Autumnal Roasted Vegetables

The French don’t really think of “side dishes” in the same way as Americans do.

Actually, the French don’t think of side dishes much at all. Whereas growing up, my plate looked the way the USDA wants most of our plates to look – protein, two veggies, and a starch – in France, you usually have one main dish with the accompaniment to rule all accompaniments: bread. Bread is both utensil and side, a tool for pushing food around your plate and a delicious way to sop up the last of your sauce. Vegetables appear (if at all) either as an appetizer, as with carottes râpées or a beet salad with vinaigrette, or after the pièce de résistane, in the form of a green salad to be served before or alongside cheese.

Living in France has changed the way I cook in a lot of ways, but one of the most obvious is that I usually plate in the kitchen. The reasons for this are myriad: our table is unstable and cannot support the weight of most serving dishes; I tend not to cook leftovers, so there’s usually just enough for two servings; I eat much more quickly than the Country Boy, and I don’t want my poor husband to starve (he’s thin enough as it is). But I wonder, though I don’t eat much bread at home, if the French mindset has influenced me in some way to make meals that are assembled by the cook, not by the diner.

Maybe not, considering how often dinner, in my mind, is really just a “big bowl of vegetables” – the polar opposite of the typical French meal. (And yes, that deserves quotes: my high school roommate uttered the phrase after three weeks of backpacking through Europe, eating mainly restaurant meals featuring hearty meats and potatoes, to highlight her craving for something with a bit of freshness and crunch.)

This dish firmly falls into the category of “big bowl of vegetable” meals, albeit in a far more autumnal way than what we were craving on that trip (and eventually satisfied with bagged salad). It’s a meal that to most others would be categorized as a side dish, but I just scale it up and call it dinner.

On nights such as these, the Country Boy very stoically agrees to eat a pan-fried frozen hamburger as part of his dinner; you can’t teach a meat-and-potatoes Frenchman new tricks, I suppose, but he’s a good sport, and while he does usually need a bit of protein, he cleans his plate of his veggies as well… I suppose roasting them in duck fat helps.

Roasted Autumnal Veggies (serves 2, as a main)

1 red kuri (hokkaido) squash, seeds removed, sliced into wedges
6 whole carrots
3 potatoes, cubed
5 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons duck fat, melted
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss all of the vegetables with the duck fat and the salt, and arrange on a baking sheet (or two) in an even layer. Roast for 30 minutes until nice and browned. Remove, season with pepper, and go to town.