Sunset Roots

Feast your eyes* on this trifecta of vegetables so full of beta-carotene (a form of vitamin A), they’ll practically give you x-ray vision! These sunset colored golden and orange morsels are naturally quite sweet and are so rich in vitamins and antioxidants that you can satisfy your sweet tooth guilt-free. Do keep in mind that these veggies are starchy, so if you are watching your carb intake you’ll have to keep yourself from eating the entire pot (it’s difficult, I know!). Also, I know squash isn’t a root vegetable, but I really liked to the title!

Nerd Alert: Vitamin A is critical to the health of your eye, particularly to the light sensing neurons at the back of your eye that make vision possible (your retina). Eating adequate amounts of vitamin A can help keep your retinal neurons healthy and happy! Be careful though – vitamin A is fat soluble, which means it gets stored in fat rather than just passing through. This means that you *can* have too much vitamin A, which is toxic in huge quantities. Rest assured, if all you’re doing is having a daily multivitamin and eating vitamin rich foods, you should be fine! But if you’re taking tons of supplements, you run the risk of hurting yourself. One sign of having too much vitamin A (specifically in its beta-carotene form) is that your skin will take on an unnatural orange hue, akin to that of a Jersey Shore fake tan. If you start to resemble an oompa-loompa, I would recommend cutting back on the supplements. Eating vitamin A in the form of beta carotene is better than supplementing, because your body only turns it into vitamin A on an ‘as needed’ basis, eliminating the chances of hypervitaminosis.

*I sincerely hope someone saw what I did there…

Sunset Roots

By Julie Published: February 29, 2012

Yield: Pot-full (4 Servings)
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 15 mins
Ready In: 25 mins

Balsamic vinegar glazed butternut squash, sweet potatoes and carrots, sprinkled with rosemary, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash chopped
2 sweet potatoes chopped
4-5 carrots chopped
2-3 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp rosemary fresh
sea salt to taste
cracked pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400*F
Peel and chop the squash, potatoes and carrots. You'll want to remove the seeds in the squash too.
Grab your handy dandy Dutch oven (you really should get one of these) or pot, crank the heat up to medium and pour the oil in.
Throw the squash, potatoes and carrots in, and mix them around to get them all nice and coated with oil.
Add the balsamic vinegar and mix to coat. Stir occasionally, letting the balsamic vinegar glaze the veggies. Add rosemary, salt and pepper and mix to get the spices evenly distributed. I never put the amount of salt and pepper to add in a recipe because people can be quite particular about how much of these spices they like. I personally go very light on the salt, but I LOVE fresh cracked black pepper, so I add a LOT.
Cover the Dutch oven and put it into the oven for 5-10 minutes, until the vegetables become soft. If you don't have a Dutch oven, transfer everything to a casserole dish, cover and bake for 5-10 minutes.
When a fork easily goes into all the veggies, you're done! Encourage everyone to take care of their retinas and scoop heaping spoonfuls onto their plates.