It is now the time of year when 90% of my conversations with my mother are about what we’re making for Rosh Hashanah dinner. So far I am scheduled to make the challah, rugelach, vegetarian matzoh ball soup, roasted vegetables, and at least one other dessert. Am I ready? Not even a little bit.

Since Rosh Hashanah can be so hectic, I think it’s important to have quick side dishes and main meals that don’t take weeks to psych yourself up to make. For instance, I just tried making puff pastry for borekas for the first time, and I’ve been practicing multiple challahs. Watch this space for recipes!

I’ve opted for a recipe involving a pomegranate glaze and carrots because of their traditional cultural elements and the way their flavors balance each other out. The sweetness and tart flavor of the fruit is amazing with the earthy flavor of root vegetables. This has a 100% success rate and is delicious, filling, healthy, and holiday-appropriate!

In the interest of keeping this a simple recipe, I am using store-bought pomegranate juice instead of spending the hour juicing a pomegranate. However, I am also using pomegranate seeds for flavor and garnish.

You can customize this recipe and add more or less vegetable, and more or less glaze, depending on your personal preference. Enjoy, and Shanah Tovah!

Ingredients:

Vegetables:

5-6 Parsnips

5-6 Carrots

1 chopped Red Onion

2-3 sweet potatoes Sweet Potato (or butternut squash!)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Glaze:
¼ cup Balsamic Vinegar

½  cup Pomegranate Juice

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Pomegranate Seeds (Optional)

Parsley (Optional)

Materials:

Baking Sheets

Vegetable Peeler (or sharp knife and some skill)

Directions:

Since it’s finally Fall, I recommend working while you watch a tv show where people wear a lot of sweaters so you can get into the seasonal mood. Since England apparently has no summer, the Great British Bake Off definitely works.

Preheat your oven to 425° degrees.

Wash your vegetables first! … even if it’s a vegetable you’re peeling (so basically everything except the sweet potatoes). I know methods vary on the best way to wash root vegetables, so go with what you know.

Peel all your vegetables, minus the onion, which I like to do last minute to protect my eyes! You can leave the peel on the sweet potato if you want. Whenever I’m making food and can’t remember if the recipe called for peeled or unpeeled sweet potatoes, I typically leave it on for texture.

Chop off the bottoms and tops of the carrots and parsnips, cut into ¼ inch thick circles. When you get to the thickest part of the vegetable, you can cut the circle in half so they’re all the same size.

Cut the sweet potato into slices roughly the same size as the carrots and parsnips, or a little larger.

Peel away the outer layers of the onion. Slice off the top. Without slicing out the bottom stem, slice vertically and horizontally to create rough chunks of the onion, only cutting away from the bottom at the very end. This helps immensely if your eyes are very sensitive to onions (mine are).

Put everything together in a bowl. Pour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, mix.

Pour onto 1-2 baking sheets, or as many as you need so that no vegetables are overlapping each other.

Roast vegetables for 40-45 minutes. After 20 minutes, pull the baking sheets out and use a spatula to flip the vegetables so they cook evenly, before returning the pan to the oven and resuming baking.

At 40 minutes, if vegetables are browned, and carrots are tender, take out. I test using carrots since they take the longest time to become soft; grab one with a fork (safely!) to taste it.

Take vegetables out of the oven and let them cool.

Meanwhile, make your pomegranate glaze.

Mix pomegranate juice, balsamic vinegar, and brown sugar together. Put in a small pot on the stove, set to medium low. Simmer on low until the mixture is reduced to about half, roughly 10 minutes. The glaze will thicken.

In a space where you can easily clean up, cut the pomegranate in half and hit the top of the pomegranate to shake loose seeds. Since my pomegranate was not ripe enough yet for this to be productive, I just scraped out the seeds from the middle, then cut off the top to reach the seeds hidden there. While I got pomegranate juice everywhere, including my face, I was eventually successful.

When the vegetables are out of the oven and slightly cooled, pour into a bowl, or the serving dish you’re going to use. Pour a little of the glaze over the vegetables and mix well. If you would like a stronger flavor, add more until you have your ideal glaze to vegetable ratio. Mix in pomegranate seeds.

Just before serving, sprinkle some chopped parsley and pomegranate seeds over the finished vegetables in your serving dish for added color and flavor.

I hope you all have a wonderful and fulfilling holiday and great meals. See you next year!