Roasted Vegetables & Pineapple Stuffing

I like vegetables. Lots. Yummmm. Thanksgiving dishes tend to be pretty carb-y and starchy so I wanted to make sure we had some veggies to munch on too. Also I could do all my prep ahead of time, which was very essential this thanksgiving. I doubled this and made this for both of the thanksgiving's that I attended so I got two times to try different spices to come up with the right combo to blog about!

I knew I wanted to use butternut squash and Brussels sprouts as my base vegetables, and decided to throw in baby carrots, onions, cauliflower, and parsnips. (Mostly I just wanted to be fancy and say that I used parsnips in a recipe) What exactly is a parsnip? Wikipedia tells us that:

The parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) is a root vegetable related to the carrot. Parsnips resemble carrots, but are paler than most carrots and have a sweeter flavor, especially when cooked.

(I may allegedly be including this because when I was at the grocery store I thought I was purchasing turnips but they turned out to be parsnips)

The day before I washed, peeled, and chopped up all the veggies. This made it incredibly simple, day of. All I had to do was drizzle them with olive oil, throw on a few pats of butter and seasoning. I used fresh ground salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and french minced garlic. I also roasted half an orange with the vegetables and then half way through squeezed the juice over them. 

Pop in the oven at 375 for an hour. Halfway through I covered it with aluminum foil so that it steamed a little bit. The root vegetables ended up taking a lot longer than everything else but the butternut squash and the Brussels sprouts still held up well. The only thing that I didn't like were the baby carrots. I just used them to avoid some chopping, but they didn't taste great. Next time I'll chop up full carrots. My favorite flavors were the onions, Brussels sprouts, and onions. I bet the dish would taste good with just those. Brussels Sprouts are one of my favorite veggies and I usually just steam them with some vinaigrette, but I will definitely make them like this again. 

Do we need a formal recipe for this? Chop, Season, Roast, Eat. If someone would actually like me to type it up let me know and I will be happy to oblige. 

Bonus Recipe:

Aunt Peggy's Pineapple Stuffing

It is really hard for me to describe to you what exactly Pineapple Stuffing is. Yes it is technically a stuffing because it contains a bread base, but its nothing like the traditional savory stuffing. Its more of a dessert, and has a light, fluffy texture. Other people had described it as "Pineapple Mush", maybe its something more like a bread pudding? I'm not really sure but I know that it's good. It went over well at Thanksgiving

Aunt Peggy's Pineapple Stuffing

1/4 lb butter

3/4 C sugar

4 eggs

1 large can crushed pineapple

10 slices of white bread, cubed with crusts removed

Cream butter and sugar. Beat Eggs. Drain pineapple well and add. Blend in cubes. pour into a 2 quart casserole.

Bake at 350 uncovered for 25 minutes. 

printable recipe

I didn't get a picture of the stuffing after it was baked. Things got a little hectic, but this is an in process photo (yeaaaa not my best, lets leave this one small) The only reason that I included it was so you can see how colorful this dish is! It bakes up about the same color and will brighten up a plate for sure. 

Random Information: Did you know its actually Brussels Sprouts? I didn't.