Recipe #6: Autumn Root Vegetable Roast

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) might be a kinda-Libertarian free-market individual-rights type politician, but he’s also a physician – and in that last capacity he has a theoretical obligation to tell you at least once (or, more likely, at most once) to eat your vegetables. Thus, this recipe for roasted vegetables.

So now we get to the indubitably healthy food dish! This is a simple recipe – not in terms of it having been devised necessarily for convenience (though it takes only rudimentary working), but in that it’s made with ingredients that have been minimally processed, if at all.

Raw and ready

Most of what goes into this recipe are vegetables as simply as they grew. Plain and simple. The recipe explicitly gives leeway to use whatever vegetables you prefer, but I stuck to the recipe as written. Gotta try to get the real Paulesque experience, you know.

Well, if a quasi-Libertarian is going to nanny it up enough to actually advise you to eat vegetables, you can bet they won’t implore you to make a fuss of it. No sautéing, no mashing, no braising… not much peeling or chopping, for that matter. No sir! Just mix with “a good olive oil,” salt and pepper,

All shook up

Full sheet

and roast

In situ, on the grill.
I used an outdoor grill because I made this autumn recipe in the summer

at 425° Fahrenheit

Control it well, Mr. Weber!

for forty-five minutes. All cooked well enough,

A hot and happy result

except for the red-skinned potatoes. This was likely because I used particularly large ones – the largest ones I could obtain, which is the American way. I wound up taking these out of the finished tray and roasting them for forty-five minutes more.

Altogether, the results were good.

Not a typical serving, but a representative sample of each veggie

I purposely used a light hand in applying the olive oil and seasonings, to let the natural flavors of the vegetables prevail, and it worked for the better. Everyone in my family liked all or most of the results (kids gobbled down the potatoes but wouldn’t touch the brussels sprouts, as is the natural order of things), and even the little charred parts added favorably to the taste of the vegetables (as is right, according to the recipe).

If it weren’t for the decidedly un-Republican hippie-vibe connotations, I’d say this dish would not be out of place in the deli case at your local Whole Foods. (But wait! That could be apt: Isn’t the CEO of Whole Foods one of those organically-grown capitalist Crunchy Conservatives that are alleged to exist?)

Yes, every so often even conservatives in the USA opt to eschew the overwrought fruits of the American food processing industry and instead keep food simple, just as nature The Creator intended. No argument here!

Lesson learned: Simple produce can be elegant, in a natural way… Republicans could pretend they’re back in the Garden of Eden.

Rating: Four out of five doctors