Rustic Oven-Roasted Herbed Root Veggies & Sweet Smoked Sausage

It’s the middle of the week and dinner is starting to seems daunting, at least for me. I surveyed my pantry and fridge and thought – ‘oh, I need an idea!’ Then it came to me. Time to make use of these ingredients: 

Celery, carrots, potatoes, onions & parsley are a few of my pantry staples. That means – I try to NEVER run out of these items. 

I had very little time to get a meal on the table, several things happened at the last minute to cause me to run behind. Isn’t that just how it goes? But because my pantry was stocked and I had a plan, I was able to persevere through & still serve a tasty meal. No dining out, no fast food lanes & no frozen dinners (yay).

Another item I like to keep on hand is smoked sausage. I prefer turkey smoked sausage because of the lower fat content but I found a yummy brand at Whole Foods the other day and couldn’t resist.

For this meal, I chopped everything into approximately 1″ pieces in order to ensure even cooking. 

After chopping all of the veggies, I lightly coated them in canola oil and added a few hearty shakes of my favorite steakhouse seasoning blend by McCormick. I tossed them onto two parchment lined baking sheets, along with the smoked sausage & in the oven it went. 40-45 minutes later, dinner was served. It was so good! Honestly, this meal will be revisited routinely in our home. 

I love roasting and slow cooking in the oven, the clean-up is minimal and I can let it do its “thing” while check my other to-do’s off my list.

Surprisingly for me, the green onions and celery were my favorite part of the meal, probably because they are something I do not usually oven roast. The addition of parsley was key to this dish. It added a fresh flavor without being aggressive. I think thyme would have been good too ((and I have a ton of it growing in my beds and window boxes))  – I just didn’t have time to pick thyme leaves off the woody stems.

This meal is simple, not really creative or unique. But when I needed a tasty, no mess meal in a hurry, this did just that and more. Score one for a family meal at he dinner table!

One more little detail – I have mentioned this many times, but I can’t help from saying it again: Please don’t peel the carrots ((or the potatoes – or celery)). The skin of the carrots does something magical in the oven. You would never know what that magic-ness is if you were to remove the skin.

Here is what happens: the skin crisps! The inside gets all soft and sweetly tender, but when you bite through skin, it sort of pops. ((It is especially yummy!!)). the end, until we roast carrots again & then I will urge you, all the same.