume it really isn't a problem.

Try these wonderful roasted root vegetables

Ingredients
8 to 12 slender carrots, peeled and trimmed
8 to 12 baby turnips, peeled
6 to 8 fingerling potatoes, scrubbed and cut lengthwise in halves
1 or 2 large parsnips, peeled, trimmed, and cut diagonally into 1-inch-thick slices
1 or 2 medium onions, trimmed, peeled and halved, each 1/2 cut into quarters
1 or 2 large beets, peeled and cut into thick wedges
1 or 2 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and cut into thick wedges
1 celery root, trimmed and halved, halves cut crosswise into 1-inch-thick slices
1 whole head garlic, separated into cloves, unpeeled
2 or 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, sage, or thyme
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Put all the vegetables and the herb sprigs in a large baking dish. Season well with salt and black pepper, drizzle generously with olive oil, and toss them with your hands to coat them evenly.
Put the baking dish in the preheated oven and cook, stirring the vegetables occasionally, until they are tender and golden brown, about 45 minutes. Serve the vegetables from their baking or transfer them to a platter to accompany a roasted main course.