What do you serve with ham? Growing up in rural Ontario the pat answer was always: scalloped potatoes, green Jello-O with coconut sprinkles, white gummy rolls (of the Pilsbury variety) and little glassed filled tomato juice. If your bored with bird, and are thinking ham, roasted winter vegetables are a great side dish, and a better alternative to green Jello-O and gummy rolls. These flavourful vegetables also go well with roast beef or lamb.

A great way to clean out the crisper, a variety of legumes can be used.

Ingredients

• baby red potatoes (6)
• yams (2)
• baby carrots (1/2 bag)
• parsnips (4)
• celery root
• pears (2)
• turnip (1/2 cup)
• butter
• olive oil
• seasonings

Directions

Peal and chop four different kinds of vegetables using the list above - a good combination is potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and yams. Make about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of each - depending on the size of your pan. A 9 x 13 glass pyrex will feed a party of 10.

The most important ingredient is the pears. Wash and cube them but make sure to leave the skin on so they don’t go mushy.

Combine a 1/3 cup of melted butter with 1/3 cup of olive oil (the amount will vary depending on the quantity of vegetables you’re making) and pour over vegetables, coating them before baking. Season with sea salt and pepper. If you have Garamasala (blend of Indian spices) lightly sprinkle this over the vegetables before roasting.

Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 375 degrees F.

This dish can be made in advance and reheated. It also freezes well and can be reheated in a frying pan with a dollop of butter.

Cheers,

Julie

PS - Thank you to Jean Smart for today’s recipe and amazing ham dinner.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Entertaining, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.